My greatest failure, and yet my greatest triumph... As a break from 120k+ races, I entered the Trail du Grand Ballon 48k race in the Vosges mountains in May, located just about a 1.5h drive from my parent’s place in the Black Forest. With a 7am start (6am for my brother who did the 70k distance), we arrived the night before in an area looking exactly like how I imagined the old GDR to look – dilapidated houses, closed shops, dead dogs in the streets (almost). A pizza of questionable quality from the only local restaurant set us well up for disaster the next day. The next morning, a short drive took us to the starting line on the Markstein, a hilltop about 5k from the eponymous Grand Ballon. One peculiarity of the race is that it starts at almost the highest point, and sends runners into a downhill for about the first 8k. The trail was described as very runnable, which, after my experiences in Gran Canaria, would be a very welcome change of terrain. Seeing my brother off at 6am, I strolled around a bit, visited the excellent mobile toilets (France is decades ahead of Germany when it comes to mobile toilets), and then took a place pretty close to the front of the field.
