Jogging in the Jura - Mt Tendre/Montricher to St Cergue

Though I still haven't managed to fully shake off the ankle/calf injury that I sustained a few weeks ago the weather was so nice I went out anyways to explore some of the Jura Crest Trail (Chemin de Cretes de Jura).  It seems that after a cold and snowy December winter is likely to end early and with more of a whimper than a bang here in Switzerland, thus I had high hopes for good trail conditions on Saturday.  Ostensibly the primary goal was to find a convenient high quality climb for hill repeat training for UTMB, but really I just wanted some good quality time to get to know the Jura mountains.

Sunrise over the Swiss Plateau from near the town of Montricher (see map at bottom)

These signs are all over the mountains in Switzerland

The climb out of Montricher to the summit of Mt Tendre, 3238 of vertical in 5.2 miles at 12% grade, was all that I had hoped for.  High quality trail, generally well constructed and maintained, and definitely a worthy place for repeats.  It wasn't until about 4500 ft or so until icy conditions began.  The snow wasn't bad, especially not in the pastures near the summit of Mt Tendre (5457 ft), but some of the forested gullies were completely iced over. My hope that this was only a function of time of day proved unwarranted, and some tricky sections had to be navigated quite slowly over the course of the day.

Half a mile south of Mt Tendre on the Jura Crest Trail (Chemin de Crete du Jura) the trail traversed an icy sidehill with a long and dangerous runout.  I opted for the bare ridgeline where there was no danger of a slide.

Looking back at Mt Tendre on the crest of the Jura mountains.  A few minutes earlier I was on the summit in a whiteout

Summertime Chalet on the crest.  Rock mover lever thing-a-ma-bob and solar panels.

Old WWII fortications on the Jura Crest near the French Swiss border

The trail along much of the crest is of good quality, especially the forested sections.  As per usual in Switzerland, the trail was often routed through summertime cow pastures.  While the views are splendid, the footing can be quite tricky.  Routes like this make make me happy I played a ton of tennis growing up, the constant side to side motion of the game led to great ankle strength.

Summit shot from the Mont de Biere

Fantastic descents heading north towards the Col de Marchairuz and Crete de la Nueve

While the snow in the pastures was fairly straightforward and not too significant, there was some really icy conditions in the forest.  I had to climb my way around much of the trail, clinging to whatever shrubbery I could along the side of the trail.

Icy gully

Towards the summit of Crete de la Nueve

Approaching St Cergue on the Chemin de Crete de Jura 

Garmin says 5600/3350 ft of vertical in 21 miles.  

All in all not bad for a early season outing in icy conditions.  Though I got a little bit rough around the edges earlier in the run than I would like to, it's only to be expected with the snow making for slow going.  It was great to be able to take advantage of the sunshine.  The route, starting in Montricher climbing up to Mt Tendre and South along the Jura Crest Trail with Mont Biere, Col de Marchairuz, Crete de la Nueve and down to St Cergue was quite fun and will make a good addition to the SFP (Swiss Footprint Project).  If someone were wishing for a shorter route I highly would recommend heading North from Cold de Marachuz to Mont Biere (Derriere) and the Ski Chalet.  This section, and the section continuing on to Mt Tendre, was quite scenic.

2011 running plans

2011 will be starting much differently than 2010.  Mountains full of snow have convinced me to consider an early spring marathon as a good excuse to start off the season with some good footspeed on the shorter road roads.  For training runs I’ll be circumnavigating Lake Geneva in stages.  Carless, most of my weekend runs either start and end at train stations anyways, so the Swiss Footprint Project (SFP) is fairly natural extension of my thru-hiking background an my propensity towards one-way runs.  Over the course of the year I hope to connect my footprints around a significant chunk of the country.

Once the summer mountain running season opens I will shift my focus to getting some significant vertical.  Since there are no convenient hills to run near Lausanne this will be a significant challenge.  Initially I’ll be focusing on the crest of the Juras and the French Pre Alps facing Lausanne across Lake Geneva, and a return to Corvallis for the Mac 50km.  My hope is to connect footsteps from Le Chasseral near Biel/Bienne all the way down to Geneva.  It's an admittedly overambitious venture, but I like to dream big.  As the snow in the high country continues to melt I’ll be heading to the Swiss Alps more and more.  The main lead up to UTMB, which has over 10000m of vertical will be with the Verbier-St Bernard 100km with 6900m of vertical on 7/2, and Swiss Alpine Davis 78 km on 7/30, which has much less vertical but should still be a good tuneup.  There will probably be another 50km thrown in sometime in June or July for good measure, but my intention is to focus more on vertical and less on racing.

            As the mountain running season shuts down for the fall I will probably return to the lower elevation peaks and perhaps back to shorter road races, depending on how Zurich goes in April.  Looks this year will have a significant degree of seasonality to it.

Training summary - 01/2011

Training summary – 01/2011

Since I’ve always found training posts to be just a bit dry, but still feel like posting a bit on it every now and then, I’ve decided to compromise and post a training summary for every month of the year.  Once the snow melts around here I will get back to blogging more adventure runs.

January 2011

Miles – 185 (36, 38, 55, 39)

Vertical – 26000 ft (6100, 2300, 10800, 6800)

Note: the parenthetical numbers are weekly sums for the 4 full weeks in January, the sum is for the month as a whole.

A persistent and recurring head cold combined with traveling back and forth across the pond and a minor calf injury led to somewhat trying month of training.  One thing I can definitely say is that I hardly put a dent into my training for the Zurich marathon on 4/17.  The only real quality I managed was a nice tempo run from Aubonne to Nyon, part of my attempt to run around Lake Geneva in stages, at a good pace (+0:35 over marathon pace for 11.6 miles), which is pretty much where I want to be mileage and pace wise in January to get ready.  I didn’t manage much more quality long runs and never managed to get healthy enough to get to the track either.  Ughhh.  I had been very consistent at the track from September thru December though, and am not overly worried about needing to miss a bit of quality.  It’s only January.

The thing about January in this part of the world is that it doesn't sit well with this ultrarunner.  While my colleagues and friends talk eagerly about what the snowpack will look like on Saturday morning, I find myself frowning at webcams of local summits and desperately hoping for a heat wave.  It feels blasphemous, as if the Swiss football team made it the World Cup and I’m the only cheering against them.  Early January did see a slight moderation of the snow at lower elevations to warrant a jaunt up the crest of the Jura’s (link).  For the 5800 ft of vertical effort I was rewarded with my first sighting of a Chamois, my first trip to France, 40 mph ridgeline winds and a constant pouring bone chilling rain.  It was good to get out.

The following week I flew back to the US for my cousin’s wedding and was very pleasantly surprised to discover the Barton Creek Trail right in the backyard of Austin TX.  It seemed like this place was just teeming with ultrarunners.  Afterwards I flew to Corvallis, OR to visit with my girlfriend.  Quite excited to add some hills back to my training diet I foolishly strained a calf on what would become my 2^nd fastest ascent of Bald Hill.  Despite the strained calf I couldn’t resist the lure of the McDonald Forest and managed to get out for a nice run day after day.  That week will easily be my biggest early season mileage and vertical.  Predictably favoring my calf led to some secondary issues and so the next week of training back in Lausanne wasn’t terribly great, except that my search for appropriate hills for early season vertical work began in earnest with a trip up Mt Pelerin and the Tour de Gourze.  Neither of these really fit the bill, but either might be worthy of a return trip.  Despite the looming marathon, I don’t look forward to weekend long road runs at all the same way as I do quality time in the mountains.  There will probably be another two months or more, but I’m quite eager for the snow season hurry up and be over with.