Caroline goes international
I've just returned from Davos, S.E. Switzerland having had a fantastic 9 day altitude acclimatisation holiday culminating in a mountain running festival on Saturday.
We ran each morning through woods, the town or round the lake and spent the afternoons walking parts of the courses to help us choose the right race. It's a wonderfully organised challenge which attracts 5,000 runners for routes which hope to engage all. Friday night is for childrens' races in the stadium, with superb goody bags and medals. Saturday sees 7 races beginning at different times all over the valley: K11, K21, K21 walk, K31, C42, K42 and K78
The routes are superb, made even more glorious by our arrival last Sat in snow to highlight the scale of the mountains. From Mon we all got sunburnt but thankfully race day was much cooler with 1 sharp shower which was hail on the tops.
The real heroes are the K78ers the winners doing it in less than 6 hrs! 2 of our group did it in 7hrs 46 and 10hrs 4 and received a fabulous ovation at dinner. Overall it was the Swedes who stole the show but runners were from all over the globe.
I chose the C42 and loved every step of its forest climbs', gorge traverses and high alpine village visits. The support was tremendous and helped me to a respectable 3.52.50. I can recommend the traditional Sunday morning icy lake swim to ease the legs.
I'm booking next years already and aiming for the dramatic K42 over the Scarletta Pass
Caroline Waterhouse
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