10th country and 163rd big long thing down at the Zermatt Marathon in the Helvetic Confederation (aka Switzerland). Barely an ultra it was 45.5 km so I thought “How hard can it be?” Well, it was kind of like one of those Revel races but instead of starting at the summit and falling down it started in the valley in St. Niklaus (home to your favorite end-of-year B&E artist) and sent us up 6,600 feet net, but around 10,000 feet total due to several descents. In short this race kicked me in the teeth. I’ve never had my eye on cut offs like this before. Beautiful course but even harder than Pike’s Peak and a similar finish time for me. Fun fact: The peak of the Matterhorn is a square pyramid and each of the four faces face the cardinal directions: North, South, East, and West.