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.
Good luck. You are so gonna need it.
Ran into fellow Marathon Globetrotter, and 50 stater John G Lent on the walk to the start.
John and I prerace. Oh what fools we were.
Dude was trying to horn in on the alpinhorn action. Party foul.
When the Swiss say “more cowbell” just know that they are NOT fucking around.
Beautiful flowing melt water on the course.
Too cute, Switzerland. Too cute.
Believe it or not that boulder will slowly move up the mountain like the one in the background, or so Flat/Young Earth folks would have us believe. We report. You decide.
More flowing streams. Some people pay big money for whole websites of this stuff. Or so I hear.
Downtown Zermatt. About half way through the course.
A bit of the back half of the race, which did distinctly remind me of Pikes Peak.
View of the Matterhorn from afar. It’s the pointy thing in the distance. I assure you it’s far hornier in person.
Cloud cover made capturing photos of the Alps difficult. Not like climbing a mountain difficult, but more like mildly annoyingly not easy.
European bibs are great because when you’re done you can use them as wallpaper. Seriously they’re always the size of your whole damn chest. Wazzadeal?
The medal. Ahem, I did the ultra. Oh, same medal? Fine. Whatever.
