Author Archives: Doug Mayer

We have been at it for 20 minutes already, and I am soaked with sweat. Today’s race, Fully-Sorniot, offers runners a full five minutes of pleasant coasting along old village roads, until delivering the goods: 1.6 vertical kilometers of ass-kicking, no-holes-barred switchbacks. I try not to look up, but it’s too tempting. I glance skyward, and all I see is… rock.

2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Tour Dents du Midi, the walking route that encircles one of Switzerland’s best-known mountain ranges, adjacent to its border with France. For that reason, yesterday’s annual trail race around the seven jagged peaks that make up the Dents du Midi held special significance. With or without this historic marker, however, the

It’s been an incredible summer. Our gang of trail runners has explored areas far and wide in the Swiss Alps. We’ve run through the Engadine. Around the UNESCO Jungfrau-Aletsch World Heritage site. Along the peaks that mark Switzerland’s alpine border with France and Italy. We’ve run in some of the most famous trail races in the world… and in small village

Ready to go for a run? Ready to go for a kinda-exposed, three-minute run with an 800-foot drop on your right-hand side? Welcome to trail running in Switzerland. Okay… mind you, it’s not always like this. Most of the time, a mountain run here means pastures, snowfields, herds of cows and flocks of sheep. Café

I wasn’t really looking for an antidote to the many big, famous alp mountain races that dot the landscape here. But this morning, in the Swiss canton of Valais, near the border with France and not too very far from Italy, I certainly found one. Part of the Valais Cup mountain running series—a collection of mostly short, steep mountain races that

When talking about trail running in the Swiss alps, discussions usually turn to the dramatic: the thousands of meters climbed, the peaks summited, the distances covered. For me, though, one of the great pleasures is the family farm. In Switzerland, many alp farms fly the Swiss flag, a sign that the farm sells its products and perhaps offers a few other local goodies and refreshments like homemade bread or hot coffee.  For

This past week, Jim Maddock and I found ourselves in the Val Anniviers, looking for great trail running routes along the course of the fabled Sierre-Zinal trail race route.  (We found them! But, that’s a story for some other time.) Running along, chatting, half distracted, we were enjoying a late summer, sunny alp afternoon on a ridge a thousand meters above the village

What makes Sierre-Zinal such a remarkable event? For what I look for in a trail race, there’s none better. In fact, nothing is even close.

Changing trains in Landquart, my last switch before arriving in Davos, I’m uncertain which track I want. I look around me, and realize everyone looks like a runner. They’re moving towards platform 2. I follow and hop on the train. Salomon, Inov8, Nathan and Patagonia. I don’t even bother to check the destination. Davos is

Starting off on a long, hard run is a bit like being handed a book to read without a cover or title. As the pages unfold, you come to find out what each successive chapter has in store for you. Misery? Elation? New friends, wild animals, injury, dramatic alpine scenery rarely glimpsed by others? The