The last two weekends I spent doing trail races as hard trainings for the UTMB. One week ago I was in Tesserete in the Italian part of Switzerland doing my first vertical. Vertical means that the race is short but super steep. In the case of the Vertical della Croce it was 850m of altitude gain on 4.5km distance. It was super hard because I was running/walking/crawling for over 50mins at my limit. The last ridge was so steep that I had to climb up on all fours in some parts. The view at the top was a reward for the effort though and I was really happy about finishing as 5th female.
This weekend I went into the other direction, Val de Travers in the French part of Switzerland. There I participated in the Trail de l'Absinthe, a 75km race with around 3000m of altitude gain. The views would have probably been great too if the weather was better. Due to the ongoing rain in the last weeks, the trails and forest paths were super muddy. The conditions made the race way harder than I had expected. I didn't have my best day either so I fought against stomach pains and cramps after km 50. Looking at the bright side that made me listen to my coach who had given me the order to "not destroy myself". So I didn't push too hard and tried to see the last 25km as a nice long training (well, it was not that nice obviously). I was relieved when I got to the finish line. I even made it there as 5th female and 2nd in my age group. My little brother finished the race too, 75km being the longest he distance ever ran. We are getting ready for our races in Chamonix in August!
