The trail running season is now also underway in the mountains and so our two members of Team Run Above Reason, Ingo and Jens, set off to test their form for the FKT project in the summer at the IATF K65 in Innsbruck over 68 km and 2670 metres in altitude. With a completely different approach and an outcome that looked very different to what they had planned ....
The race started at 06:00 from Innsbruck with the two of them as a team in the first block. While Jens went into the race with a clear target of a top place, Ingo organised his race as training after having been struggling with training absences, a pulled muscle and stomach problems for weeks.
Gastric turbulence
He was struggling with completely different problems. The main wash in his stomach slowed him down and it became increasingly difficult and unpleasant to absorb energy.
This was followed by a first fall on the root climbs above Natters at 32 km and a second at 58 km, which then laid the foundation for the now blocking muscles and the last remaining climb with over 30% sections was the presumed end for Ingo.
With no energy left and his muscles cramping, he asked his family to “evacuate” him, but this was not possible due to the exposed location.
At this point, Jens had done excellent damage limitation with an overall ranking of 42 and was able to finish the race after catching up. Now it was a technical problem with Ingo, which also prevented the tracking of his position. Wetness and movement on the display caused the smartphone to deactivate its SIM and stop transmitting position data.
So while Jens and Ingo's family wondered what was happening up there in the mountain above Innsbruck, our marketing man Ingo set about descending more carefully so as not to risk injury in a third fall.
Final sprint instead of DNF
It must have been the slowing down of his performance when, around 3 km before the finish, his stomach announced the end of his ordeal and his muscular problems were resolved. Unfortunately far too late and so his final sprint at 16 km/h along the Inn and over the Rennweg to the finish did not help to seriously embellish the result. But at least it was balm for the soul and not the DNF (Did not finish).
