KAT100 Marathon Trail, Fieberbrunn, Austria (61k, 3150m D+)

The KAT 100 Marathon trail is part of a larger trail running event in the Austrian Kitzbühl-Fieberbrunn area with the eponymous KAT100 100 mile run as headliner. Attracted by the relative proximity to Munich and never having been in this particular area of the Alps, my brother and I decided to give this race a shot. For me this early August race was supposed to serve as a preparation for the CCC in late August which I was fortunate to enter through a last minute first come first served signup process in June.

The race featured a moderate 7am start, and aid kit requirements which seemed to be a bit over top, including e.g. compulsory blister tape and an army-issue piece of cloth invented in the 19^th century for field treatment of gunshot, shrapnel and bayonet wounds. The course started with a 600m climb up the Buchensteinwand, on top of which a local percussion group (apparently a staple of the races organized by Thomas Bosnjak) drummed runners into an easily runnable descent and a couple of flat kilometers to St. Ulrich am Pillersee.

After the Brixen Dolomites Ultra where I had carried my poles on my back for 13h straight without ever using them, I started poling right from the beginning which turned out to be a big help on the ascents. After St. Ulrich we climbed 700m through the narrow and steep “Steinerne Stiegen”, grateful that it was still early in the day and fairly cool. 

Reaching the plateau, several runners took a wrong turn and followed one of the longer routes against its direction as race marking were not differentiated between the various distances, and it was sometimes less than clear which markings were the relevant ones. This has affected all distances and several races over several years, but the organizer seems to prefer to “blame the victim”, rather than improving markings where critical or at least using the race briefing to point out where people usually go wrong.

 

After a gradual downhill and some more flat road km we reached St. Johann at the base of the Kitzbühler Horn, the major climb of the day with about 1300m straight ascent over a distance of 8km. It was getting quite hot by this time, and quite a few runners seemed to struggle during the climb, while I myself was feeling alright. Somewhere in the upper part the leading female caught up to and ultimately passed me, and after leaving the aid station on top of the mountain I did not see her again.

We dropped down 1300m on forest roads, inviting high speeds at the danger of wrecking the legs which could turn out to be a problem for the last 10km with a short 200m climb. The further down I got, the more I started to struggle particularly with the increasing heat. At the last aid station, after stopping I felt like I was about to keel over, but got myself composed enough with an almost 10 minute break to start on the final stretch.

This is when the wheels were finally starting to come off, although judging by the times almost everybody except for the elite runners was struggling to even hit 10km/h on the flat stretches at this point. Half-way through my right calf started cramping when I was hiking, but when running chest and stomach were tightening up dangerously. I still managed to keep the runner behind me at a safe distance, and finished in 8.09h as 10^th without having to use the poles to keep the pursuers at bay. After sitting down in the finisher area every rash movement was followed by instant cramping. 

The race was quite enjoyable, but heat resistance can be a big plus depending on the day. As mentioned, track markings were an issue for quite a few runners, particularly the faster ones who don’t have the leisure to keep checking whether they’re on the right track constantly.

Official website: https://kat100.at/

GPX Track: https://kat100.at/download/2089/