“You know what would be cool? That we do a cross - country run, and actually cross a country!”
A note about cross-country or trail running: It is a sport when you run a course with natural terrain ex: forests, fields, dirt etc. Most of the times there is elevation gain involved, and it is slightly more difficult than road-running. In a trail, you are running on uneven ground covered with dirt, mud, rocks, water, leaves etc. It takes a little extra cognitive and physical effort as you are running as well as trying to maintain balance and avoiding mis-steps on an unpredictable terrain.
Summary:
- We ran across Luxembourg, a total distance of ~80kms
- We split the distance between two days, running for about 40kms on each day
- We ran through beautiful valleys, mountains, trails, across rivers and incredible scenery
- Was unlike any other physical event I have ever done
- This was something we planned on our own, so it was just a bunch of friends doing fun things
On a casual, long-run day sometime in September 2020, my friend Jon had this thought in his head. A little something about Jon: He loves running, and has completed several marathons and half marathons. He is always looking to push himself, and test his physical and mental limits. And running across a country presented a challenge which he had never done before but at the same time seemed like something just at the horizon of possibility.
The country he chose for the challenge was Luxembourg. It is small enough for us to cross the country on foot and the distance is large enough for it to be a formidable challenge. Also, running on roads is not half as fun as running in trails, through forests, hills, fields and grasslands. So Luxembourg wins on this count too. We estimated the distance to be about 75km to be covered, beginning at the Belgium-Luxembourg border and finishing at the Luxembourg-Germany border.
When he told me the idea, I immediately knew this was something I wanted to do, no matter my current physical ability. So we fixed a tentative date in the month of March 2021, and prepared a 5 month training plan which would get us ready to scale this challenge.
We trained regularly, incrementally increasing the distance we would run every week, and slowly but surely we were making steady process. After a few weeks of training together, I had to move to India (from Amsterdam) in November 2020, and it seemed less likely that I would be able to make it to Luxembourg or even back to Europe by March 2021. But even in India, I continued to train as much as could (all the covid restrictions that were in place made it super hard) hoping to be in shape in the unlikely event of me being able to join in on this adventure.
I was not expecting to be in Europe at that time but through a fortunate turn of events, I got a job offer to be in the UK, beginning in March 2021. However, with the madness of the pandemic at its peak, we decided 2021 will not be the year when we will be able to do this adventure. When I finally moved to London in June 2021, and with covid cases diminishing, we restarted our discussion to do this in spring 2022.
A few things had changed though; I was not in great shape as I had not been training for some time. The people who had agreed to join us for the run, were now not able to commit this time around. We still had 3 people (Jon, Todor and I) who would do the run, along with a few friends (Natalia and Sarah) who would be in a support car and help us on the course with race supplies.
I continued to train as much as I could (admittedly much less than what I was doing back in Amsterdam) and hoped for the best. There was also this thought in the back of my head, that there is some possibility that this may not happen (again) in 2022.
The Whatsapp group had gone silent, and there was no activity or discussion about this for a few months, until one day in November 2021, Jon revived the group back from the dead. He had not forgotten about it, and had been putting miles under his belt in order to prepare for this cross-country adventure. And after that, things moved quite fast. We finalised the first weekend of April 2022 as our race dates, and after evaluating terrain and weather conditions, we also finalised the route to cross Luxembourg.
We planned to complete the run in two parts, running about 40kms on day 1, and about 35km on day 2. We budgeted about 5-6 hours of running on both days, given differing elevation gains, terrain and weather conditions.
I arrived in Luxembourg on Wednesday, 30 March 2022 so I could meet some friends who stay there. Gunjan also joined us on this trip at the last minute, so that she could meet all of our friends from HEC. And this way, Natalia would now have company in the support car. Jon, Natalia and Todor were to arrive on Thursday afternoon, and I was to go and meet them at our Airbnb. We would begin our run on Friday morning, at Auberge De La Gaichel, right at the Belgium and Luxembourg border. We would go through the trail Valley of 7 Castles, and end the day of running at the town of Mersch. The total should come to about 37-38 km for day 1. The support car would meet us at the 12km mark at the first castle at Koerich and the then at the 30km mark at the castle of Ansembourg. After we would finish at Mersch, we would head back to our Airbnb in the city of Luxembourg.
On day 2, we would start at Mersch (where we ended Day 1) and then run for about 20 km to reach the town of Mullerthal. We meet the support van at the town, and then begin the final leg of the run on the northern part of the Mullerthal Trail, going north-east up till the town of Echternach, at the Luxembourg-Germany border. This distance would be around 12-15 kms, depending on how we navigate the trail. Gunjan would also join us for this last segment.
On Friday, 1 April 2022, after having delicious and functional breakfast of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bananas, we left for the Belgium-Lux border to begin this adventure. There was something really exhilarating and frightful about the whole thing. The daunting distance of a full marathon in unfamiliar forests made this formidable, but at the same time there was this enormous comfort of running with friends through serene and beautiful landscapes. At the start, we were greeted with some rain and light snow, which made the temperature slightly less optimal than we expected. After running on the road for about 2-3 kms, we found the trail and began the journey of crossing a country.
It was extremely beautiful. I do not have any eloquence, so whatever I’ll write or even the photos we took, will not do justice to how ethereal the whole scenery was. We ran through steep hills, lined with trees covered in the fresh snow. The dew on the grass made everything seem fresh and incredibly well preserved. Taking in all the views, we just ambled along, slowly and steadily running across this incredibly beautiful country.
Even with our Garmin, GPS systems and Google Maps, we still got lost. Though the trails are fairly well mapped out on Strava and other trail maps, we still managed to take some wrong turns or followed a direction that was not for us, and ended up losing the way for a bit before we course corrected. It was not such a bad thing to have detours, because it was just so pretty. Even though we added a few extra kilometres, I’d say it was more than a fair bargain!
We met the support car at our first checkpoint: Castle of Koerich. After a quick stretch, snack, and a refill of our water supply, we resumed our expedition. We ran across a few more hills, streams and more forests before we met the crew at the second checkpoint: Castle of Ansembourg. By this time we had done about 26kms, so the tiredness was beginning to set in, and it had become very chilly because of the wind. And we still had about 12-15km to go. While the trail is called the valley of 7 castles, I think maybe 2 castles were actually “good castles”. By good I mean, strong, big, and fortified. As per Todor’s assessment of the quality of castles, he deemed them fairly easy to conquer. He believed that if he could take over the castles alone if he wanted to. And to be fair, the castles looked more like chateaus or big stone houses. But the Castle of Ansembourg was fairly large, with some gardens and even though Todor thought he could besiege the castle easily, it was still a fairly big structure. Here, we took another quick pee break, ate some peanut butter sandwiches and biscuits, and were on our way to Mersch.
I run fairly regularly, but running on the trails is a very different experience. As opposed to “mindlessly” running in a straight direction on the road in the city, running on the trail uses a lot more cognitive abilities. You are constantly looking out in front of you to avoid any rocks, branches, plants, thorns etc. You are also conscious each time about how your foot lands on the ground. Because the ground is not even, you are always identifying, calculating each of your stride, whereas in road running, the predictability of the terrain makes you go faster, as you do not need to think so much.
We finished our day of running in the town of Mersch, having covered about 41km. And at that moment, I realised maybe I actually can complete this challenge without being absolutely crushed at the end. I never thought I was fully prepared to do this, but now that we had covered more than half the distance, I was confident that we would be alright the following day. I did struggle during the run, for sure. The steep uphills were hard to do, and the running gels full of carbs and caffeine only help so much. And even though I was the slowest among the three of us, Jon and Todor, made sure we ran at a pace comfortable for me.
After getting back to the Airbnb we had a quick snack of some home-delivered sushi, and then later headed out to have dinner at an Indian place called Swagat. Our other friends from HEC who all live in Luxembourg joined us for the meal. It was really nice to see people who I hadn’t seen in a very long time. After an early dinner, we went back and and slept, hoping that we will be recovered enough to run another 30 odd kilometers.
In the morning, after a repeat of the peanut butter sandwiches, we were ready to go. We went back to Mersch, exactly where we had ended the day before, and began our 20 km journey to the first checkpoint, the northern part of the Mullerthal trail. This route was a 50-50 mix of road and trail running, as we had to cross a few small highways between along with forests and hills just as we had expected. The even though a large portion of the second day was on the road, overall the trails were a lot more beautiful than what we encountered on day 1. The weather was colder too with snow and wind up until early afternoon. But the snow made the trails even more beautiful. We ran into a hidden castle which seemed right from a fairytale, covered in snow with a beautiful lake in its front, and surrounded by tall trees. Even though the elevation gain was similar as day 1, this had very steep uphills and downhills, making it a bit more harder. Obviously, our legs were tired too, so we were feeling it even more so. At least I was.
We met the support car, at the trail head, where Gunjan joined us for the last leg of the race. She had a flight to catch early evening, so we really had to make good time so that we could finish in time for her to get to the airport.
During the last 15 km, I was struggling a lot. I messed up the timing of my running gels, which basically meant I had more energy than I needed for the beginning section of the trail, and after about 9k I was sugar crashing. This stage of energy depletion is called “bonking”, where the body has depleted all the ready to use energy sources, and is beginning to burn fat and protein as energy sources. And this is the time when you will feel your body is shutting down and you will feel like shit. And I was feeling like shit. This is a feeling where you are tired, but its not your legs or muscles giving up, its your mind. And this where running with 3 other friends helped, because they helped me push through and eventually I was feeling okay. We ran into the town of Echternach, and crossed over a bridge that joins Luxembourg to Germany.
We had our friends, Natalia and rest of the Luxembourg crew, waiting for us, cheering us at the finish. It was a moment, that I felt was not going to come, because just a few kilometres ago, I was feeling as if this would never end.
After we finished, I did not feel super accomplished or elated. I was just very glad to have done this with friends in an attempt to challenge our physical and mental limits. We had a lazy early dinner at a cafe, celebrating with some drinks and some really good food. After that we headed back to our accommodation to get some sleep before we travelled back to our respective homes.
With tired legs and full hearts, I travelled back home and already dreaming about our next challenge, whatever it might be!
