Mount Rinjani Ultra, Lombok, Indonesia

Almost exactly one year after my last ultra in Chamonix, France, I finally had another big race in the beginning of August. Since January I have been abroad, studying in Australia and travelling in Indonesia, so I decided to concentrate on running instead of pursuing triathlon for a year. By coincidence I found the Mount Rinjani Ultra, a 52k trail race up and down to the second highest volcano of Indonesia, the Rinjani. The last weeks before the race I spend road tripping with my brother through Western Australia, so it was hard to keep up my training. Before the race start, I was worried about the missing hill training and the height (up to 3700 m.a.s.l.). The race started at 10pm so I arrived in Senaru in the morning to pick up my race pack and to prepare. Since all the hotels were booked out for that nice, I had planned to hang out in a restaurant until the race start but I was lucky and found a group of Malaysians who invited me to crash in their hotel room. Super nice! So I spent the last hours sleeping in their bed, carboloading with Nasi Goreng and preparing my race gear.

Finally, at 10pm the race started. As always I started too fast. After the first few minutes, the climb began and from there on there was almost no flat metre. The trail went through the jungle first with lots of roots and big steps. From time to time we overtook some porters who were carrying food and water up for the trekking groups. They were walking in flip flops and carrying the provisions on wooden sticks, I was so impressed! I felt like I couldn't get enough air so I had to slow down a bit. More and more people overtook me. It took me a few hours to get into a nice rhythm. After the first 2000m of climbing we had to manage a steep downhill from the rim to the crater lake of Rinjani. It was very technical and it only took me a few minutes until I fell the first time. Luckily, nothing happened except for some cuts above my ankle so I kept going. The scenery was impressing: the headlamps of the runners behind me marked the trail I had already passed and the few ones before me showed me the next long climb I had to overcome. The next part of the climb was technical, again. We had to climb over big rocks so that I had to use my hands for support. Finally, I arrived at the next checkpoint, 5k before the summit. I filled up my water and refueled with energy gels out of my drop bag (also carried up here by porters).

The last 5k up to the summit were just horrible. I had expected it to be hard after reading some reports from the year before. But my expectations got crushed on that climb. The trail consisted of ash and gravel. My feet sunk completely into the gravel so that my shoes were soon filled up with stones and black ash. With every step I took, I slid back again. A lot of trekkers joined us on the trail who left their tent in the middle of the night to make it to the summit for the sunrise. A lot of them struggled, taking a few steps and then resting on the ground. I tried not to look up to the summit and the headlights in front of me but instead concentrated on the few metres in front of me. After every three steps I took a little rest, stabilizing my weight on my walking poles to prevent the sliding back a little. I don't remember exactly how long it took me to climb the last 5k but it was a few hours. Just in time for the sunrise I reached the summit of Rinjani after 8 hours of hiking and running. Since I had only seen guys already on the descend I knew I was the leading woman.

It was around zero degrees and windy so I needed a jacket and gloves to handle the cold. I took the time to take a few pictures before starting the descend. The descend was way more fun than the climb, you could slide down on the gravel super fast. Shortly after the summit I passed the next two women which were just a few minutes behind me. After emptying out my shoes after the gravel passage at the drop bag checkpoint, I started the descend on the other side of the volcano. We lost 1000m of altitude on this side before the turn around point and had to climb up the same way to get back to the checkpoint with our drop bags. At the turn around I thought that now I would be on the way back home but I also knew it would take another 6-7 hours. Since it was another back and forth route I could see who was in front of me and guessed I was around the 10th place overall. The first few men confirmed that I was the first girl. I struggled on the long descend since my muscles were super sore by now. The climb back was even harder. In the meanwhile the temperature had climbed to around 30 degrees and the sun was burning. I had to take little breaks after every ten steps. Three hours later I was back at the drop bag checkpoint, still 20k from the finish line. But now that I knew I was in front I just wanted to win that race. So I only took a short break, filled up my water and kept on pushing.

More and more trekkers were on the descend now too so I had to queue a bit at the technical sections. However, as soon as they could they let me pass so I could keep up a good pace until the crater lake. At some of the checkpoints the volunteers wanted to take some pictures with me which was really cute. However, the last seven hours of the race were a real struggle for me. I don't know if it was the height, the temperature difference or the missing hill training in Australia which made it so hard for me. After the crater lake, I had to overcome the last long climb back to the rim of Rinjani. From there, the last 10k were a downhill over sand and through the jungle, "destroying" 2000m of altitude on the way. I tried to run, always the thought of the finish in my head, but it was so technical and my legs so sore that most of the time I was just stumbling down as fast as I could. The roots in the jungle made it really hard and two times I could not prevent my fall.

After long 17 hours I finally came back into Senaru and saw the finish line in front of me. I was so relieved that it was over and proud to be the women champion of the Mount Rinjani Ultra. I was hanging around the finish for another two hours until I felt ready to walk the kilometre back to my hotel. In the end, only 34 out of 200 starters managed to finish the race in the cut off time. Five of them were women. This was probably one of the hardest races I have done so far and one of the most beautiful as well. An amazing scenery, super nice people and a big adventure. Totally recommendable even if I don't think I will ever do this race again! It was just too hard for me!

Hard facts:

17 hours race time

52k and around 6000m climbing

1st/5 female

10th/34 overall