After two years without a week in the mountains, Lucas and I managed to spent five days in the mountains near Lago di Garda. On this trip, we did four different routes which was a good mix between trails, via ferratas and a little bit of climbing.

Every summer I try to escape Berlin to spend some time in the mountains. This summer was quite intense with work and unfortunately, I haven’t gotten rid of the problems with my calves, so I needed to stop training for a couple of weeks here and there this year. However, Lucas got us a spot for the Adidas Terrex Infinite Trails – a trail running team competition in Bad Hofgastein (Austria). We took this event as the start of a short holiday in the Austrian mountains this year.

I have been doing a full week of trail running across the mountains in the last three years always at the end of the summer. It’s like meditation for me and helps me to switch off from work, so I wanted to do this again in 2020, but two things were very different this year: First, there is Covid-19 and second, I was injured for a long time this year. Therefore, we decided to do more hiking, climbing, and Via Ferratas rather than trail running around the Dolomites in Italy.

When we finished our trip in the Pyrenees last year, we were joking already that we should run again next year and finish somewhere near the sea because it has some magic to run across mountains for days and finish at the water. That sparked the idea of running across Austria starting in Salzburg all the way to Triest in Italy so we would end at the Mediterran Sea. However, that route is roughly 500km and therefore too long for one week and the last 100km are flat so it’s rather boring to run. That’s why we decided to change it a bit and start in Schönau near Salzburg and run until Tolmin in Slovenia so we would end up in the beautiful Soça Valley.

Mountains are one of the best places on earth to take a break and refresh your mind in my eyes. Since we were in the Alps last year already we decided to go for the Pyrenees this year and run part of the GR10 – the footpath that goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates France from Spain.