First Zugspitz Trailrun Festival A Success
News Release / 28.08.2014
The fourth weekend in August marked the premiere of the ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE, an international initiative to spread the gospel on trail-running.
The event spanned three full days with festival venues in several communities on either side of the Austrian-German border. The initiative attracted young and old for an in-depth test of trails, running gear and their personal competencies off the beaten path.
Local tourism authorities and several sporting goods manufacturers supported the ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE affording like-minded trail athletes the chance to focus on what they do best and enjoy most – running! The upshot after three days of racing, trade shows and leisure time in the area's resort communities was overwhelmingly positive - a full-on success worthwhile repeating again next year.
The ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE started off Friday afternoon with an attraction for the youngest. The Kid's Race (sponsored by TRAIL Magazine) invited children between the ages of 3 and 13 years to take on a fun portion of the sprint parcours in Garmisch-Partenkirchen's town centre. Forty keen youngsters enjoyed the challenges of the 1.8 km course as much as the roaring support by hundreds of spectators who cheered them on.
That supportive spirit lasted well into the evening setting the stage for the evening's City Sprint, a parcours that weaved through the resort community's urban core to form a challenging 3 km loop. A total of 123 racers had registered for the night-time event. In the end, it was Hannes Christiansen who claimed first place in Garmisch-Partenkirchen with his time of 4:31.3 minutes. Yet, less than two seconds separated him from his closest pursuers. Mark Scheuring ran to second place (4:33.0 minutes) by putting a few meters between him and third-ranking Konrad Lex (4:33.6 minutes) on the last stretch to the finish line.
Carina Weidler (5:07.7 minutes) claimed first place among the Women with such a sizeable lead that never put victory into question. Second to arrive at the finish was Stephanie Felgenhauer after 5:16.7 minutes on the parcours, which relegated Eva Färberböck to third place with a time of 5:28.2 minutes.
Spectators motivated by the nighttime racing action had an opportunity to participate in some sideshow events. Trail Magazine, for instance, put on a head lamp run to prove that modern lighting accessories afforded safe trail training well into the darkness.
Saturday offered even more trail action with SCOTT's triple race series on three courses of different lengths and difficulty. The SCOTT ROCK THE TOP Marathon was first to start from Ehrwald, Tyrol, just before dawn and certainly caught the limelight given the daunting distance of 44.9 km and the objective to run up Zugspitze Mtn. While weather prevented the racers from reaching the very peak, the shortened race with its finish on the Zugspitplatt (sub-summit plateau) still proved extremely hard – even for the victorious. The course offered mostly technical singletrack with several long, extremely steep downhills that would have broken the racer's flow repeatedly.
Konrad Lex of Germany managed to stay ahead of the posse and claimed the fastest time with 5:47:03 hours on the marathon distance with its 3.891 m of positive vertical. Markus Stock had been on the winner's heels but in the end was content with second place. Martin Matthes of Team SCOTT Germany came in third almost 55 minutes after the unbeatable Konrad Lex.
Andrea Calmbach, well-known in long-distance trail racing, was able to claim victory in the Women category. The 51-year-old trail talent was first to arrive at the finish line after being on her feet for 7:46.32 hours. Nevertheless, she seemed fairly relaxed even at that point. Indeed, Culmbach had little to fear from her competitors who trailed her by almost one quarter of an hour. Austrian Anita Walss claimed second place (7:59:13 hours) having given third-ranked Eva Färberböck a run for her money. The latter, a local hero, accepted defeat after 8:01:28 hours on the trail, a great time after all and good enough for third place.
All in all, the trail marathon was well-received – even by those who had to drop out on account of missing the time limit at the last food station. The overall verdict was “a very hard but beautiful race course with excellent trail marking and an impeccable organisation to boot”.
Saturday was also the day for SCOTT's ROCK THE TRAIL Half-Marathon, a scenic 22-km course loop that made the most of the flowy trails on the Northern slopes of the Zugspitz Massif and the Eibsee's lakeshore. A total of 190 participants had signed up for the race of which Stefan Paternoster (SCOTT Running Team) claimed the fastest time (1:31:33 hours). Joshua Smith (1: 40:41 hours) trailed the winner by a few minutes but likewise managed to keep some distance between him and his closest competitor, Michael Walter. The latter took third place with his time of 1:42:07 hours on the 22-km distance which still packed 681 meters of positive vertical.
The fastest woman was Maria Koller who covered the trail in lightning-fast 2:02:01 hours, ahead of a resolute Yvonne Lehnert (2:05:41) and Irmgard Lantschner (2:08:06), respectively.
The SCOTT ROCK THE TRAIL SHORT DISTANCE attracted roughly 50 racers. The 9.1 km course had been selected to pull in anyone teetering on whether they should tip their toes into trail-running. However, some well-known race faces ended up taking part as well making for an exciting, fast-paced race between ambitious newbies and seasoned competitors. Local athlete Max Olex was first to finish the course in 37:46 minutes defeating the esteemed Hans Hörmann who arrived in second place after 40:44 minutes. Mark Haim crossed the finish line after 43:58 minutes on the trail claiming third position.
Kerstin Sallinger was the fastest woman to return to Grainau in only 46:36 minutes ahead Ricarda Schneider of Spain (51:43) and VIKING FOOTWEAR's own Helma Tobies (52:43), resp.
Sunday marked the final day of the ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE but ended up holding just as much race excitement as the two previous days.
A single race was scheduled for the day – the VIKING VERTICAL CHALLENGE, an uninterrupted 15.9 km ascent with 1,845 m of positive vertical from the resort community of Ehrwald, Austria, up to Zugspitze Mtn. Steady rain down low and snow up high seemed forbidding at the outset of the race but, in the end, did not seem to have had much of an effect on the performance of the 182 participants. With snow compromising a safe summit bid, the race had to stop short of the peak and finished on the Zugspitzplatt.
Philipp Brugger of Austria and Thomas Kühlmann of Germany crossed the finish line together 1:48:48 hours after the start – their joint arrival being a grand gesture befitting the spirit of this cross-boundary trail-running initiative. Andrew Syme of Scotland came in third with a time of 1:54:29 hours, more than good enough to claim first place in the Master Men category.
Stefan Tassani-Prell (1:57:08) and Andreas Strobel (2:03:45) celebrated second and third place among the men aged 40+ years. In the Senior Master Men category, well-known Rudi Schöpf (Italy, 2:25:13) claimed first place ahead of Austrians Peter Zirknitzer (2:27:30) and Robert Barbist (2:31:54).
Cäcilia Schreyer delivered a stellar time of 2:25:38 hours to the Zugspitzplatt, which cinched first place for her in the Women category. She was trailed by Kathrin Schichtl who arrived at the finish in 2:28:30 hours ahead of Eva Färberböck (2:36:09 hours). Färberböck's race time, in turn, ended up being the fastest among the Master Women, which relegated Christiane Kempkes (2:51:05) to second place and Cristina Ogniben (3:09:30) to third, resp., in that category.
One of the premises of the ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE had been to determine the overall, triple-ranked winners across all three disciplines, a) City Sprint, b) SCOTT ROCK THE TOP Marathon and c) VIKING Vertical Challenge.
A more than satifisfied Eva Färberböck was able to claim that distinction among the Women with Stefanie Felgenhauer racing to second place and Carina Weidler climbing to third position on the podium.
Among the Men, it was Konrad Lex who captured overall victory in the triple-ranking ahead of Sandy Hemprich (2nd) and Josef Schlickenrieder (3rd).
The fastest of the Master Men ended up being a jubilant Alfred Psenner (1st) who had Rudi Schöpf (2nd) and Torsten Schneider (3rd) to celebrate with.
Apart from Sunday's race excitement, the day's trade show venue was also more than noteworthy. TRAIL Magazine as well as several running gear manufacturers offered worthwhile side events, one of which afforded race escorts guided trail walks to get them into position alongside the race course to support their friends or family.
While the premiere of the ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE did not allow racers that extra perk to reach the peak of the Zugspitz Massif on account of weather, it ended on an extremely positive note for participants, race organizers, sponsors and not the least for the host communities and the bi-national ZUGSPITZ ARENA tourism board. The ZUGSPITZ TRAILRUN CHALLENGE lived up to the spirit of trans-boundary, interregional cooperation as fostered by the EU's EFRE INTERREG funding and created a great basis from which to prepare for a similar festival in 2015.
