Ninth at the UTMB: still unbelievable!

Some moments are unforgettable: a first kiss, a wedding day, the birth of children. A first major client. Or a top-10 finish at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. They overwhelm even rational people like me with emotion.

At the UTMB, the best 10 receive an award. Three times, in 2013, 2015 and 2017, I stood in the crowd applauding the world’s finest trail runners. The 171-kilometre race around the Mont Blanc massif, with 10,000 metres of climbing, is our equivalent of the Olympics. Finishing under 24 hours is magnificent; reaching the top 10 is heroic. I never even dreamed of standing on that podium in Chamonix myself. Who was I? A good, very good Austrian runner. No Austrian had ever made the UTMB top 10.

(c) Philipp Reiter – Salomon Running, Notre Dame de la Gorge.

A few days have passed since the race of my life. At the 2018 UTMB, I finished ninth in 23 hours, 12 minutes and 3 seconds. Goosebumps run down my back. Ninth! Unbelievable. Unreal. I hope this is not a dream I will soon wake from.

Any athlete knows that many things must align for a top result. I changed my preparation, training less but more specifically. Friends along the course, including the Mozart100 organisers, helped so I did not have to carry all my food. Perhaps I benefited from harsh weather that pushed everyone to the limit and caused withdrawals. Superstar Kilian Jornet’s DNF certainly moved me up one place.

(c) Matty Dudek, Trient. Thank you for cheering!

But I should not understate my own contribution to this sensational result. The UTMB was the race of my life, and I had the best motivator imaginable. Before Champex-Lac at kilometre 125, I called my wife Julia, asked about the children and said I was going to stop. I was ninth, but completely drained. I had never felt so exhausted. If I sat or lay down, I feared I would never get up. I felt I would die there. “Don’t be a softie,” my wife replied. “Of course you’ll keep running.”

iRunFar happened to capture the call with my wife.

I obeyed. Whenever I felt I could go no further, I encountered someone in worse shape. I remembered my wife’s words. Looking back, I can barely remember the final 30 kilometres. I ran as if in a trance. In Chamonix, I high-fived spectators, bowed and thanked them for their applause before jumping across the line in “Grasel style”. I watch the pictures and video and wonder: is that really me?

(c) iRunFar. There must always be enough left for a finish-line jump! Overjoyed to finish ninth after 170 km and 10,000 metres of climbing.

Perhaps I go too far in saying that another Austrian top-10 UTMB result may be difficult to achieve soon. But perhaps that statement will spur our leading runners to prove me wrong. That is my hope for our sport. I have shown what is possible for Austrians too. The more significant results we achieve, the more public attention our sport receives. We still have catching up to do in how we present ourselves.

P.S. After the awards ceremony at 4 p.m. on Sunday, we immediately drove 1,000 km home through the night, because work called at 8 a.m. on Monday. Thankfully, I love my work, customers and team as well as running. Otherwise, none of this would probably be possible. #lifeworktrailbalance!