Ultrarunner's notes

 Celebrating spring with a winter run for a good thing     Anyone who knows me knows that winter ultras and I don’t get along too well. I’m a lizard — I need to bask on warm rocks, with sunburned skin and heat on my back. I once ran a winter hundred — Letecká 100 — but back then a wild spring was raging, so I basically dodged all winter conditions 🤷‍♀️. So when I heard about the 10th annual ALS run adding a brand-new 65 km route, it didn’t even tempt me. Late March can be tricky — mostly cold — and I wasn’t about to risk trudging through snowdrifts on a ridge, slipping down icy slopes of Kozí Kameň, or shivering for endless hours. The past three years, we’ve helped at aid stations in Batizovce or Spišská Teplica, and I assumed this year would be the no different. Then one day, I got a message from Mirko Hollý telling me I should go ahead and sign up and not to worry about the aid station - they’d handle it. I politely declined at first, but well… the idea was planted...

  My first Alpine adventure I don't even know why I chose this race in the Tyrolean Alps, the so-called Kitzbühel Alps - surrounding the Pillersee Valley. Maybe it was the "only" a 9.5 hour journey, maybe it was the night start, maybe the altitude around 2000 m.a.s.l., but anyway, I signed up and planned a vacation for us, so that the whole family could enjoy it with me 😀 I study the route, the region, review photos, make plans, book accommodation, compile the mandatory equipment (I had everything that was on the list, even a chemical light, and my backpack was full to bursting). After the MF100 failure, I was pretty scared, thinking that I was going to fumble in the Alps, because I don't know how to run at all (I didn't know that wading, sliding and balancing skills would come in more handy...), but I somehow shook myself off the debacle and started to focus on KAT. In the end, I put the experience from the MF DNF to good use. I went with a better mindset, bette...