Swiss Alpine Marathon

Several events and routes for this high altitude, alpine event. I did the new 'S42' which was 43km across two mountain passes. Rugged and tough, but well worth it. Price was high, but given that the organizers had to haul supplies and people to remote mountain pass aid stations, costs are reasonable. Nice T-shirt and medal at the finish line. Would recommend this to others.

Tough for a flatlander, but worth it. Altitude changes added an hour to my usual time, but felt really SAD not to be running the 78K at race end just because I wanted to see the views.

Covering 42K over two mountain peaks (both at roughly 2,600 meter), the Swiss Alpine Marathon is a brutal initiation to trail running. There were very few people in the competition that actually "ran" the entire distance - most of them walked fast while they were climbing hills and then ran when they were going downhill. The total altitude change was +1890 M/-1710 M, which at least allowed for some great views of the surrounding Swiss Alps. The races within the Swiss Alpine marathon (8 total) are dispersed among two separate long-distance trails near Davos, Switzerland and are dividing according to their distances. We ran the K42 race, which is the second toughest trail in all the competition (the toughest race was the K78, which covered the same ground plus an extra 36K). My wife and aunt ran on the other shorter distance trail, which only reached 1,631M at its highest point. The toughest part of the race was the ascent to the second peak. Although it was very similar to the first ascent, I was not physically prepared for two lung-busting ascents over the distance of a marathon. The fatigue factor during the final 16K (it was all downhill) was so great that I spent most of it walking quickly. It took almost seven hours for me to complete the entire race. On a final note, the windbreaker that everyone received for participating in the race was of very low quality. The colors were nice, but the material felt too light and the stitching was poor. The T-shirt associated with the race was also mediocre (the organizers sold them separately). The disappointments came from the poor choice of colors on the shirt (gray and orange) and the fact that it was made entirely of polyester.