I startwith a platitude: the feelings you experience in the race, you experience only in the race. And this applies to legs, heart, head, stomach, everything. More importantly, this also applies to the hours before and after the race as well as-obviously-to the race itself. Having put a stop to this, I go further.
Right now all this stuff we don’t have anymore, so there’s no point in going around it. If and when we do have it, however, it is sweetened, filtered and often maimed by all those procedures we have been willingly or unwillingly getting used to living with in recent months. But you know what’s another thing I love about racing? Going to do them with friends.
The idea
And then if there is no organized race you take and organize a weekend of trail running with a (small) group of the aforementioned friends. And you immediately discover how complex it is to plan trail outings unless you already know the route inside out: that on paper the elevation gain is just one number comparable to another number, but when you are on the trails you remember that no, for the same elevation gain and distance two trails can be beyond different.
The most sensible thing for me is to start with a track from an existing race, so that type of route has already been thought of and tested (for this purpose) by someone else who tends to be better prepared than you (than me).
Planning
The idea was to tour the four passes around the Sella group, straddling Veneto and Trentino Alto Adige, the famous Sellaronda. So let’s take DoloMyths Run Ultra as the basis. We don’t have 61km in our legs, though, and we would like to shorten it to about 42-43km.
How many route variations will we have made? At least 15 before arriving at the final track. With cross-help from Garmin Connect (which grossly overestimates elevation gain, don’t freak out), Strava (which underestimates elevation gain instead) and Komoot (one of my favorite planning apps) we finally have our GPX file: 42km and 2,640m D+. We do not, of course, miss a serious 1:25,000 paper map and two chats with local mountain guides to clear the last doubts about some more technical sections.
The little madness
The night before we then decide to also place the summit of Piz Boè (have you ever been to Piz Boè? I love it: 3,152m and a breathtaking view of the entire region) and after due weather assessments we completely reverse the direction of travel, to be sure that-if it rains-we will have already tackled the entire most technical part of the route anyway.
When we find ourselves in the morning at 6:15 a.m. at Passo Pordoi, at the base of the fork of the same name, it is still dark and the wind forces us to immediately cover ourselves more than expected; needless to say, we had packed practically the entire possible spectrum of trail running clothing in our bags: from tank to rain jacket, through numerous types of thermal jerseys.
I don’t like detailed accounts of routes: a bit like in racing some experiences are as fabulous for those who live them as they often are boring for those who listen to them. I will just mention that the thunderstorm came upon us after about 30km, we held out another 8km (the time to reach civilization) and abandoned the venture at 38km and 2,400m D+. There were only 4km to go – I know – but how stupid and dangerous would it have been to do them in those conditions? Very. And so it will mean that at this point we will do it again next summer, maybe in the official 61km race, why not.
Joy
What I remember with extreme clarity is how happy we were with the miles we had done and we hardly gave a damn about the miles we hadn’t done: since it wasn’t a race there wasn’t that feeling of “unfinished” at all, only satisfaction. I cannot speak for others, but for myself I can say that much of this happiness was contained in a five-letter word: speck. Speck sandwich, speck board, spätzle with chanterelles and speck, speck, speck, SPECK! Before, during and after. How much did we eat? Not enough, in hindsight.
In case you get the urge to take the same ride as us: here is the final trail. Unfortunately, speck points are not reported, but for that you can ask me :)
(cover photo by Stefano Joker Lionetti / inside photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash)