For more than a month I have an issue with my left soleus. It is not torn, but inflamed, in spite of resting and after building up strength running made it flare up twice, so I have to crosstrain for now. I already tested walking on a treadmill with a decent incline and that goes well and is ofcourse good mountain trail training since many uphills I will walk. I also tried on a local steep hill how downhill fastwalking plays out and that too does not bother affect the injury so I wanted to try and see what that was like in a real trail race I had signed up for before the injury.
In the description of the race it was mentioned that is was not at all easy, so I hoped I could do a 5km/h average and make it back in less than de max time of 6h30 the organization gave us. The Trail Vallforners starts in a small town, Canoves - Samalus, on the south edge the Montseny Natural Park. I arrived early to pick up my bib and prepare for the race. It was very cold and also wind gusts and more cold was expected in the afternoon, so I put on 3 layers to at least leave and walk the first kilometers in warm clothes. Other runners were wearing gloves, but I didn't think I would need them. At 8 am we started and since I expected to go last anyway I started at the back of the pack with the sweeper crew just behind me. Soon I passed another guy that started out even slower and in the more steeper uphill section I passed many people. But most of them made up the time in the downhill, since walking downhill is just not fast at all. After passing the first aidstation at 5km in under the hour we started a second much more steeper and technical climb and the downhill afterwards was also very tricky until we turned onto a winding single track trail al the way to the second aid station around 12km. I was still doing a bit better than 5km/h on average and the winding trail continued for quite some time. All the way down to the Vallforners valley and then we started the second long climb of the day. Also very steep and technicall and at times my paced dropped well below 4km/h.
