Holly Zimmermann

Click here to read this article in English! Um 23:00 Uhr begann die obligatorische Rennen-Briefing, ungefahr gleichzeitig als meine Augenlider schwer wurden und das unkontrollierbare Gähnen begann. Neben mir saß mein Sohn, der den Kopf auf den Tisch gelegt und eingeschlafen hatte. Ich wünschte, ich wäre zu Hause in meinem Bett. Im Konferenzraum des Hotel Niederreiter in Maria Alm am Steinener Meer, einem kleinen idyllischen Dorf, das in den österreichischen Alpen gelegen ist, 135 Läufer und ihre Familien versammelten sich, um den Renndirektor zu hören, um die Details für den Hochkönigman Endurance Trail zu verlassen. Das Rennen würde in einer Stunde um Mitternacht beginnen und 84,9 km Trails mit 4.928 Metern positiver Höhe abdecken. Ich hoffte, in etwa 14 Stunden zu beenden, aber ich würde später herausfinden, dass das hoffnungslos optimistisch war. Mein Mann und unsere beiden jüngsten Kinder waren dabei, und sie planten, mich auf der Strecke zu treffen, an den Verpflegun...

At 11:00 pm the mandatory race briefing began, which is about when my eyelids started getting heavy and the uncontrollable yawning started. Next to me sat my son who had laid his head on the table and fallen asleep. I wished I was at home in my bed. In the conference room of the Hotel Niederreiter in Maria Alm am Steinener Meer, a small idyllic village nestled in the Austrian Alps, there were 135 runners and their families gathered to listen to the race director run down the details for the 2017 Hochkönigman Endurance Trail. The race would begin in an hour, at midnight, and cover 84.9 km of trails with 4,928 meters of positive elevation. I was hoping to finish in about 14 hours, but I’d later find out that was hopelessly optimistic. My husband and our two youngest children were there with me, and they were planning to meet me along the route, at the refreshment stations or anywhere else that access was possible, but since the trail was very remote there would not be too many ...

Back in late fall 2016, as I was contemplating my race calendar for the upcoming year, I shared my thoughts with my coach and he said, “Sounds good. That gives us time for three months of base training.” What exactly is base training? And how important is it?  Base training could principally be described as ‘training to train, not training to race.’ It is a period used to strengthen the muscular and aerobic systems and get the body prepared for the greater stresses that are applied when training to race. The goal of base training is to develop a runner’s aerobic potential to its maximum before implementing anaerobic training, which fine-tunes the body to run at greater speed. Cross-country skiing is a great aerobic exercise Physiologists experimenting with endurance athletes at Cologne University found that fine muscular endurance can be attained by exercising continually for long periods, i.e. two hours or more at a time (not split up within a day, but can be a ...