mozart 100 by UTMB 2025

Salzburg, Austria 🇦🇹 - I was just there in the beginning of June to race mozart 100 by UTMB.

I arrived in Salzburg Thursday, collected my bib Friday, ran Saturday, relaxed Sunday and left again Monday. So a sort of mini vacation if you will. Some photos from my travel day (Thursday):

Thursday: Arrival ✈️

Thursday when I arrived I went out to be a tourist 🤗🤩.

The beer is non alcoholic btw. I don’t drink alcohol anymore (haven’t for years, ever since I started my weight loss and “serious” training 😇😆). The vegetarian pizza was brutal; it was seriously too big - but really delicious 🤤. Go to L’Osteria Salzburg if you want to get such an epic meal 👍🏻

Friday: Bib 🔢

Friday I collected my race bib and starter pack. The UTMB race organizers had completely taken over Domplatz and Kapitelplatz. Bib collection, expo etc was at Domplatz. And Kapitelplatz (with the huge Golden Sphere) was used for the start/finish area.

I collected: the usual UTMB drop back, race bib, another tag (chip) to attach to the vest. And also a starter present - a grey UTMB backback. I got carried a bit away so in the expo I also purchased a race belt (for attaching the bib) and a t-shirt 😆.

Saturday: Race 🏃🏻‍♂️

The race started at 05:00 Saturday morning. So I was up pretty early … around 03:15 or so: to get a little time for the morning routine (coffee, a little energy and time for bio break stuff 🙃🫣). The sunlight started to show around that time so it wasn’t dark as we set off:

The race itself had a nice mix of runnable and hiking sections. As you can see below we had (amongst others) asphalt sections, gravel roads and typical mountain trails uphill/downhill.

We reached the Zwölferhorn mountain after roughly 50 kilometers. This mountain - at 1521 meters - was particularly stunning; surrounded by lakes and a fantastic view where you could see many impressive mountain peaks:

A downside of writing this report a bit late is that details fade a bit … but I’m quite sure that the downhill from Zwölferhorn was where I started to notice a certain level of fatigue. So that was timed at when I was coming into Saint Gilgen:

It was amazing coming into that 🤩 - because the city had many supporting and cheering spectators. And also this was the aid station with drop bags (I didn’t use mine : no need) … and also super equipped with every food and drink you could imagine. The trick - however - is that this aid station was visited twice. So first time coming down from Zwölferhorn. Then you exit the city to run a loop up and down Schafberg and then back into Saint Gilgen again.

Now this Schafberg mountain was also no easy challenge. At 1288 meters it was quite a tough climb to do after Zwölferhorn. Along the way to and from it (from Saint Gilgen) we got to run along the beautify lake near the city and also nice green forrest trails.

We were back in Saint Gilgen after 75 kilometers. Then after that that we had some minor undulating road/gravel trails until the last climbs: The impressive Gaisberg mountain and the smaller but also impressive Kapuzinerberg mountain.

Rain started (and a bit later darkness also) to set in around some time between Koppl and ascending Gaisberg. Definitely while descending Gaisberg. So this made the last part of the race (the last 20 kilometers ish) MUCH MUCH more challenging. Pace went dramatically down. Because the rain led to muddy mountain trails. And the muddy mountain trails were often very slippery. While darkness setting in too. The combination is rather dangerous if you don’t take it seriously 😇😅.

Here is roughly when rain started and where I had to put on the headlamp before going into the much darker mountain trails (covered by tree crowns):

And here you see my view somewhere along Gaisberg where I can see Salzburg. Now this is particularly interesting; notice the e big black mountain there in the middle of Salzburg: that’s the Kapuzinerberg mountain. Stunning isn’t it? 🤩🥳

The descent from Gaisberg was very slow. A looooong technical, slippery steep way down into Salzburg. Took a very long time. Quads were tired - tired from keeping the body weight safe for each steep descent step. I was pretty tired then.

Luckily I had only the Kapuzinerberg mountain after it. I knew it; I had hiked it Friday actually (day before the race) - but even before this, last year on our way back from summer holidays 🤠🕺🏼. The thing was though … that I hadn’t run like 115 mountain kilometers before it. So it was tough as **ll. The thing about it is … uphill (from the ascent side we took) it’s all stairs. Hundreds and hundreds of stairs. Each step felt like one of my home gym single leg sessions 😆🥵. But the end (of the race 😉) was near - so there was some nice power and energy to get from that knowledge. I finished after almost 19 hours at roughly 23:50 CEST:

Proud and tired 😂. I grabbed my finisher present (a t-shirt) the medal (above) and walked the 3 kilometers back to my hotel (…).

Sunday: Recovery ❤️‍🩹

I used Sunday to relax a lot - went down to the race area and saw it being closed down. It was nice to have a day of just recovering (read relaxing biiIIg time).

Monday: Travel ✈️

Monday I left Salzburg again. Bus to the airport and then flight to Frankfurt and from that to Billund again.

Take a look at that photo I got from the airplane. You see the Kapuzinerberg mountain clearly. Seeing that (from the airplane) I immediately got to think of all the hundreds of stairs 😂.

Photos: Sportograf.com 📸

A few photos of me (those where I looked less like a zombie 🤣) from the professional sportograf.com photo supplier used by most (all?) of the UTMB series races:

Recommended?

Yes, Yes and absolutely Yes!

Mozart 100, in terms of terrain has it all: hardcore technical uphill downhill hiking parts, some easy flowing uphill and downhill hiking parts. It also has a lot of runnable segments on asphalt road, grassy trails, forrest trails, gravel roads. Some flat and some with a gradient that is still runnable - or joggable.

It is super scenic. It has some very fine aid stations with cheering spectator crowds - particularly in the city aid stations. My favorite is Saint Gilgen.

It starts early which is cool - as it gives you a massive amount of time in full daylight to cover most of the ground. The end where you may have some time in darkness is for sure tolerable - as the finish line isn’t super far away. I like this model.

This race gets my top rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️