Swiss Alps 100km by Jake Moir

After watching my dad complete many ultra-marathons, I decided it was about time I had a go myself, so I entered the Swiss Alps 50km. A few weeks later,  I stepped up the distance to the 100km race, deciding the 50km wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. In March I began a fairly intense training plan. Four weeks in, I ran the Allendale Challenge (40km – the longest run of the block) and was rewarded with a stress fracture in my right tibia 10 days later. That meant no running for eight weeks, but I took up swimming to cling onto some form of fitness. Post injury, my training was largely replaced by A-level exams and followed by post-exam celebrations in Malia and Prague making the training fairly poor for a 100km race.

After making full use of the ferry buffet from Newcastle to Amsterdam (and wearing my eating trousers for the occasion), we stayed a night in Germany, where I managed to get lost in a forest despite having the map on my watch reassuring me of my brilliant navigation skills. The next day we arrived in Lax, Switzerland, where I had six days to acclimatise and stare at mountains the size of small countries which we would have to run up.

Before I knew it race day had arrived. I stuck to my daily basic breakfast of plain porridge before heading to the bus stop, where I met other runners – most of them doing the 50km and starting half an hour earlier. They followed a similar course to the 100km race for the first 30km so I caught up to a lot of them and had a chat with quite a few of them keeping me entertained. The race began flat only climbing 1,000m in the first 7km!!!  to the first aid station. I didn’t hang around long – refill water bottles, water over the head, couple of bananas, off again. somewhere along the way I spotted my first nutcracker (a crow like bird).

At the next aid station, a helicopter was airlifting a runner out,  luckily for them helicopter insurance was mandatory. The first major descent followed including endless steps, metal planks bolted to cliffs, and a very shaky suspension bridge. I  decked it twice on this section, smashing both knees and tearing the pocket that held my gels. I then spent the rest of the race stashing gels in whatever pockets I could find. At the next aid station I met my mum, sister, and the true MVPs Bonnie and Lettie (my dogs) who  were  trying to help themsleves to fuel at the aid station. I’d been looking forward to a hotdog at this aid station,  but it was cold and would take 20 minutes to heat. I made the painful decision to leave it behind, possibly my greatest act of mental toughness all day.

The next 13km was grim. My knees swelled and lost a full range of motion, and my chest tightened for reasons still unknown (would appreciate any suggestions as to what this might be). 40km in dropping out first crossed my mind for the first and suprisingly only time in the whole race, until an Aussie legend named Joel told me, “If you’re going to drop out, do it at the next aid station not this one after you’ve had a good meal here.” Following his advice I ate, chugged a Red Bull, and ran to the next aid station, which luckily was the only part of the course that was flat. A sock change from my drop bag and another red bull seemed to change my mood significantly and I felt strong leaving the aid station. Fueled by Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Rancid, The Distillers and many more I began the next big climb feeling like a new man (despite still being covered in sweat and dirt).

Halfway up the second monster climb iced tea at the aid station saved me from the 34°C heat. Many streams towards to summit came in very handy to cope with the heat, although seeing runners at the summit “just ahead” while still 50 minutes away, due to this being the steepest climb of the whole run, was tough. At one point I came across a German runner clearly unwell. My German vocabulary is fairly limited only knowing ‘halo’ ‘Guten morgen’ and ‘ein bier’, so I waited until another runner, luckily German, arrived to help and reassure me the runner was fine. I then pressed on, recalling my dad’s motto: “Leave the weak, hurdle the dead.”

The descent from the summit should have been relaxed and easy however after 60km my quads said otherwise. I tried to beat the fading daylight to the next aid station but failed, stubbornly refusing to use my headtorch and running the last two miles through the forest in the dark. I then had a good amount of food at the next aid station and shuffled on into the night. . Unfortunately my headtorch was dim. I assumed it was a rubbish headtorch. Two miles later it died. I got my phone out for light to change the batteries, then my phone died too. I sat in the pitch black forest until two Swiss runners appeared and lent me their light, luckily they were very friendly and I got to know them well over the remaining 30km. After chatting to them for a bit they told me a few interesting facts including wolves lived in the forest we were runnning through (not very reassuring in the dark). They also told me we were beting a 2014 world cup winner for Germany Andre SCHÜRRLE by a couple of hours. Andre later DNF’d

We finally reached the last big summit and it began to become a bit nippy. I put on my coat, dropped my headtorch, broke it, and then walked 400m back to retrieve my hat which somehow fell off my head without me knwoing, very frustrating. The map suggested the remaining climbs were small, but that’s only because the earlier climbs were so big they made everything else look like an anthill. I decked it again and got my first-ever nosebleed, initially thinking it was just a runny nose until I noticed my hands and clothes covered in blood.

At the penultimate aid station, a fellow runner panicked about the cut-off time and convinced 3 of us to pick up the pace significantly down a technical descent for 2 miles else we would miss the cut-off time. This was a very painful descent after completing 90km. We made it swiftly to the aid station only to be told we had two hours to spare! The final 8km only had 400m of climbing so i pushed on and after a caffeine boost at the aid station, I stopped hallucinating that tree roots were giant rats and closed in on the finish feeling relatively good. My watch died with 4km to go which made the last section feel like it went on forever.

I crossed the line in just over 25 hours, with more than 6,000m of climbing, consuming c.25 bananas, and had eight  cans of Red Bull in my system. I had one of the top ten showers of my life after finishing went to bed able to walk, and woke up unable to move without leaning on walls. The rest of the day was spent eating hamburgers and drinking local wine, a fitting end to the trip. Thanks to my family for the support out on the course and to all the runners on the course for keeping me going.