New records all round...

During Jan / Feb, I was doing some good running and I past another milestone or two in this time. First major milestone to fall was the 122 km week Nr. 6! As far as I can tell this is my official longest week in Austria since moving here in 1997. I have had 2 longer weeks, but both were coupled with Training Camps that were not in Austria (Hungary / Finland).

Additionally I hit the all time longest (on my feet) run for time and height that I have ever done - even my 5 or 6 marathons were never that long, and the height - well - the height (or climb) was just stupid. Christian and I decided to run with the Youth National team on their Sunday morning long run, and then run back to home from where they were - only problem was that they were first running up the Gaisberg, and then to get home we had to run another 20 km.

I have never run up the Gaisberg in total so I thought this would be a great run - and it was! I suffered for the entire following week. We started at 9:30 at the foot of the Gaisberg, and ran up (6,5 km 850 hm) in about 50 minutes. We then had a short tea / biscuit break and started on the way down, but we couldn't find the path, so we decided to just to ... well ... run down the side of the mountain. At gradients of up to 60 degrees, this proved much harder than expected, and both Christian and I hit the level (1,2 km / -600m) about 35 minutes later (that's around 30 minutes a KM).

After this we crossed the valley - took a second stop for refreshments - and started up the Dachsteinblick. Once on the top (another 350 m climb) we followed the ridge track to the hotel "Dachsteinblick" (another stop), took a bearing on Leo and Gitte's house, and ran directly over the fields to them. Man, I have rarely been so buggered - very few Dion / Richard runs got me to this destroyed, but there have been one or two (Swellendam Trail comes to mind).

So all in all, 3hrs 30 minutes on my feet, 28,5 km distance and a massive 1250 m climb! Not bad for a Sunday.

As I said the legs suffered immensely on the following days, due of course to the murderous downhill! I hope that I have learnt a lesson from this - next time use the road - 5 km longer, but easier on the legs, which currently feel like steel.

Here are a few pictures from the long run a few weekends before, which was also a monster. We started off from home and ran the Kolli / 3 peaks extension run. 3 hrs, 26 km and 815 m climb. Markus and Felix ran with me most of the way, and Christian and Mani did a shorter run over the Cross back home!

It was a really great run!