Schlagwort-Archive: LegendsTrails

Legends Trail Packing List

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The LT Facebook group is full of packing lists, gear discussions, plans, weather forecasts and lots of pros and cons about every little details of the upcoming Legends Trail. With only one week to go this is probably normal and shows how excited everyone is. 500 or 250 km in the Ardennes ask for the best preparation possible. Lots of hours out there in a terrain with no mercy lay ahead of all of us. All is well.

I am also in the middle of planning the content of both backpack and drop back. Both shouldn’t be too heavy but need to contain everything one can imagine to be prepared for every situation possible. While reading all the posts I have the feeling I could have or maybe should have done more efforts on the packing list and maybe on training too. My plan is to take the following „things“ with me:

  • The memories of both dislike and attraction back in November 2017 during the LEO180 pre-race dinner. M&M told us about the Legends Trail and on that very moment I thought: Never. Ever. 250k in the Ardennes – one must be mental to even try it. Later that evening we watched Yiannis running while drinking beer – a remarkable evening. Full of doubts on what may lay ahead.
  • That memories of the feelings 50k before the LEO180 2017 finish. Broken and cold. DNFing. Far too weak to run far enough.
  • The feelings of deep relieve and joy during the TTdR 230 2018. Amazing feeling to finish that race. The moments 5k before the end – during the final countdown – where I was sure that it will become reality. These moments will remain unforgotten.
  • The memories of that moment 50k before the finish line during LEO180 2018. Broken and cold again. And with a damaged foot. And alone. 500 reasons why it would be only normal and totally ok to quit. But there was something pushing. It was neither the non-existing coke (no-coke-face-moment-of-my-life) nor the comfortable warmth in the „In den Bockenreyder“ restaurant 30k before the finish. While sitting there and cooling my hurting foot I discovered something strange. I somehow did not want to give up my second place. It felt like an effort way too high to bear, but after what felt like years: the finish was there.
  • The memories of 2019s Great Escape and Bello Gallico together with M.. The stunning Ardennes, the ups and the downs, the wining and arguing. The moments in pouring, ice-cold rain with no shelter and the decision that the only chance to not freeze to death is to run a little faster… Wonderful finishes!
  • The shining memories of LEO180 2019 together with VPsucher. Lots of doubts in between, lots of lessons on how to not sleep outside, a gruelling race against the time and that moment of a LEO180 finish together!
  • The memories of countless hours out there with VPsucher striving through the nothingness. Following nonsense GPX instructions. Often confronted with dead ends and a quite resisting nature. But always determined to enjoy and to discover.
  • The memories of countless sunrises after nights full of running. The astonishing feeling of energy coming from somewhere back into the body. After hours of darkness – hope and faith returning with each and everyone of these sunrises. The amazing changing colors during that hours…
  • The memories of countless and sleepless nights out there. Lonely dots under trillions of stars. Sometimes with a moon so shiny that we could turn out the lights and watch our shadows flying over the silver earth.

You may think this will not matter and will certainly not help during the race. I have the feeling that those feelings, memories and colors will not ease the effort in any way, will not provide shelter and comfort and will not protect me from the out there. But they may be the friends and company I wish to have and they should remind me that it – maybe – can be done. That there may be that shiny moment of crossing the finish line.

Bello Gallico Performance

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As the Bello Gallico can be easily divided in parts of 20k between the CPs or in two 80k parts – lets have a more detailed look on the running performance:

The 4 sections during the first half reflect quite nicely our feeling during the run: part no. 3 is the most difficult part in terms of technical parts as well as elevation gain. The second 4 sections – the second half – is the usual mess up of an ultra race. Longer pauses, weak periods, more walking: all that changes the performance.

Our total runtime was 27h52 but the above charts are only looking on the moving time which was 24h49. The average speed was 9m16/k which is 6.5 k/h.

The best parts lay all within the first part of the race:

The difference between the first and the second half is huge: 7:49 min/k during the first, 10:42 min/k during the second half:

This is clearly something to work on. But the conditions during this years Bello Gallico were probably not ideal to really judge on the second half performance. With more steady conditions this difference would probably not have been that huge, but still: an ultra race starts around km 90/100 and this is the part to focus on.

The times spend at the checkpoints increased during the race. Especially CP 120k and 140k (we even took a nap here) were significantly longer then they should have been for a good second half. Nice to see that it was possible to fasten up between 150k and 160k during the heavy rain and the cold. We slowed down again towards the end once we realized sub 28h was safe.

Graphics extracted from Runalyze and rubiTrack.

Bello Gallico 2019

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Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‚Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

S&G – The Sound of Silence

Once more an intensive weekend. Matthias joined me Friday after work and we took the car to the Start/Finish location in Oud-Heverlee. We planned differently to The Great Escape and spend the night in a Hostel in Leuven. Leuven seems to be a nice city but is a nightmare in terms of parking. After this interesting challenge we finally made it to our room and tried to ignore the noises in our quite active Hostel. Although we didn’t sleep much it gave us a break and some relaxed hours before the start. The alarm was set for 2:30 a.m. and we made it in time to be ready for the start on Saturday 4:00 a.m..

#2 of the Legends Trails – Bello Gallico 100 Miles. 100 miles in a rather flat terrain – at least compared to TGE. The job was this time: lets go there and finish this off. Everyone said this is the most easy run of the series, that it really is flat and runnable and it is furthermore meant as a Christmas Party.

Everyone is aware though, that this is only half of the truth. 2019 edition should bring lots of rain in the days before the event, light rain at the start, light rain from time to time in between and two disastrous rainy hours between 5 and 7 a.m. Sunday morning. But: its just a bit of water. Where is the problem? Well, it turned out that this was the type of track which really benefits from being watered and abused by hundreds of feet. Although there were still a lot runnable parts – the muddy parts were deep, sticky and/or slippery plus more and more covered with water – proper steps sometimes not possible. This slowly but surely drags all power from the body – power which could have been used for running.

Muddy & Traily Bello Gallico 2019

Matthias and me discussed a few possible finish options before the race. One of it was below 24 h, the other maybe below 26 h if it would be more difficult than expected and as a last option: finish before the sun rises the second time! We finished the first half of the BG in 11 hours and with a some minutes of break and Chili con carne we realized that 24 h would not be possible. The dark second night was after all way more challenging than expected. The trail was even more difficult, leaving the warm and wonderful checkpoints felt more and more stupid and the heavy rain/storm between 5 and 7 a.m. was really frightening. Especially those hours in the early Sunday needed a lot of strength: water everywhere – the already damaged feet were not amused and during the rain it was horribly cold. We lost the focus on any time-related goal for a second but what I really like on racing with Matthias: he has the finish always in mind and is extremely focused on that. Giving up is never an option for him. It really helps to be with someone like this when yourself are suffering and in a miserable condition.

In that heavy rain and with approximately 12 k to the finish I suggested to run again a bit faster to feel less cold and finally get this nightmare done. This worked ok for a few k´s. With less then 5 k to go the rain finally stopped, we realised that could make it below 28 h and with this we would finish half an hour before the sun would rise again. Job done. #2 of the Legends Trail series completed. We finished in 27h51m as number 48 and 49 of 93 finishers and around 160 starters.

  • Few sunny moments!
  • This is why – who could resist this beauty?

Thanks to the Orga and the countless of dedicated, helpful and friendly Legendary Friends as volunteers all over the course. Great checkpoints, great help, great food and lots of fun.

We had yet another great experience out there in the (this time) rather flat Belgium. It was tougher than expected but we came to finish this one and not to drop out because of whatever. Although the race was almost completely in the dark (at least it felt like this) there were beautiful moments with and without sun. The beauty of ultra running can be found in each and every run of 100 miles or more – just open your eyes at the right times.

Thats it for 2019. No more races left – the end of this years journeys is reached. Fingers crossed for a quick recovery: the next Legend Trail is already waiting. And this time it is the real one. With 250 k in the not-so-flat part of Belgium and three long February nights. Happy for any training advices! I will take it with M&M as a motto for the next two months:

„It’s better to go too far, than not far enough“

*** LIVE BELLO GALLICO 100 ***

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Lots of running for a Christmas Party. Well – lets do it then. What about dot watching?

There you go: http://bellogallico100.legendstracking.com

The easier the things look the more likely is the failure.

Countdown: The Great Escape

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Es ist soweit: die Laufserie der LegendsTrails-Crew startet. Insgesamt 4 Läufe gilt es zu absolvieren für ein besonderes Finisher-Präsent. Jeder der Läufe für sich genommen so schwer, dass es nur wenige überhaupt schaffen werden alle 4 zu überstehen. Aber je geringer die Chance auf Erfolg, desto mehr Spaß macht es ja auch! Weiter zu denken als von Lauf zu Lauf wäre aber dennoch Unfug. Nächstes Wochenede kann es ja auch schon vorbei sein mit der Serie :).

Nun also die Nummer 1: 100 Meilen in den von Ettelbruck (LUX) nach Maboge (BEL) der The Great Escape. Die Daten sehen recht spannend aus: 165 km hat der Track verpasst bekommen, 5500 positive wie negative Höhenmeter liegen an. Augen auf und durch also.

Zusammen mit M. will der Pfadsucher das im Team absolvieren. Schön locker los und nichts überstürzen. Nach der ersten sicherlich schlaflosen Nacht (Anreise, Einschreibung und Busshuttle) wird am kommenden Samstag um 0400 Uhr gestartet. Es gilt den ersten Tag gut Meter zu machen um sich vor der langen Nacht im Lauf ein gutes Gefühl zu erarbeiten. Wird sicher kein Zuckerschlecken/Kindergeburtstag aber wir freuen uns und wollen unbedingt finishen! Stay tuned!