ULTRAMAGURA 71 (72km / 3300m+), Zázrivá, 3.6.2023
Zázrifské Pobehaňä for the fourth time
Lesson learned (that is, mainly for me for the future) and indulgence right at the beginning, let's get it out of the way:
- don't eat really greasy pizza in a dark restaurant called Temnica (Darkness) the night before the race
- eat at every aid station, even if you don't feel like it
- us women have it a little harder sometimes
- if two days ago you didn't have a voice, an ultra-galactic time won't be your choice
- you just have to keep on going
- life is good
The route of the 71-kilometer-long Ultramagura turned in the opposite direction compared to last year, and it was suppposedly a good move. I can't compare it, because I didn't run last year, but there will probably be something about it - at the beginning, one takes a shorter but steeper circuit over the ridge of Oravská Magura, and then "just jogs away" the remaining 41 kilometers 😅 although.. I have it so that whatever they put in front of me, I somehow pass it and don't grumble. That's what I'm here for, right?. I signed up here to be happy, not unhappy.
In the morning of the start, the 147 jerks registered for the 71 km route (and a couple of morning 40 runners) are collectively shivering from the cold. We drink delicious Habesh coffee to warm us up, while the humorous words of the best ultra-moderator Ondrej from Turiec make us laugh (yes, it's still true that he puts Adéla V. (a famous Slovak presenter) in his pocket - and don't get me wrong - I like her very much, but sorry, Adél V., you just don't compare to Ondro V .. 🙎). Ondro moves energetically among the runners, randomly picking unsuspecting, barely awake victims and makes them confess into the microphone, while Photo Juroko captures everything in detail and records it in incredibly beautiful photos (see the whole gallery here). Somehow the time to the start passes and we take off in the harsh brightness of the cold jagged sun.
As always, I line up somewhere in the middle of the starting field, so I don't get in the way of the fast ones. As a warm up, we have a 4 km climb to the top of Javorinka, where we gain 600 meters of altitude. Right after the start, I wonder aloud about the question why everyone is sprinting up the hill. After all, it's not Javorinka Sunset Vertical (one of the races within Zázrifské Pobehaňä back in the days), but Javorinka Sunrise Rozgrzewka (warm up). However, the sprinting is soon be over for most people and everyone finds their place and pace in the long colourful snake slithering through the fresh sun-drenched meadows and hills above Zázrivá towards Javorinka..
I have a new watch and I haven't figured out all the gadgets yet. I usually don't wear a chest belt for long races and I also turn off the optical heart rate sensor. I will therefore be surprised by the notification that the new device has been detected and connected. WTF? What new device? My watch has adopted someone's chest belt and now I will have someone else's heart rate in my activity 😱 I dig into the settings and find out that I have automatic detection of nearby devices turned on. I had no idea about this feature and I have the feeling that it is not very suitable for races 😁 So I turn everything off, but there is already some recording of other runner's heart rate and a constant value of 138 bpm is displayed next to each kilometer I run today 😖 When Garmin came up with something like this, they should also figure out how to remove the recording of other people's heartbeats from the activity. Not hide. Remove. After all, they may have already invented it, but I haven't figured it out yet. So what, HR here, HR there, we are plodding our way up the hills and the sharp-angled visibility offers us kitsch views of Little Fatra's Rozsutce, Stoh and the other associated hills surrounding Terchová and the nearby farmsteads. I feel like I'm in some properly made-up movie, except that this is reality and I can't get enough of the splendor.
Even though the sun is beginning to warm timidly and the climb up the hill is pleasantly warming, the cold relentless wind prevails. One minute I'm warm, the next I'm cold and can't stop sniffling... We swing over the top of Javorinka and run through the quiet spring fresh forest. There are old deep grooves in the forest road as a remnant from ancient wood harvesting, and water is kept in those grooves. Everything is already overgrown with grass and vegetation, and nature is taking back what man has taken from it. A short run will lead us to the first check point (Ká) slash aid station (Ó). I'm a bit confused about what and where Ká is and where Ó is, but basically it doesn't matter, especially when you have to run through all Ká and Ó anyway 😀 Nutella is said to be still frozen and can't be spread on breads, but nevermind, I'll have a banana, a biscuit, a watermelon, a Coke and a hug with Janko Jogošík (hereinafter JJ). I chill for a while and tighten the laces on my Topo Athletic Ultraventure 3, by the way, the best shoe I've ever run an ultra in. I have to state that it even outperforms Altra.
When leaving the snack bar, someone calls out to me - you are the blogger Troška Bežká! I scream yes! And who are you? I'm Unknown.. 😀 Ok, nice to meet you, Unknown! (Then I googled her number in Hiking live results and found out that she's some Andrea G., so she's no longer unknown 😂). I promised her that she would be in the blog, so here she is:
The circuit through the ridge of Oravská Magura is already intimately familiar to me - I ran it twice (in the opposite direction) during the 50km route of Zázrifské Ultrapobehaňä event back in the days, when the world was normal (for opponents - yes, I know that the world was never normal, but it sounds nice in the sentence 😃). I run along the familiar path winding up and down, between the closed ferns (probably they're cold, like us) and blueberry bushes and chat with Saška, the young rising ultra star of the Turiec region, aka Martinsky Duracel (thanks, Jožko 😇). At Kubínská hola, we have beautiful views, we can see as far as the Western Tatras.
The Vrcholovka aid station at Kubínka offers us all kinds of snacks and drinks (I still don't feel like eating, so I mainly drink) and familiar faces, and I'm having a Déjà vu because of Evka and Saška, freezing wind, the cold, feather jackets, goose-bumps, T-shirts, shorts, skirts, chills, joy, energy... The subsequent downhill runs quite quickly. First, down the steep forest, where Saška, accompanied by typical sound effects, demonstrates to me how David taught her to run downhills. I smile nostalgically in my mind and think to myself:
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| A shot from a Perinbaba film directed by Juraj Jakubisko |
...then the path through the meadows and groves above Zázriva with those kitsch views again, and I think that Perinbaba was directed there somewhere. From a distance, I hear some commotion, and the main cheerleader Majka, together with Hošula girls, came to cheer, shoot some pics and videos 💗
So, the first, supposedly more difficult circuit is over. In Zázrivá, I use the porcelain (I know that many ultrarunning women would be so grateful for it 😅) and go up to the next round, "just jog away" the remaining 41 km). First, down the asphalt road, then push into the forest and through the meadows and Kozárikove skalky along the freshly cut path that JJ cut for us with his own hands, so that we could comfortably reach the Jogošík's hut, where another feast awaited us. I'm still having trouble putting anything solid in myself. This will take revenge on me, I know it, and yet make this mistake. I only eat banana, watermelon, Coke, some saltine crackers. This won't be enough for me.
Aďa invites us to cool off in their stream, but I'd rather ask for a sauna 😀 I'm frozen from the morning's cold ridge and am longing for a burn. Well, I will get it soon. We leave Kolibka, where I didn't eat much, so I at least try to bite into the mythical Púpovo, which rises above the Demkovská road. The ascent is quite steep right from the start, the sun is leaning on our backs, but I welcome it. I love the feeling when the it burns my skin and overheats my brain 😂 My brain must be pretty overheated because I like it up here, unlike many others who hated Púpov. A beautiful trail leads through the peak of Púpov, which I relish very much, in some places it reminds me of the ridge behind Kolesárová in Low Tatras, and provides breathtaking kitsch views.
At the signpost, we turn right, a dense descent begins. And here I come across another feature in my watch, which is certainly very useful, but now it didn't really suit me. The route has completely disappeared from my navigation. Instead, they "recalculated" the route for me in all sorts of different ways and tried to get to the nearest check point anywhere, just not the way it was supposed to be run. I cause a general panic that we are going in a wrong direction, luckily, the fellow runners around didn't get carried away by this crowd psychosis and nipped the panic in the bud. They say we're going Okay. Okay then! I'm wondering what happened, why the watch doesn't navigate me, why they send me somewhere to the tramtary. Fortunately, the ribbons were hung up one after another so I calm down. Later, I googled it in the Garmin user (or loser?) guide at home and found out that "someone" had set "Use Map" instead of "Follow Course" in the "Routing" settings in the Trail Running activity. So that was the thing! In the "Use Map" mode, at the first minor deviation from the route, the watch tries to save your life and starts recalculating and rerouting the original route.. So another gadget that is not very suitable for racing.
It doesn't matter, I have a backup on my mobile in mapy.cz. I'm blind, you see, and sometimes it happens that I don't notice the ribbon, and I also easily get carried away with daydreaming or just fall in love with the views, so sometimes it happens that I don't notice the ribbon😀 and we surely did, enjoying the kitsch views, missed the turn above Terchova with Saška, but fortunately it was only some 200 meters. After a dense and slightly chaotic descent from Púpov, we landed near Jánošíks, where there was unexpected water, Peťa Š. - the head of the volunteers and otherwise a rocket runner from BA, Martin from Termínovka and Jánošík from Terchová, who recorded our numbers in the register. I can't resist and take an optional mandatory selfie with Jánošík (a national Slovak figure), we refill the unexpected water and let's take off for Terchová. And here suddenly, all the circumstances of that day caught up with me and I was turned off, or rather it switched me into power saving mode. I feel sick, my stomach is heaving and my belly hurts. I am hungry. I forcefully eat my emergency nut bar, which is terribly dry and hard, and some more supplies, but it doesn't help much. All the remnants of my energy leave me. Saška is running away from me, The Unknown is also already somewhere in the unknown, and I somehow crawl through the city, past the church and Lidl shop to the view point of the love called Terchovské srdce. Here I get a lot of love in the form of Majka, Karin, Zuzka and the main cheerleader Jožko, who shoots beautiful videos and comments on the sports events in a way that he would easily cut off Marcel Merciak (a famous Slovak sports commentator). Sorry Marcel M., you just don't compare to Jožko M. Thank you guys for the energy.
I don't know the rest of the route even visually, so I can't really imagine what awaits me. A steep ascent through the forest below Mravečník awaits me. It's hard for me, I can't manage, I go very slowly. I guess it wasn't such a terrible climb, but under the weight of my culminating crisis and the exhausting calls of nature, it seemed such a terrible climb. At the peak (both of my ascent and my crisis) Uncle Hošták cheers me up and offers me moral support. They even brought Fatra (mineral water) to the finish and I enjoyed Mrs. Hoštáková's excellent cake, for which I thank them very much. I must have looked really miserable, even though I wasn't so "horribly sick", I was just simply sick - my stomach was rising up the hill and I had twisting, prickling and pain in my abdomen when I was going down the hill, so I was walking / running like an Indian, like anyhow, but I was heading forward and didn't collapse anywhere and that's the main thing. Just a crisis...
At the last Ó in Sedlo Lutiška, I'll have something to eat, fill up on water, Coke, there is 50km and 2600m+ on my watch, so the remaining distance won't be difficult - 21km and there should be some 200m of elevation gain. Yeah, sure 😆 I'll gain 200m of elevation before I know it and still have a long way to go to the finish... How much will it be in the end? 3000? 3100? And my crisis is really pissing me off. Well I better don't give a shit about it.. Better have some salt and sugar and feel relieved for a moment and I say to myself: hey, it's beautiful out here. And it really is. Did I mention that we have kitschy views everywhere? Following the yellow sign, I return to the meadow ridge of Oravská Magura. The hills of Mala Fatra watch me closely on the right, and the hills of Kysucká Vrchovina on the left. The day is spectacular. What more do you want? The sun is shining, it is warm and dry, it is not raining, there is no storm, there are no wheelbarrows falling, and it is only a short distance to the finish. After all, try to run! 😁
So I try and after a while it works. I get to the turn to the bell tower near Marunov, where the last Ká was, which derailed many, because it was necessary to run down steeply about 500m to the checkpoint and then go back steeply up to the route. I accept it as it is, I just go and don't care. At the turn, Juroko pulls his lens on me, and says that he is waiting only for me. So I'm sorry for screwing up so much, and thank you for waiting and taking such beautiful photos for me 😍 it makes a person happy right away.
I run down (I really like the homestead near the bell tower), fill up on water for the last 10 km and hop back up. I mean it wasn't a HOP, but rather a HHHHHOOOOOOOPPPPPPPP but I didn't hate it at all. It's just the way it is. It has to be climbed down and up, so there's nothing else I can do about it, just go. The remaining 10 km led through forests and meadows, through swamps and wooden footbridges, picturesque settlements and homesteads, and over a final stream that I don't remember. Then just follow the contour line from Pálenica to the fiinish line in Zázriva. It looks promising, I'm sure I'll make it today 😊 Although the sun has already sunk quite deep, almost as deep as me, on the other hand, Ondro's speaker and music and bells and trumpets and humming and the vibrant life of the finish of Ultramagura 71 2023 are getting louder and louder. I'm finishing, I'm here. Ondro calls my name into the microphone and I'm really excited! I get the finisher's headband and try to stop the watch. The photographer Juraj, who has in the meantime teleported from the bell tower to Zázriva, takes the most beautiful finish photos ever:
Then it was just lying loosely on the grass, mutual congratulations and compliments, chatting, jokes, sharing experiences, laughing and chilling. My ultra-galactic time of 10h 46min was enough for 17th place out of 26 female runners, and in the end I had 3299 meters of elevation gain. Apparently the winner also had that many, so I take it as a legit number 😀 Congratulations to all the rockets and rocketeers who reached the finish line of both routes in truly ultra-galactic times, congratulations to all those who reached the finish line of both routes in any time and thank you to the organizers Jogošík and Slovak Ultra Trail, all the volunteers led by Peťa Š., Saška for the company at the route, all the cheerleaders led by Jožko from Born To Trail and Majka, Zuzka, Karinka, Vandulienka and Maťa and Lenka and simply the whole universe.
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