From Maria Dalzot’s blog – The Journey of a Thousand Miles, comes her race report on the World Long Distance Running Championships on July 4, 2015.

Usually I can produce a race report within 48hours after finishing a race. However, it has been almost a week since the Zermatt Marathon, host of the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships in Zermatt, Switzerland, and I have just now started this report. There are so many memories, emotions and reflections that it has been difficult to get started on trying to organize them all in one blog post.

Tad and I had the good fortune to go to Europe 2.5 weeks prior to the race in order to adjust to the time change, become comfortable with the increase in altitude and – *TMI alert*, for my bowels to reset before race morning. For anyone who has traveled internationally you can understand the frustration of constipation, let alone having to run a marathon with 7,000 feet of vertical gain at altitude.

Our first stop was in San Vito, Italy just outside of Cortina to train in the awe-inspiring Dolomites. We were there just a week before the The North FaceLavaredo Ultra Trail race. From the Dolomites we moved to majestic Mont Blanc in Chamonix, France and fortuitously became spectators of the Mont Blanc Vertical KM. The week before the race we stayed in Grachen, Switzerland with Mario Mendoza who was on the men’s team and Jade Ice his fiancé.  Grachen is a small town at about 5000 ft on the side of a mountain that towers over St. Niklaus where the start of the marathon takes place. Our pre-race adventures were so spectacular that we are already planning a return visit to any or all of these places next year…

To read the rest of her report go HERE.
Photo cred: Tad Davis