Sierre Zinal 2007 Report
& Pictures from Steve Bamber
SIERRE-ZINAL
2007
The
international section of Preston harriers fell runners travelled to
Switzerland
to compete in the 32KM 34th sierre-zinal mountain race. Gordon ,Colin and
myself flew out of dressed in our
shorts and our bags packed with running gear for a summer race and summer
outfits for the days walking and
nights sampling local beer , what a shock we got as we dropped into Geneva
airport it was bouncing down with rain things got worse I
navigated our driver (Colin) to the correct valley that’s when things started
to concern us the temperature
outside dropped to 5 or 6 degrees, the mountains looked white surely not as we
approxed what should have been our turn off we
got direverted onto the other side of the valley we later found out the next day
there had been a mud slide, close to our accommodation.
The next day we drove to the finish
to run over the last 5km , as we ran up through the slippy contions up
to the snow line we met a very lean
looking international lady
runner who said that the snow was
40cm deep further up the course .Colin was concerned
as he only had his racing
flats but as the next 48 hours passed thing improved in fact as we sat at the
registration in Sierra town centre sheltering
from the sun the
temptarture climbed
to 24 deg +. there was a real buzz about the place and we chilled out
with a combition of beer, coffee and mineral water listening to a very lively
Jazz band followed by a visit to a Italian restaurant where the waiter upon
realising that we were having our pre race meal he suggested we have a large
potions suggesting we needed building up what did he know???
Anyway race day came in the form of a 5:30 am alarm call but I had
already been awake for a while by Gordon’s alarm in the form of his light
snoring, a quick bite to eat and off to the finish to get the bus back to the
start .the start is probably the worst start of a race I have ever seen even by
road running standards it was in the middle of a new motorway roundabout being
constructed.
At 9 am we set off all 900 + quick 1 km uphill on the steep road
section then a left turn for the climb of all climbs we zig zagged for over a
hour through a forest and on
tracks most of them just run able it was about the same amount of climb
as BEN NEVIS 4400 FT in about 70 mins , then it just opened up onto lovely
alpine meadows and forest trails as we passed the 6
checkpoints you had food ,drinks and massages offered to you by all the marshals
& helpers who all encouraged you upwards. our target was the hotel weisshorn
at 2400m high this was almost the highest point at 21km then there was only 11km
to go, Colin said it was all downhill well that was a funny downhill it was more
contouring BUT the views made up for the pain in our legs at about 8km to go we
got to a switch back to be cheered on
by a posse of people from UK the who had somehow got our names and
shouted us on, this lifted our tired legs. as I descended the last few kms I
passed quite a few runners and walkers who set off at 6 am then I heard a voice
I recognised it was Colin who had stopped screaming with cramp I offered him a
drink but he insisted I carry on so not wanting to miss a rare chance to
actually beat him I thought I better get a move on in case the cramp was short
lived. The finish was a 500m run down a fenced area lined with hundreds cheering
people .once we finished the pain was short lived and we lead in the sun for a
short while watching the other runners finish. After a short while of feeling a
unwell we sampled a few beers followed by txt from” GOGGLE” Griffiths
telling us how well we had done in the race how does he do it.
The rest of our trip was spent generally chilling out and enjoying the
fantastic scenery.
I’m
sure if you speak to Gordon ,Colin or me we will tell you about it in more
detail,
I
ll certainly go back again and would recommended it to anyone it is a fantastic
area and the views and people are great the accommodation was great if you check
www.sierre-zinal.ch you will find results and even a video clip of us all
finishing and details should want to try the race yourselves or join us.
Steve
My style of running
RESULTS
1.
DUPONT JEAN-CHRISTOPHE F-ST JEAN DE
SIXT 2:41.44
231.
BAMBER STEVEN GB-LANCASHIRE
3:54.45
251.
COLIN SHUTTLEWORTH GB-LANCASHIRE
3:58.27
346.
THOMPSON GORDON GB-LANCASHIRE
4:14.08
Rick
Curwen says "I've done the Sierre-Zinal a couple of times. A very enjoyable
race but hard work."
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