Tuscany Crossing 103K: A Trail Tale of Rolling Hills, Cypress Trees, and a Splash of Olive Oil

The Tuscany Crossing is an ultra trail event with several distance options, including a 53 km, a 103 km, and a 100 mile (160 km) race. It is centered in the beautiful little Tuscan village of Castiglione d’Orcia in the region of Siena, roughly halfway between the Italian cities of Florence and Rome.

I chose the 103 kilometer race option because this is part of my ongoing quest and blog series, trying to qualify for the legendary Western States 100 Endurance Run (WSER) in California.

So far, my series includes the following races:

1. Mozart 100, Austria, 2021, 108 km, finished in 17:30 hours
2. Festival des Templiers, France, 2022, 104 km, DNF’d after 42 km
3. Lavaredo Ultra Trail, Italy, 2023, 120 km, 25:31 hours
4. Zugspitz Ultra Trail, Germany, 2024, 106 km, 19:00 hours

Excluding my failed race at Templiers, I’m going into my fourth year of qualification by doing Tuscany Crossing. Currently, the average time it takes until that slot in California becomes available through annual qualification race running is around 8-10 years, depending on your luck.

I’m going to be running these ultras for a little while longer and I don’t mind at all!

For the April 2025 edition of the Tuscany Crossing, I made my way down from Hamburg to see if I can manage to sneak over the finish line on time and claim my next round of tickets to the WSER lottery, happening toward the end of the year.

This blog post will be a bit different from my usual structure. First, I’m going to go over the basic information and give you some advice based on what I’ve learned running this race. That’s because a lot of you will have made it to this place in search of exactly that. Afterwards, I will give you my personal report about the race, as usual – hopefully useful and entertaining as well. But you be the judge. Let’s go!

💁 Some General Information About the Race

🏃 Distance: 103 km / 64 mi

That’s the official information and it’s 104.5 according to the supplied GPX track file (65 miles). I think it’s fairly standard for a race of this distance to exceed the 100 by a few extra ones. My guess is that they try to make sure you can actually always claim a full 100 and never end up with an accidental 99.78 or something on the watch.

⛰️ Elevation: 3,600 m / 12,000 ft

Officially, it’s 3,600 meters of gain and also loss because it’s a round course. Measuring this is tricky. Track plotting apps have shown 3,400 m for the same route and my personal tracking app attested 3,800 meters for the actual race in the end.

🔝 Altitude: Between 200 m and 1,059 m / 650 ft and 3,500 ft

Very moderate altitudes. It oscillated around the 500 m / 1,600 ft mark and I don’t think I noticed the altitude at all. Even the highest point didn’t appear to be high up and the air quality is perfect everywhere.

⏱️ Time Limit, Official: 22 Hours

From what I’ve seen so far, this is a very generous time limit considering the difficulty level of the race. That’s an average pace of 12:49 min/km or 20:37 min/mi. You could quite easily hike this whole thing and make it on time even though they were offering a separate hiking event on the same route on the weekend.

🎟️ Time Limit, Western States Lottery Qualification: 21 Hours

I’m not sure if this is a historic relict, because the limit also seems incredibly generous given the circumstances. I’ve so far done one race where the cut-off had been a real issue for me due to its difficulty (Lavaredo), but here most people who are into these trail ultras will have no issue at all I presume. It’s great for beginners. From my current point of view, this is an exceptionally easy race if your goal is to qualify for the WSER lottery.

📌 Miscellaneous Info

• The event organization is flawless and leaves nothing to be desired. It’s professional, but not overly capitalistic as some of the bigger events are. The entry fee feels absolutely justified, it’s even on the cheap side actually.
• A relaxed start time of 5:00 am – no night start. The headlamps are only necessary for the first one to two hours.
• It’s located in beautiful scenery on rolling hills and in forests. Aid stations are plenty as there are a total of eight fully stocked ones, with the maximum distance between two being no more than 15 kilometers, around 10 miles.
• The last third of the race features the most vertically challenging terrain and also forests as opposed to the green rolling hills of the first two thirds. This protects from the elements at the cost of missing out on pretty views.
• Most of the ground is non-technical fine gravel farm roads. There are a few short asphalt stretches and only around 10% is actual single trail, I’d guess.
• April weather in the region can be tricky, because apparently it’s as likely to be 0C as it is 30C (30-90F). We were lucky this year with a mild morning and peak temperatures of around 15-18C (60F).

📝 And Here’s My Specific Advice

🥢 Take your running poles.

They are not indispensable but certainly of good help on this particular course. Depending on your uphill strength, there might only be a handful of climbs where you really need them, but since the modern ones don’t weigh a lot, I think it’s a smart choice. For reference, I finished in the top quarter of the field of runners and took the poles out on climbs around a dozen times. My guess is they saved me about half an hour to an hour total and my legs were thankful for that.

🚰 Take more than the mandatory 1 liter of water.

It wasn’t even the hottest of days, so that’s an important one. Two full flasks are empty quite soon, often before reaching the next aid station. If I did the race once again, I’d take three and keep them all refilled.

🧭 Having the route on the GPS watch does help.

Routing is generally done quite well via lots of signs and reflective bands, but there were a handful of tricky parts and especially later in the race there are big gaps between the runners so you can’t see where the ones in front of you are heading and just mindlessly follow.

🌡️ Get ready for the elements.

There is a lot of sun exposure on the first 65 kilometers – taking sunscreen with you is smart. Also, get ready for a couple ankle-deep creek crossings. Your feet might appreciate a fresh pair of socks.

👟 Take shoes with proper cushioning.

Most of the roads are on hard ground and the pounding obviously adds up over time. Rare single tracks and meadows are a welcome change. I took reactive tempo shoes but would rather opt for big cushion shoes next time. The course has a few muddy patches but is never so steep or dangerous as to require lots of grip. Still, trail shoes are mandatory.

🍪 Aid stations are good, but take salt pills with you.

Fresh cold water, coke and other soft drinks, juices, cake, bread, and some more varying items like cheese and cold meats were available everywhere. A premix of electrolyte drink as well. I was glad I took lots of saltstick pills with me to prevent cramping and a general electrolyte imbalance. The emphasis here was on sweet goods and I missed a few neutral fruits or salty ones like chips – although the bread with olive oil and salt was a very solid option.

👍 The Verdict: A Highly Recommended Race

If you’re looking for an ultra trail race in spring that isn’t too demanding and don’t mind if it’s located in breathtakingly beautiful scenery, Tuscany Crossing is a great bet.

Let me know if you’ve run the race and agree or disagree!

💁‍♂️ My Personal Story with Tuscany Crossing 2025

As stated, this race is part of my Western States 100 Endurance Run qualification quest. Each year I have lots of fun going over the list of available qualification races the WSER staff publish and pick one that fits what I’m capable of and what I’d like to do during that year. The previous races I did were all quite tough for me although not exactly on the super hardcore end of the spectrum. Still, I figured that finding one of the races which are supposedly a bit easier could be interesting.

On paper, the stats of Tuscany Crossing confirm it’s one of the easier races on the list. A huge time limit, not too much elevation, a mild general altitude, no technical terrain. Two more advantages I saw are:

1. It’s already in mid April, early in the season. If anything should go wrong, I’d have enough time to find a backup qualifier race and wouldn’t have to sit out a year on a late October race DNF like I had to in 2022 with Templiers.
2. It’s in one of the most beautiful regions of Europe, iconically known and beloved all over the world. Tuscany with it’s rolling green hills, charming medieval villages, cypress trees, friendly people, and amazing foods including regional wine and olive oil has a lot going for it.

What I didn’t take into the decision equation were the prices, because I wasn’t aware of it. But if I had, that would have been number three, because it all was surprisingly cheap from my German perspective! The region is quite remote, public transport isn’t a viable option and you need to drive a couple hours from major airports, but that also drives down hotel prices. Rental cars are really cheap, too, and the entry ticket was a steal compared to the value we got there. The money I spent in Tuscany at the great restaurants was also not too big a deal, especially considering the high quality of the food. This leaves only the flight costs and they can differ, of course. I booked it all fairly early and got good deals.

Summing up all the associated costs with this race weekend, it was by far the least heavy on my bank account of all the WSER qualifier races I’ve done so far.

ℹ️ The Information Flow Quality

Part of the reason I structured this race report in this particular fashion is that the information provided by the race staff had room for improvement. The website does have an English option but it is incomplete. Of course, you can just use your browser’s translation functionality to solve that, but even then, a few things I would have liked to know beforehand weren’t available.

I also didn’t find a lot of information from bloggers about the race. There was one YouTube video by an Italian participant, and the auto-translation of the auto-generated captions did help me a bit in getting a general impression of the race and what to expect. During the two weeks leading right up to the event, there were many mass emails from the staff that reached me, all containing some information which didn’t seem overly relevant.

This is all fair because it’s a small event. I don’t mean to talk it down, I know how it is. My motivation here is just to offer some more information to the people who plan on running this race.

🏥 Just so you know, as with most (or all?) races in Italy and France, you need to submit a medical certificate to the race organizers confirming your general physical ability to run the race.

They want you to upload it but also bring the paper version. I did, but they never checked. This is a fun cultural study in my opinion. I can see the reasons behind it: You want to make sure no people sign up who run into major health issues or will fail miserably because they wrongly judge the difficulty of the race. But why do northern countries like Germany usually don’t require it? Are people in France in Italy maybe more prone to misjudge their own abilities and need to be reminded of the reality? Or, put positively, are French and Italians more courageous at trying these hard races?

🪜 My Preparation for the Race

I came into this spring season with the hardest marathon training plan I had yet done. My goal was to improve my city marathon personal best from 2:58:44 to around 2:49 hours. That failed due to an unluckily timed flu bringing me down, but a week after my goal marathon race I was still able to run a 2:55h at Barcelona Marathon in mid March. I was in real need of recovery after that, mostly because my left hamstring had some issues from all the speedy interval pounding on the flat asphalt, amplified by the influenza-fueled races. A singular session which a great physiologist helped.

The marathon training included no hill training at all, so I had just a few weeks left after Barcelona to get in some vert in the flat northern German region I live in. Some success was there, but it had been far from ideal. A week out from Tuscany, I ran a half marathon race helping my friend Mathias achieve a new personal best and coming out at 1:24:57 hours myself, just three minutes slower than my own personal best in the distance. The general running fitness was certainly present, just the really long training runs and hills were missing. I was still a bit worried about that hamstring, but hopped onto plane optimistically because of the long available time between race start and the closing of the finish line.

Of course I tried to do some finish time projections in my head, but you can never really hit the target with those. There are just too many unknown factors in long races. I concluded that based on what I knew about the race and myself, coming out with about fifteen hours would surely count as a good result. That would roughly correspond to an old rule of thumb: A 6:00 min/km / 9:40min/mi base average pace, adding one hour per 1,000 meters / 3,300 feet of gain, plus a buffer for aid stations and especially hard sections.

My easy pace is closer to 5:00 min/km / 8:00 min/mi these days, so I might have a chance to be even faster than that. I was quite keen to see what I could do here if I really stepped on the gas and tried to achieve a result that’s as good as possible for me, as opposed to just conservatively trying to finish. Having a backup qualifier race in late August, the CCC, allows for taking some risks.

With that 5:00 am race start, which I really appreciated in contrast to the usual late evening starts of other races I did, reaching the finish line before 8:00 pm sounded great. It would mean enough time being left in the day for proper dinner and a long night of recovery sleep. That would be a big luxury.

🏰 Tuscany Impressions

I had been here in the region before, but only touching it. All I can say is that the reality does justice to the public image it has. It really is that beautiful here. It was slightly sad I had to drive those two hours from Florence airport to the hotel in the complete dark.

Next up I made my way to the race center in the village of Castiglione d’Orcia. This is interesting because it’s the most important impression you’ll get of the race before the start. How professional is it, do the people care about the runners, do they actually know their stuff?

Under those few tents, vendors sold gels, sunglasses, running belts and the like. There was one who sold traditionally made almond sugar toffee, and since this is Italy and food is one of the proud specialties of the people, I bought it. No regrets, it’s been delicious. I was surprised that all purchases could be made via contactless payment – even in these rather remote villages. I didn’t expect that, but the future has caught up.

The volunteers who handed out the race bags including the bibs and gifts were super friendly. The two guys serving me were delighted that a German came all the way here and were eager to try out their foreign language skills on me. Astonished, I complied. They did great and gave me a few bits of information when I asked about the drop bag options and that was it. Checked in, ready to go.

I don’t know what the people down here in Italy do to their vegetables to make them so much more tasty than what we get at the grocery stores back home. Every time, the taste is worlds apart. My guess is they keep the best products for themselves and export only the average stuff – fair enough. But it also must have to do with the soil quality and sun hours in a year. And it also probably multiplies, because the zucchini will be marinated in the better tasting olive oil with the better tasting herbs and spices which were also grown in the area. Anyways, eating is one of my favorite things to do when coming to Italy.

For me it’s an early night of unrestfully excited sleep.

⏰ The Day of the Race

It’s Saturday, April 12th, 2025.

The alarm is set for 3:00 am but I wake up on my own quarter of an hour early. My internal clock knew it was time to go. My body is apparently not going to let me oversleep for something that’s this important.

I still feel full from all the food yesterday, so the carbo-loading must have gone well. I’ve got a half liter of electrolytes and some early-morning Coke as well as a cereal bar and a banana. I had prepared the running vest the evening before, so I just need to get dressed, generously apply the vaseline, and hop into the car for the thirty minute drive over to Castiglione d’Orcia.

At 4:00 am I reach the center with an hour to go before the race start. This is plenty. I put down my drop bag into the designated area. They will drive these over to the base vita, the “life base” aid station that’s located about 55 kilometers into the race, a bit over half way. I put some gels into it, new socks, blister patches, facial tissues, sunscreen, and a secret item I’ll reveal soon!

One of the staff has some last minute advice ready and talks for ten minutes, but it’s completely in Italian, so I understand nothing and just hope for the best. Fingers crossed I don’t miss anything highly important.

This is my first race where every participant gets their own active GPS tracker device to carry. These have a huge battery next to the GPS antenna, as well as a SIM card to connect to the mobile networks to live transmit the location data for everyone on the web to see. We’ve rented these for our own events “BremenSanktPauli” and “Grüner Ring 200” and I thought this is very cool. But I’ve never worn one myself.

We were instructed to turn on the device half an hour before race start so they could establish both connections, GPS and mobile network. I found a fitting pocket in my running vest that wasn’t obstructed to the sky so much.

Then, the main guy told us all to move over to the starting line.

Weather is great at around 10C / 50F with clear skies and no winds. I’m wearing three layers: A base layer, a functional shirt, and my trusty old Adidas Terrex jacket. A man from Seattle is next to me, about to do his first ultra in Europe. The vast majority here is from Italy, though.

As soon as the watch hits 5:00 am, we’re off.

🟢 Start of the Race

I’m super happy about this. The point of no return, no worries, just a release of energy. Full focus and enjoyment for the majority of the coming day, my personal meditative exercise.

Like many of the ultra trail races, it starts with a little bit of a traffic jam through the tiny streets of the village, but this soon resolves itself and wouldn’t become an issue later on. My guess is we were around 300 runners at this point, maybe a few more.

The course begins with a downhill, down from the mountain top village. My headlamp can remain turned off because those of the others are shining bright enough. I’m feeling very good, my legs are fine, I’m energized, the downhill is easy to do. On the flat passages I can easily do a 5:15 min/km pace and feel I’m quick on the uphills, too.

After around an hour, the first rays of sunlight are appearing. We’re coming through a little village in which everyone seems to be still asleep. This is all so pretty. It’s great to be able to finally see a bit more of the area.

The short street segments are guided by volunteers who take great care of the few cars which pass along, mostly because they are supporting runners.

🍪 The First Aid Station

After around fifteen kilometers, just short of ten miles, I reach the first aid station. And they have chosen a very pretty spot for it on a little hilltop.

Here, I would have enjoyed volunteering for hours as well. The variety of offerings isn’t huge, but this early into the race no one really needs a lot anyways. A short stop for me to refill both flasks – one with water, one with electrolytes, and I think I have a cup or two of Coke as well for the caffeine and sugar in it. Done in under a minute.

I am carrying eight gels of the MNSTRY brand which I have really gotten to like over my recent marathon training regiment. They have 40g of carbs per gel, just like the large Maurten ones, but at half the price. I took four of the neutral taste and four with 10% real mango in it. Delicious. On average, I eat one about every 1-1.5 hours I think. More doesn’t feel great in my stomach, I go by feel.

The point where the headlamp can go into the running vest is reached, which is always great. No more annoying wobbling on the forehead.

🌄 The Beauty Just Won’t End

There is a significant moment here. It’s all going great, I feel amazing doing what I love, the pace is good, and since the sun is almost fully out now the scenery is finally a lot more visible to me. This combination often has an emotional effect on me, and it does here as well. I am suddenly feeling this overwhelming gratitude for being able to experience this moment almost to the point of shedding a few tears of happiness. As far as I know only these intense races can provoke this feeling in me. And it usually only ever happens once per race for whatever reason.

The first few muddy single trail passages are done, but it’s mostly still very easy to run. It gets warmer so I put my jacket into the vest. The weather really is quite perfect for a long race.

I’m starting to pass a few hikers. I think the 103 kilometer hiking event started at midnight, five hours before us. Later on, I also come across many people who are hiking the 100 mile route, which started yesterday in the evening, so they have already been on their feet for the full night.

Three hours in, I reach a little creek with water flowing ankle deep. I knew about this before, but it’s also not really a surprise anyways in these races. A few hikers are standing in front of it, contemplating their best path of attack to stay dry. When you’re running and not hiking, cooling down the feet can feel quite nice, so I immediately storm into the waters. The stones are slippery, but it’s fine. The photographer who is positioned here is impressed with my determination.

We follow the river for a while on a variety of rocks. This reminds me of a section at Lavaredo that was particularly difficult because it went on for what felt like hours. Here, it’s done after maybe fifteen minutes. I also feel like I have more experience with uneven ground running, because it seems to me this isn’t that much of a challenge.

There’s a tricky passage where some runners in front of me are struggling to find the route signs, but since I have the track on my GPS watch I just follow the plotted line on it and storm by. They decide against following me, but possibly regretted that later. I think this is the first time I’m running an ultra race with a GPS watch capable of showing the full maps and navigational information on it. It’s really quite helpful and I am glad I decided to buy the COROS APEX Pro a few months back. Good investment.

I happen to take a look at the running stats at 40 kilometers (25 miles) in and it says only 4:12 hours have passed. Of the 3,600 meters of elevation gain, 1,200 meters are done. This is a lot better than I could have imagined and I can only attest this to the very forgiving route planning. It’s never hugely steep, really almost all of it is runnable for me, and the ground being so smooth does its part as well.

A spontaneous calculation results in the realization that extrapolating from this data, a finish time of less than twelve hours might even be on the table, three hours less than the fifteen hours I deemed to be a great result. Feeling a little bold, I quickly publish an Instagram story with that data and a poll asking if I should go for Sub-12h. You can imagine the responses.

But, of course, the race is far from over and a lot can and will happen to slow me down later on, I know that much. For now, I’m riding the wave of enthusiasm, a feeling that can be easily converted into good running output.

Almost all of the runners and hikers I meet greet me and I return the “ciao!” every time. By the end I must have said it close to a hundred times and perfected my pronunciation of it, if I might say so. Some of the runners also start talking to me in Italian. Sometimes I can get the gist of what they say and give a short positive reply, such as when they talk about my Hawaiian flower shirt, sometimes I have to ask them to repeat it in English, and a few times we start a conversation that way.

The most fun exchange happened when I passed by a group of elderly hikers. One of them turned around before I overtook them and looking at my shirt, exclaimed loudly: “ELEGANTISSIMO!”

As it often is, some of the runners I see more often than just once. I still am quite good on the uphills and rather bad and careful on the downhills. Runners who are the opposite of that are bound to see me a few times. Sometimes we joke about the close connection and familiarity we established that way.

😅 Finally It’s Getting Tougher

Somewhere between kilometers 45 and 50 I first notice some fatigue setting in. This is quite late into the race so I also realize how good it’s been going so far at the same time. It would have been impossible to do such a race without that tiredness appearing at some point. The fast 5:00-5:15 min/km (around 8:00 min/mi) pace isn’t really possible anymore on the flat stretches. I think through my options of improving the situation. I’m quite sure I’m on the upper limit of my body regarding my carbs intake, so that’s fine. There’s an oat bar in my vest – this is the time for it. Something to chew on.

But then I remember I have the saltstick pills! Of course! It’s warm now, I have sweated out lots of salts over the past few hours and the electrolyte mix offered at the aid stations tastes a bit too weak to replenish them all. So I swallow two of the pills and that must have been it. About half an hour later I feel a lot better. I like how a rational analyzation helps solve the problem at ultra races.

There’s an uphill stretch coming up until I reach the midway point, and a couple of kilometers later, the fourth and main aid station, located at another hilltop village.

🛟 The Life Base Aid Station at Campiglia d’Orcia

After about 55 kilometers, we now get some more food options as well as access to our drop bags.

I don’t feel like eating much here. My standard procedure is to refill both flasks and drink a few cups of either water or Coke, sometimes both. But having the drop bag here is great – I restock on my MNSTRY gels by putting four more into my vest as I’m sure that will be more than enough. I had six available in the bag. Another cereal bar from the bag into the vest.

But then, my new experimental drop bag routine starts. The order is important!

1. Applying sunscreen. It’s now 11:15 am, the sun is shining down without obstruction. We’re still under 20C / 70F and will stay there, but the hours of exposure add up. I use the LifeSystems Sport Sun Cream with an SPF of 50+, it has served me well on ultras. Other brands have stung in my eyes when mixed with sweat, this one hasn’t so far.
2. A vaseline topper. By now it’s clear which areas of my body chafe most, so this is the next step and a real easy one that reduces discomfort reliably.
3. THE NEW SECRET WEAPON: Ice gel. So simple yet so effective! I don’t know why I’ve so far never thought about it. From some earlier marathon starter bags I had a couple of sample single-use packets lying around at home which I now rubbed on my calves. The quads could’ve used some as well, but there wasn’t enough. And it immediately felt amazing – the ice-cold relief on the sore muscles! So good.

Now you might get why the order of those three items matters. You don’t want to have ice gel on your face or, beware, your privates. And vaseline wouldn’t be great on the face either. It’s very important to thoroughly clean the hands after applying the ice gel, which is why I had put facial tissues into the drop bag, too. One accidental eye rub could mean tears streaming down your face for an hour.

I’m very pleased with this new routine and will surely repeat it during the next big ultra race.

Even though I hurried up, I must’ve spent nearly ten minutes at this aid station total, which is a lot. With eight aid stations, the time adds up. Sure, this was the biggest one and the drop bag cost me most of the time, but still – taking your time during aid stations will add a big chunk to your finish time for sure. And since today I had planned to give it my best shot at a good finish, it mattered to me. It is something worth optimizing.

The route out of the aid station leads through the village’s narrow foot paths between the central buildings and it’s again a moment of awe for me. Such a beautiful part of the world. I miss a right turn and as I look at my watch to see where I went wrong, a guy behind me shouts and shows me the right way. We talk for a while. He’s from Treviso, an hour outside of Venice, but also had never done this race before. But we were both at Lavaredo. His English is great. But as we’re leaving the village, which was located at a hilltop, meaning the road leading out of it is a big downhill, he storms away. As stated, I need to work on my downhill technique and quite possibly also my quad strength. I see the kettle bell lunges in my future.

Half an hour after the big aid station, there’s another creek crossing, but this time it’s a tiny one.

Putting on new socks at the drop bag aid station just before wouldn’t have brought a huge advantage now that the feet are already wet again. It really doesn’t matter.

A bit later, it suddenly smells of sulfur. What’s that?

There are natural hot springs! We’re running around the Balena Bianca, the “White Whale” limestone that has formed near the village of Bagni San Filippo. People in swim suits are soaking in the naturally warm water here. The intrusive thought of stopping the race and jumping in with them appears and disappears from my brain.

I later found out that it’s free to use for everyone, which I think is great and also just the right way. A natural occurrence like this shouldn’t cost money to enjoy. Many years back I found it appalling when we were visiting the Grand Canyon in Arizona and were not only asked to pay an entrance fee, but also had to go on a special bus to see it, for no reason at all except to enrich some people who happened to live around this naturally formed area for a while. Well done by the local Italian government here to resist the temptation.

🌳 Mixed Feelings When Entering the Forest

As you can see, the look of the scenery as switched from those green meadows and cypress trees to a more dense forest area. This happens when entering the last third of the race, about 65 kilometers or 40 miles in. I preferred the big views of before, but I can see the advantages that the leafy roof above has: The sun is less of a problem and there are no winds at all passing through the trees. Sometimes the smell of freshly cut wood appears out of nowhere, I love that. But this area isn’t as unique as the big part before. A forest like this could have been anywhere on the planet. And to top it, the biggest climb is here. We’re going up to just above 1,000 meters (3,300 ft), although it doesn’t feel much different from the climbs before, just longer. Arriving at the top, there’s no great view to enjoy, because we’re still in the forest!

The Vivo d’Orcia aid station is located shortly after reaching the highest point.

The volunteers here were making a barbecue, offering grilled chicken wings, sausages, and other meats. I imagine this must have been very welcome for many runners, but as a vegetarian I enjoyed the olive oil soaked bread a lot, too.

The water for refilling our bottles came right from a hand-operated well next to a little wooden shed and tasted so fresh and clean. A lot better than that old water from inside the sun-exposed plastic tanks.

What goes up must come down, so the next bit was a drawn-out downhill through the forest. It got a bit more technical from time to time and my sore quads didn’t like it that much.

The attractiveness of the route went down and stayed there. For the reasons mentioned, I feel like it would have a been a better race if the course direction was reversed. The big climb through the forest at the beginning in the dark and the beautiful and easy rolling hills later when the legs are done and each additional little climb comes with breathtaking views as a reward.

It doesn’t matter that much though and it certainly isn’t enough to break my spirit. I’m still enjoying myself a lot. I noticed that the aid station locations aren’t corresponding very well to the kilometers I’ve tracked on my watch, so sometimes an aid station appears unexpectedly and sometimes I had been longing for it for 3-4 kilometers already, running on empty supplies. The later into the race, the thirstier I seem to get. No surprise there. Meanwhile I have taken another two saltstick pills which probably added to the thirst. Bread and olive oil is an aid station favorite of mine, neutralizing the salt and sugar in my mouth really well.

Having the track on my GPS watch has another benefit except to always make sure I’m on the right path: The displayed elevation profile helps me to plan my strength expenditure for the upcoming uphills and downhills well. I also always have a look when switching from a longer uphill back to downhill or a rare flat passage, because this helps to know when it makes sense to store the foldable poles in my quiver.

The fight intensifies. I don’t really slide into another low, it just continuously gets harder. Somewhere here around the 80k mark my ambitious idea of breaking twelve hours is thrown off the table. These forest trails are taking too much time and I haven’t got the legs to push on hard anymore. It’s fine because I also know that what’s left isn’t that difficult anymore and no surprises will come. I’ll still be able to finish in a lot less time than the fifteen hours I had in mind before. That’s a huge win to me. I’m very happy that my left hamstring doesn’t give me any trouble whatsoever so far. During the flat fast running of the previous weeks it had been an issue and gave me a slight headache, but it turns out that trail running is the cure. Good to know!

🧘 Getting Tired and Losing Focus

The downhill is really taking a long time. From its peak near kilometer 74 to about 93, it’s making up nearly 20 kilometers or 12 miles. The pounding adds up and the feet and toes are not too happy about that. Thinking about it now, I realize that so far I don’t think I’ve given myself a new black toenail. That’s cool! Usually that happens during every ultra trail I’ve done. It’s not a big deal and most ultra runners have experienced it as well, but it can be a bit annoying.

Ironically though, at 87 kilometers into the race, I painfully hit my left big toe on a huge fixed stone sticking out of the ground on a downhill.

I stumble slightly but can maintain the running while shouting “CRAP!” to no one since I’m alone here.

I immediately know that this will result in a dark black toenail. On the big toe, that’s especially unlucky. But what can you do. The pain is manageable, so obviously I continue on running. I’m only paying attention to it to feel if the toes are getting wet – because that would mean blood and maybe then a different strategy or a short break to open up my tiny first aid kit would be the sensible thing to do. But so far, it doesn’t feel wet so I’m good for now.

Just a couple kilometers later, another larger stone unluckily hits a smaller toe on my right foot, and internally I laugh as I realize that this will be the second black toenail for sure.

It certainly has to do with the diminished focus this late into the race. But I also think that my choice of shoes are a factor. Although my La Sportiva Prodigio are good shoes in general, I could try and optimize this by getting shoes with a thicker upper at the front, offering more protection in the next race.

Ultra trail running is one giant equation to be solved.

But that’s one huge aspect of it that I like.

A few more short asphalt road stretches follow and I’m really thankful for those as they require no focus at all. My feet can just do their thing. Thanking the volunteers who guide the traffic and compliment my choice of shirt, while I can take a short big breather.

I reach the penultimate aid station after 89 kilometers. It had been noted as being located at 87, so those past two kilometers have been a real test of patience for me. When will it appear? Or did they make a mistake, is there no aid station? Did I miss it? I’m really glad when I arrive, just over eleven hours into the race.

This is a lot of time. And since I never listen to music or anything else during an ultra race in order to be aware of my whole surroundings as best as possible, my brain sometimes decides to play some music for me. This is really weird, because the songs it chooses don’t particularly suit the situation, nor are they favorites of mine. Still, they play on repeat in my head for the good part of an hour. Today, one of the songs was Linkin Park’s “In the End”, a song with a very sad message which I really don’t want to hear today. Linkin Park’s music also always reminds me of the singer’s suicide and that makes me even more sad. A few hours later, I’m glad my brain replaced the song with The Lonely Island’s “I Just Had Sex” – which couldn’t have been further from the truth so it didn’t fit the situation at all, but at least it’s an upbeat and fun one.

I take a look at my watch accidentally right when it turns over from 99.99 kilometers to the big 100. That’s always so cool to witness.

When I don’t play music in my head, I like to calculate my pace and try to make an estimate of my finish time. With the twelve hours mark having passed, I’m nearing thirteen and give it a real effort to make it in less than that and for a long time it’s looking really good.

But I made a mistake. I didn’t account for the finish line to be located at the same spot as the start of the race, in the hilltop village of Castiglione d’Orcia.

“Oh yes, of course. Oh nooo!” is what’s going through my head now. Just three kilometers left but they involve a 300 meter climb – nearly 1,000 feet! With a current elapsed time of 12:45 hours, that’s impossible for me. On the plus side, my body does prefer an uphill to a downhill. And since this is my strong suit, I power-hike my way up there with my poles for one last time and even pass another runner on the way who has this nearly resigned look on his face. He has no response to my passing by.

The last few hundred meters of the race lead slightly downhill towards the finish line, which helps us all save face because we can run across the line and don’t have to walk. This looks a lot better, of course.

🏁 Ending on a Literal High

The hilltop location, but also the big runner’s high make for a great combination. No one is coming from behind trying to overtake me on the last few meters, so I get to really enjoy my moment coming through the gate, announced by my name by an enthusiastic guy.

Such a great feeling! It never gets old.

They hand me a terracotta medal which looks handmade. Same color and material as many of the houses in the region. What a lovely touch!

Here’s my Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/14157386049

My official time is 13:22:49 hours, which I’m more than happy about. Sure, it’s not the ridiculously fast Sub-12, but it’s far better than my fifteen hour estimate. Right in the middle of both, actually. With this result, I’ve placed 40th out of 172 male finishers. Not counting the bunch who quit the race at some point. It means I’ve left 76% of all male finishers behind me. I’m really proud of that position in the field and I think that must have been my best relative result of the now four completed WSER qualifier races I’ve done. I’m getting better! The male winner only took 9:22:56 hours, by the way. What a beast.

I’m pretty sure I could’ve gone Sub-12 here had I done a specific training block for this race. That would have been 14th place today. When thinking about that, I would really love to try my luck at that in the upcoming years. It’s a blessing and a curse that we have such a huge selection of awesome races here in central Europe, so I will probably try a few more new ones before heading back here, but Tuscany is definitely high on my list of races to do once more.

A few guys are sitting here next to the finish line having also just finished, so we congratulate each other before I slowly walk toward the race center hall. Inside, the winner’s ceremony is taking place right now, but I am smiling euphorically, so happy about my result, that I can’t comprehend anything that happens there right now. When I see the drop bag area I remember that I had also put two fresh shirts into it, which I now gladly switch with my sweaty shirt to stay warm. It’s cloudy now and has gotten significantly colder. Free pasta for all finishers, delicious.

Around half an hour later I summon up the courage to wobble back to my parked car where I finally remove the shoes and socks. To my surprise, the toes look a lot worse than I thought. I was sure I “only” added two black toenails, but now I see that three ones have turned black and a fourth one is halfway there, as well. In addition to that, the big toe looks really bad. I’m not sure the nail will survive and there’s a bit of fresh blood around the nail root. Now I finally feel the swelling of it and it starts to throb as well. This is going to require some attention, I think. But that’s just ultra trail running. Nothing extraordinary. I’m again surprised by how well I was able to run with those toes. Mind over matter, every time.

✅ The Verdict and the Aftermath

All in all, this has been an amazing event. I’m super happy about how it went. Selecting this race was a smart move, but I also got quite lucky that it actually was such a great race in the end. A certain 10/10. If they reversed the course like I suggested, it’ll be a 11/10.

In addition, I think that decreasing the Western States qualifying time would be a good idea. People who walk this race in the allowed 21 hours would quite probably not be tested well enough to make it to the Western States finish line within the 30 hours they allow for 100 miles with 5,000 meters of climb and 7,000 meters of descent (16,400 and 23,000 feet). One aspect of these qualifiers should be to give people an idea of what a task would await them in California, and from what I hear this isn’t comparable. I’d advise to reduce the time from 21 to 18 hours.

Other than those two tiny things, Tuscany Crossing is awesome.

After the short drive home I’m really happy about the additional time my fast finish gave me. This way I made it on time into the hotel’s restaurant, freshly showered, where I threw three whole main courses into my body. The burned calories and nutrients need to be refilled!

Falling into the bed at a reasonable time feels amazing as well.

The next day streak run, not so much.

The pain in the throbbing toe is definitely there, I can’t ignore it. All the leg muscles are super sore and don’t appreciate me running, but once I overcame that reluctance and got into some sort of a very slow rhythm, it was okay. It always is.

The easy two hour drive to Florence was highly relaxing, but not because of the Italian car driving mentality. I learned that it’s a unspoken rule to always drive 30 km/h faster than the speed limit if you would prefer not to get harassed by other drivers. My legs enjoyed the rest in the car, but then I had two extra hours in Florence, and I wouldn’t let them pass by without doing some exploration. It’s been about twenty years since I last visited the city center.

The drive, the extensive Florence walking and the two planes back home didn’t do well for my muscle recovery and arriving in Hamburg it did not feel great. Very swollen, full of stored water because of the electrolyte imbalance, and especially the toe was an issue. In retrospect I’m pretty sure I broke it, but I didn’t go to a doctor to confirm that. It took around two weeks for the toe to really get better, just as the last time I broke a toe, confirmed by X-ray.

Still, it’s all been worth it.

The body heals and the issues disappear. The memory of the great race remains.

🚰 Recovery: Hydrate Like It’s Your Job

For the two days following the race I made sure to eat whenever I was hungry and drink as much as possible to aid in recovery. I easily spent between 8,000 and 10,000 calories on race day and the eight gels I had only added up to just over 1,000 of those. With all the Coke and aid station foods, I might have made it to 3,000 total. Another 2,000 for the three meals in the evening. This still leaves me with a huge deficit. It’s fun to spend the whole day just eating whatever I feel like—and plenty of it. I think I did a good job at it. But the water storage in my legs felt weird this time. Two days after the race it was at its peak and I weighed in at 2kgs / 4.5 pounds over my normal weight. That disappeared over the next few days.

I spent special attention to my muscle recovery this time. I was wondering if this would get easier with every ultra trail race I do, but I now believe that the old saying is true instead:

“It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.”

If I now start doing more leg strength exercises and specific run training for the next ultras, I’ll probably have to deal with the same amount of muscle soreness afterwards, but I will have spent less time in the races. Still a worthwhile thing to do, I guess. I’m curious if there are some people out there who have figured out reliable ways to recover really fast from a race like this one. I would presume it would need to involve running a lot slower than you are actually capable of if giving it your best shot. When I run a city marathon at half an hour slower than I can, I barely notice my muscles the next day, as well. But maybe I’m missing something.

Two days after the race, I reached peak soreness and walking down stairs was horrible. I needed to use my hands on the railings a lot and would really have liked to own crutches. Three days after, I noticed progress, the muscles felt like they were healing. On day four I could go down stairs without holding onto the railings, but slowly. On the fifth day I felt like the general soreness was down to around 20% if its peak was at one hundred.

📝 Note to Self: Things I’ve Learned

• More socks, more vaseline: Wearing two pairs of socks over each other might be a better choice. Here, I just had one pair – different from what I did at previous races. More vaseline on the toes might also help shield the skin from damage.
• Drop bag appreciation: The ice gel in my drop bag was amazing. In general, making use of a drop bag is a good idea, it doesn’t matter if you end up not using what’s in it. Looking forward to it during the kilometers leading up to it is part of that.
• Quiver attachment: I struggled a bit with the attachment of my quiver for the poles on my running vest. It was difficult to get the poles back into it. I need to look for some other approaches of more experienced runners.
• Find savory cereal bars: I had a sweet cereal bar during the race, but apart from the advantage of having something to chew for a change, it didn’t do much for me because of its sweetness. Most of those bars are super sweet. I’d like a savory or neutral tasting one.
• Shoe optimization: More protection for the toes, more cushioning and maybe a rock plate. I wonder if the carbon-plated trail shoes are so stiff that you don’t feel single stones underneath, such as when using a rock plate. It’s really hard finding the perfect shoes. Maybe I should instead just lower my bar and learn to get along with okay shoes.
• Preparation: More strength training for the quads, especially lunges. I think that might also be the solution to my previous hamstring issues. The muscles come in pairs and the antagonist muscle must be trained in such a case. Such as when you have back pain, weak abdominal muscles are often the cause. Then, some more hill repeats would have helped me. On the long run aspect of the training I think with my marathons I was doing well, but an additional 60k in hilly terrain wouldn’t have hurt and might have prepared my toes for the pounding some more as well.
• Recovery: I mostly did well here, but I was getting a bit too impatient over the days. Next time, I need to really take my time for my central nervous system to recover. Take more naps, do more Wim Hof breathing – too late I realized how beneficial that’s been to me in recovery. Taking more hot baths and cold showers. I did it a bit, but I should’ve gone all in.

The toe is still slowly growing back together but the pain had mostly disappeared about two weeks later. Incidentally, that was the day of the Hamburg Marathon, my tenth time at that particular race. It has been a great rebound from the ultra and I quite proudly finished it in 3:09 hours. With the toe emitting some blood into my white Alphafly racing shoes. I wasn’t fully recovered for the marathon yet, but now writing this, three weeks after Tuscany, I feel good as new and ready to do some real speed work again. This is quite fast compared to my former ultras. So I guess there is some progress in recovery over the years, too.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post – let me know what you think! Coming up in late August, you can see how well I will be able to transfer these lessons into reality when I’ll do the legendary CCC – Courmayeur (IT) via Champex-Lac (CH) to Chamonix (FR) around the Mont-Blanc mountain range. Subscribe to the newsletter just below here so you won’t miss it.