Over hill and dale in “heidi land

It is amazing what the hohner endurance athlete stephanie lieb has achieved in the last few weeks. A three-day stage race in austria over a total of 73 kilometers, a marathon race in munich and now the swiss sardon ultratrail over 70 kilometers. This violent run took place in the region around the mountains pizol and spitzmeile. The starting point was the village of furrt at an altitude of 1500 meters.

Originally, a rough circuit of 86 kilometers with 6500 meters of ascent and descent was to be completed. However, there was a small change for the cross-country freaks: due to the persistent snowfall in the days before the race, the two highest points at 2600 meters were not passable, and so the organizer decided to change the course at short notice.

The planned circular course became a turning course of "only" 2,500 meters 70 kilometers with 5000 high meters, where the two highest passes were still at over 2300 meters.
At 8 o'clock sharp.30 o'clock the amazingly rough starting field was set off on their more than arduous "journey" under optimal weather conditions with blue skies, sunshine and temperatures around ten degrees skillfully. In this weather it was of course a very special pleasure in this already beautiful mountain region, the "heidi country", to be on the way.

1. Summit at 2000 meters
First there was a kilometer of easy downhill, before the ascent to the 1. Summit at 2000 meters high began. After another short stretch slightly downhill, another 600 meters of altitude had to be climbed through the foggy pass region around the gamidauspitz up to the gamidauer ridge. There was also snow and it was quite frosty.

From there followed a long descent to the lowest point of the route at 908 meters, which could be divided into four sections: first there were alpine meadows riddled with mud holes, where orientation was made even more difficult due to the sparse trail markings, then over a steep, washed-out mountain trail, before it was quite "comfortable" for a few kilometers along a forest road continued.

Through bone deep mud
The last stretch led first over a muddy meadow, then over a steep forest path with bone-deep mire down into the valley. On the other side it went up again some high meters and on careful footpaths easily undulating again down to the first food supply at kilometer 19.
This section of the course was originally intended to run only in the opposite direction, so the markings were often visible after the forks in the trail and not before, causing some confusion among the runners.

Over electric fences
at this refreshment stop in the village of weistannen, the alpine pasture was still in full swing, and the runners had to find their way through the many cows and climb over electric fences several times, which served to cordon off the animals.

Some kilometers were here relatively flat and easy to run, before it was again a very steep climb towards the turnaround point: initially over a serpentine road, then 700 meters high on partly very boggy and rocky mountain paths to a plateau and there always slightly downhill and uphill to the spitzmeilenhutte, the turning point.

Here was the second rough refreshment.

The change to a commuting route had the advantage that you now knew the course of the second half and how you had to divide your strength. In addition, stephanie lieb got through the "oncoming traffic" with the fact that she held the top third place in the women's class.

The two women in front of her, two swiss top runners, had at this point a safe lead over the woman from hohn.

The fourth came about ten minutes after her. Since there wasn't much more to the front, but she felt very good, could use her strong downhill even in steep and rough terrain, and hardly lost any time uphill, lieb was confident to keep the third place.

In addition, she realized that it was possible to reach the goal before nightfall, which was of course an additional incentive, since in this country it means a faster and safer advance. A confusing marking led to the fact that the ambitious hohnerin was still a piece in the wrong direction on the way, which noticed however luckily a helper of the mountain guard in some distance and steered it by calls again on the correct way.

As the third woman through the finish line
Nevertheless, she just managed to reach the finish line in bright light, and so she was very happy with her time of 11:12 hours and the 3. The team was more than satisfied with her first place in the internationally strong race and proved once again that she is one of the best ultra cross-country runners in bavaria and beyond. ">