august 2025: before the bottroper ultralauf festival

It's race time again in 11 days! Then the 24h race in Bottrop (Bottroper Ultralauf Festival) will take place. But what do the last four weeks before the race actually look like and what is still to do?

Of course, there were the many training runs: Interval training, long runs, very long runs. After an intensive 100km week, I travelled to Andalusia, where my partner Mike was already waiting for me. I had planned a race there as a training run, the Subida al Pico Veleta, which would cover 50km and 2700 metres in ascent at an altitude of 3400m. On that day, the temperature on the thermometer was 46 degrees in the afternoon after the run in Granada. The Subida al Pico Veleta was coupled with a weekend in Granada with my AAUT (Al Andalus Ultimate Trail) friend Christina Khinast, who was taking part in the race for the third time, and with my partner Mike, who was cycling the route that day and accompanied me for a few kilometres and took some great photos. After the Pico Veleta, Mike and I drove back to our village and then it was time to take a 2-day break from running before continuing with regeneration runs and stretching. 

The traditional fiesta (pronounced: fiéta) in our village in Spain finally kicked off. However, our acclimatisation to the Spanish rhythm was obviously too short, as we were unfortunately unable to keep up and our endurance already failed us shortly before midnight, with the main programme not starting until 1:00 am. Too little training time! As a result, we didn't get much of the Fiesta's night programme, nor did we get much sleep, as sleeping in the intense heat with the windows open proved difficult. I decided to keep the window closed and keep two ventilators blowing the whole night. The result was a constantly runny nose and eventually a cold. I was forced to switch from active regeneration to a complete recovery programme and fled from the ventilators and air conditioning machines. 

Back in Luxembourg, I was immediately greeted by a cat in need of a cuddle and the passive recovery phase with Kiwi continued for another day. 

Today I started training again, my nose is free again and I am well recovered. In addition to a tempo run, I have a 54km run at Backyard Ultra pace and a recovery run coming up this week. The equipment has been waiting impatiently for its next use since the Biber Backyard Ultra, new shoes are on the way and the homemade protein bars are in the oven (unfortunately they were in there a little too long...).

In any case, I'm really looking forward to the run and will enjoy the anticipation and preparations to the full.