Sierre-Zinal, Switzerland

On 11th August, Lothian were well represented in the Swiss Alps at the 40th anniversary Sierre-Zinal race. This is a 31km point to point race with 2200m ascent and 800m descent.

The race always attracts a high quality field of the world’s best mountain runners (plus Dave Berrill and I for the first time). It starts in Sierre at around 500m above sea level and then climbs steeply to 2000m in the first 10k. The route then meanders along with several ups and downs, finally peaking at around 2400m – you definitely notice the effects altitude at this height with running at pace difficult due to the reduced Oxygen levels. The final section then descends to Zinal at 1500m via a steep, rocky trail and finishes in the town centre. The race is billed as one of the world’s most picturesque with cracking views of several 4000m peaks, including Weisshorn and the Matterhorn.

Dave Berrill, who’s been struggling with injury much of the year and had his leg held together with some magic blue tape, nursed himself around the course meeting his objective to finish – we didn’t quite get to race each other as we’d hoped but it was good fun nonetheless! Definitely quite a bit of room for improvement if we both go back… given how expensive Switzerland is though (£8 a pint… or should that be a “sports drink”) this might have to wait until those lottery numbers finally come up…

Results:

142nd – John Malcolm – 3h51m05s

452nd – Dave Berrill – 5h10m41s

1141 Finishers