August 1994

25 years ago (August 1994): I ran 464 miles (14.9 per day) for the month that included some big mileage weeks while I was in Europe.  I raced five times as I prepared for the World Mountain running championships.  I started the month racing the 5k distance at the Yankee Homecoming races in Newburyport.  I normally wouldn’t go the shorter route but was flying to Europe for the next month and didn’t want to overdo it.  I ended up topping the field of 700+ finishers with a 15:03.  Four days later I was racing in the mountains of Switzerland!  The race director of the hugely popular Sierre-Zinal race was covering my hotel for 2 weeks in exchange for me doing two races and the folks at the Challenge Stellina (Susa, Italy) were covering the cost of my flights.  There was also some under the table food money and as always, some prize money to win.  Things started out on a bit of a rough note as my luggage went somewhere other than where I was.  Fortunately, I always keep my racing flats and singlet in my carry-on.  The airline gave me some cash to purchase a few other items and 5 days after I arrived I did get my bag.  The first race was a very tough 10 miles from Thyon to Dixence.  It was a beautiful course that ran out of Thyon (at an altitude of 6600’) and continued up to the tallest dam in Europe at Dixence.  (The Grande Dixence Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Dixence at the head of the Val d'Hérémence in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. At 285 m (935 ft) high, it is the tallest gravity dam in the world, fifth tallest dam overall, and the tallest dam in Europe. It is part of the Cleuson-Dixence Complex).  The footing, altitude, and surprising amount of descent did not work in my favor and I only managed a 10^th place finish in a field of 900.  I spent the next week in Sierre near the finish line of the 19+ mile race I’d be doing.  I had plenty of time to train and rest.  The Sierre-Zinal race went well.  I had the lead through the initial tough ascent but then got crushed on the downhills.  The views were amazing on the course and it was interesting how the race officials would blow whistles to tell the “citizens” (early start) to move out of the way.  I was still in the top 5 when we reached the final summit, but the final 40 minutes of running was all downhill and I just could not roll with the fast descenders.  I hit the finish line in 2:42:31 which was good enough for $200 (and even got me a little more per-diem money from the RD as I spent a few more days in Zinal).  Mid-week I headed via train to Susa to meet up with my USA teammates.  On 08/21 we took on the Challenge Stellina mountain race (9.57 miles of mostly uphill running).  I had a pretty good run taking 3^rd place after leading through half-way.  The course featured 5,000’ of climb and 400’ of drop.  Most of the drop was right after half-way, so you can guess how I lost the lead.  Thierry Icart (France) won in 1:22:27 and I picked up $750 for my finish 21 seconds later.  Our group made our way to Zermatt Switzerland for the final race before Worlds.  We had a lot of fun training and hanging out.  The Matterhorn Lauf was a tough 7.6 miles with 4,000’ of climb, all on trail.  The toughest part was that it was all between 5,300’ and 9,000’ a bit high for a low-lander like me.  I almost didn’t start the race as I was having some digestive issues.  Once I got going it wasn’t bad and I managed a third-place finish in 59:29 (2 minutes behind the winner).