With too much luck in the 2022 draws, the Lavaredo Ultra Trail in Cortina
D'Ampezzo was the second out of three 100k+ races me and my brother had
foolishly signed up for this year. The course runs through a very scenic part of the
Italian Dolomites mountain range, going around the famous Tre Cime di Lavaredo
and passing several popular passes in the mountains close to Cortina. While the
first half is righfully considered to be mostly runnable, the second part cranks
up the difficulty particularly on the downhills. Motivated by missing my target
time at the Transgrancanaria by about 4 hours and having to run in the dark
twice, I was determined to finish the Lavaredo Ultra Trail way before nightfall
within 18 hours which seemed a fair goal given the ITRA score of previous 18h
finishers. During the tapering period ahead of the race, again various niggling
injuries emerged, of which a tendonitis or inflamed ligament in the left foot
was particularly annoying. Even when I was just hiking, I could virtually not do
a single step without some level of discomfort. But this would be manageable for
18h, or so I thought.
