Zermatt Half Marathon 2019

Race #170
Half Marathon #59
2019 Race #14
2019 Half Marathon #8
International Race #3
Zermatt Half Marathon #1

When I first started planning this trip, I thought about running the ultra. After all, I had thought about a stage race to begin with and this would be my first ultra, up a mountain no less. Thankfully, sanity prevailed and I planned on the marathon. Then when I finally got around to registering, I thought that I should choose the half instead based on everything that had been happening life/training wise but the half sold out a couple months before. That decided it. I registered for the full and committed, sort of, to the training.

Time passed and the marathon drew nearer. I thought that I was obliged to run the full and tried to get in the training even though I did not head out to Paris Mountain as I had planned. Then I discovered the exchange and a couple weeks later decided to drop down to the half if I could secure a bib even though that meant registering (and paying the registration fee) for the same race twice.

Based on the title for this post, you can tell that I had success obtaining a half marathon bib approximately two weeks before the race. Best decision ever.

On my way to my first airbnb of the trip, I stopped in St. Niklaus to pick up my bib and materials. The shirt, I learned, came at the finish line. I like it when they do that.

Before going to bed, I got everything ready, including my newest piece of run gear. https://flic.kr/p/2gsuQfZ That says, “It’s a hill. Get over it.” I saw someone at King’s Mountain that had that phrase on their shirt and knew I wanted it. I found a seller and texted the link to Mom. She bought it for me for an early birthday present. I knew I had to wear it for this race.

I had plenty of time before the start since the half marathon did not start until 10:30 and that was just the first wave. I ended up in the last of four waves, starting at 10:37.

The announcer counted down and we sort of started, aka we walked to another point near the main street, waited some more, got another countdown, and then started.

After we started, I settled into a comfortable pace. I knew that the serious uphills were coming and wanted to run as much of it as possible. I had a feeling that this might be my slowest half marathon ever but that did not matter. I just wanted to finish well.

We headed up the main street, towards the Matterhorn (yes, the Matterhorn!) on fairly easy terrain with a few inclines in both directions. We entered a park-like area and at this point I noticed runners coming back the other direction closer to the rapidly flowing river. The course map did not indicate an out and back but I did not mind since that meant that the real hills did not start for a couple more miles.

Once on the other side of the river, we had a little space of level-ish ground before we started going uphill. I ran as much as I could through this section but noticed that my heart rate quickly got up above 180 bpm aka when things start to feel uncomfortable. I started walking and told myself that I would run whatever was runnable and walk whatever wasn’t. I did not run again for a while.

Just after the above picture, another runner started talking to me in rapid German. I replied in my new default, Spanish, to explain that I did not speak German. (Yes, I default now to Spanish because an American accent feels completely and totally out of place. Spanish sounds a bit more cultured.)

We kept heading uphill. I had previously thought about trying to get in under three hours but as the uphill continued, I let go of that idea and decided to content myself with under four hours. I walked this section as a powerhike, as fast as I could go. My heart rate stayed above 170 but below 180. That’s how much of a gradient we had.

At each water stop, save the first one, I took Coke out of the options of water, electrolytes, and Coke. Boy did it taste good, probably the only time I will ever think that Coca-Cola tastes delicious.

A little before the halfway point, the terrain leveled out and everyone started running, myself included. I almost wanted the uphill to continue so I could keep walking but I felt good when I started to run and reminded myself that I planned to run everything that was runnable. I felt like I was going fast but at no time aside from the first two miles did any of my mile splits clock in under ten minutes per mile. After those first two, my fastest mile was mile 7 when I started running again, 11:11.

Almost as quickly as it began, or that’s how it felt, the runnable section ended.

Once this uphill ended, we entered a prolonged section with quite a bit of technical trail, something I did not expect. I will say that I have little experience with trails so I do not know if the trail meets specific definitions as technical but it certainly took quite a bit of fancy footwork from me thus slowing me down in a section that did not head uphill but actually descended in several places. I did not want to wipe out or roll my ankle.

I hated the next few miles the most since the terrain far exceeded anything I have ever run or even hiked on coupled with the fact that the trail narrowed and everyone behind me was part mountain goat or at least that’s how it felt. I had to balance trying to keep moving forward with getting out of the way of runners behind me or just hearing them basically breathing down my neck until I could get out of the way.

Finally we hit a runnable section about halfway through mile 9 and I started running again. The only interruption to this section came when we had to climb some stairs to get up to the tram level and then cross over the tracks to the other side. Wait, I think we crossed the tracks first and then climbed the stairs. I can’t remember. Either way, we had to do both one right after the other.

While I cruised through this section, I did some calculation in my head and thought that just maybe I could actually finish under three hours. That felt good. Then after the second to last water stop, we turned left and …

I knew from recollections of the course elevation map that this incline would likely not end before the finish. So much for a sub 3 hour finish. I shifted my goal to finishing under 3:15 with the far more important motivating goal of moving forward. I told myself multiple times throughout this long slog to keep moving forward. No matter what, no matter how slow, keep moving forward.

We got a bit of relief at a water stop and then started up what would be the most significant climb out of the whole race, even more than the above photo shows.

Throughout that entire uphill I kept telling myself to put one foot in front of the other. I also glanced down at my shirt a few times to remind myself that it’s just a hill. Get over it. That put a smile on my face.

When we were up by those covered train tracks, we had less than half a mile to go. It took me almost twenty minutes to get to the finish from the top right of that photo, pushing with every step. I knew that when I finished, I would truly have earned that finisher shirt and medal.

I thought that when we took a left the finish would be in sight and we would have a little bit of runnable terrain.

That hill you see in the above picture involved climbing up over terrain that did not appear to have been made into a trail. Talk about fun at the end of a half. I cannot even imagine this at the end of a full marathon.

Finally, once we made the turn around that building which also featured bagpipe players in kilts (because…Europe?) we finally got some runnable terrain although you could not run very quickly because this grassy area had a few potential pitfalls too.

I crossed the finish line in 3:13:41, my slowest time ever but also the only time I have run up a mountain in the Swiss Alps. I’ll take it!

What an absolutely amazing race! I truly loved it and cannot wait to get back to work training when I return from this trip. For now, I’ll soak in everything Europe has to offer and dream of returning for more destination races like this one.