Daily archives: August 2, 2015

Race report from Brian O’Donnell I spent last week in the highest city in Europe, Davos in the Swiss Alps, which sits at 1506m above sea level.  I’ve been here many times now and the beauty of the place draws me back every year to tackle one of the many Swiss Alpine races on offer.  There truly is something for everyone here with the organisers offering no less than 11 races.  The kids races of 0.5k ,0.9k and 1.4k run on the Friday but the main races are on the Saturday with a 10K Walk, 10K Run, 21K Walk, 21K Run, 30K Run, two 42K mountain marathons and the jewel in the alpine crown the 78K ultra distance race. The Davos area is truly magnificent and the race organisers do all they can to help get you there and around when you are there.  Your race entry, although expensive, includes your rail ticket to and from Davos from your point of entry into Switzerland.  Then when you are there use of all buses and railways in the area.  If staying at a hotel you can also expect to receive a guest card which allows you travel on the many mountain railways, gondolas and cable cars. I first came to Davos in 2009, and ran the 30K race that year and the next.  In 2011 and 2012 I ran the 42K mountain marathon, missing last year due to Commonwealth Games volunteering duty, this year I decided on the 30K race.  With the 30K being fairly low level and only 450m climb it is speedy and the challenge here is definitely a race across the trails, compared with the mountain marathons which tend to require a bit more walking and less speed (but no less effort!) as they have 1800m of ascent. The 30K race starts ridiculously early at 0700 (0600 UK time) in the stadium in Davos, as it runs alongside the ultra distance 78K race.  The race finish is down the valley in a place called Filisur.  This meant I had to get up at 0430 and on reflection should maybe have been up even earlier, although I was balancing sleep time with waking up time as I usually like to be up 3 hours before a race.  Breakfast was served in our hotel from 0500 so some cereal, bread and jam and some coffee were quickly consumed and then on our way to the stadium for the race start.  The sun had only just come up when I left the hotel and the thought of running hard for almost 19 miles in an hours time felt like it would be quite a challenge.  Once down at the stadium bags were dropped off and I went for a warm up and some strides.  I headed into the stadium and lined up on the race start.  As Vangelis’ ‘Conquest of Paradise’ rang out, and the TV/Camera helicopters hovered over the stadium we were off.  The first 5K are in Davos town […]