100km Run - From Zurich to Basel

Length: 100km
Duration: 16:44hr
Elevation gain: 1387m
Elevation loss: 1'551m

Running 100km is definitely a dream for every aspiring ultra runner. It was in the back of our mind for over a year and at some point, we decided to give it a try. Four months ago, we were running the Sola Duo, a race that is organized by the ASVZ were teams of two people run from St. Gallen to Zurich during the night. The distance is 80km and each team has one bike. This means, while one person is running, the other is biking next to him, you can change as often as you want. Before that race, we've never run a distance of 40km before, but we managed it and were so proud afterwards. We kept training ever since and incorporated a long run (> 30km) into every weekend. Either as a trail run in the mountains or as a long run near our place in Zurich.

On September 7th, 2019, we decided to give the 100km challenge a try. During the week, we made sure to stock up on carbs and to reduce our training to give our muscles some rest before. The route we took was from our apartment in Zurich to Zeno's parents house in Riehen (near Basel). There is one mountain between the two cities that you can't avoid, but we tried to find a route with the least elevation gain as possible. We also made sure that we passed a couple of towns along the route, so that we could take a train in case we wouldn't be able to make it. In our Ultimate Directions running vests, we only packed the essentials. Food (high density granola bars, gummy bears, nuts), first aid kit, headlamp, warm clothing for the start of the track, cell phone, and some other things. Regarding water, we carried a 500ml soft flask in our vest, which we filled up at water fountains along the route (You can find water fountains en masse in Switzerland, which is very convenient). We thought about carrying most of the food with us, but we ended up stopping at supermarkets from time to time to buy more food (you definitely need a lot and we didn't pack enough).

The weather for the day was suppose to be very pleasant, not too warm, maybe a bit of rain in the afternoon, but overall nice. We wanted to get an early start to give us enough time to complete the 100km, so we startet at 1:50am in the middle of the night (we slept for about 5.5hrs). Just before leaving the house, I thought to myself 'This is ridiculous, we'll never be able to run 100km, we've never ran more than 45km before', but I also imaged how I would feel arriving in Basel after 100km and started to visualize that I can do this. We also told ourselves, that in the worst case, we would just walk 100km, we would definitely be able to do this.

So, at 1:50am, we left the apartment and started running. The first 30km were flat and more or less uneventful. We were running along the Limmat river and for most of the time we were only seeing as far as our headlamps were shining. However, I really enjoyed running during the night, as you loose all senses for time and distance, which made the first 30km fly by really fast. We passed the city Baden at about 4am in the night. There was a festival going on that day and a few people were sitting by the river and enjoyed their last drinks. It felt quite awkward running past them in the middle of the night, but I guess they were even more confused ;)

At 6:40am, we took our first short break in Windisch just before the Bötzberg mountain ascent started at about 35km. We bought some coffee, bread and chocolate and quickly replenished. By the time, we started the ascend, we hit the first Marathon distance and it was bright enough for our headlamps to come off. The weather was really nice, the sun was slowly rising and we felt super energized. The first 40km definitely felt great and we were off to a good start.

The ascent however, drained our sources a bit and we were looking for a bench to take a break. However, as always, if you want to find a good spot to rest, nothing is coming up, if you're not looking for it, there's one everywhere ;) We walked for a couple of km before finding a nice spot to rest just after the mountain at about 55km. This was the first break were we took of our shoes and stretched. It felt great. We were getting tired, but we were past the halfway point, past the mountain and started to realize that we might actually be able to get it done.

Once we've reached Laufenburg, the rest of the trail follows the Rhine river upstream. It's a really nice trail along the river and passes by a couple of beautiful cities, where we stocked up on food (and ice cream) at the supermarkets. I've reached my first real down-point at km 70. Everything started to hurt, my feet, my legs, my knees, it just wasn't fun at this point. But the though of finishing 100km got me going. I was envision how we would arrive at Zeno's place and how proud we would be and I wanted to make this a reality, so we kept going. For the last 20km, we were alternating between running and walking short sections. For me the pain on my shin, was more easy to tolerate if I jogged slowly, for Zeno, his pain in the knees was more tolerable while walking fast. So, I basically jogged for a while, took a short break until Zeno caught up and ran again.

At some point, we realized that we were 2km short if we would run the shortest path to Riehen, so we made a detour to a supermarket to buy some alcohol-free beer and a steak to put on a bbq once we arrive in Riehen. During the last meters, I was overwhelmed, we were about to cross our 100km finish line, after 16hrs 45min on our feet. I was close to tears and couldn't believe we did it. It was an amazing journey, I was super happy that everything worked out fine and I retrospect, I still don't quite understand how we managed it. I believe that the visualization of finishing 100km and getting into that mindset, powered me for the full 16.5hrs.

The next day, we took a train back to Zurich and I flew back to my office in Berlin on Monday. The following week was a rest week, but we looked forward to training again soon.