Good Morning Fully VK 📈
Updated: Sep 20, 2021
Story
I found Fully VK while scrolling in Strava feed from a fellow runner. I researched a bit and found that is the place where the fastest vertical kilometre in the world and there is yearly an official competition. Current record is set by the Italian 🇮🇹 Philip Goetsch with 28 min 53s.
A few weeks later I was planning some bike rides setting as a base Martigny. While checking the map I realized that Fully VK was in the surroundings. Days will filled in with rides and one day remote office 👨💻.
Checking trains I could that was just a 3 min train ride and earliest option would be at 05:18 which will let me with roughly 3 hours for the commuting, go up and down and shower. Looks possible, Let's do it!
I set the alarm shortly before 5am and made it on time to the 5:18 train in Martigny and jump in the next stop "Charrat-Fully". From there I had 2.40 kms warm up to the start point. The sun was not out but there was enough light and the temperature was perfect to make a bit of exercise. From here I read at the info available at the start, looked at the beginning of it and start the watch ⏱️.
From here was just me, my heart rate spiking, lactate in the mouth and seeing how slowly the 100m, 200m, 300m signs pass by 😂. Halfway there is a short tunnel. I disturbed the sleep of a group of ibex who where inside, they soon run away leaving some rocks fall and speeding up as they go on the steep trail.
Every step I did, it came to my mind what I read about the 50% average and the up to 60% inclination of the trail. I'm a freak of numbers 🔢 and elevation 📶 and in my runs I check how many meters up or down I do within a kilometre. Usually I would consider very steep when it goes 180m up over 1 kilometre and I think I've never seen anything above 280m up over 1 kilometre. But here I could see how I went over 400m in the first kilometre and over 500 in the second kilometre.
Finally I made it to the top and enjoyed the views a bit while waiting my heart to stop wanting to go out of my rib cage. Soon I started my way down following some trails and fire roads, I didn't take the shortest one to allow myself to run 🏃 a bit on the winding fire road going down. At this time the sun was starting to raise above the mountains showing me a nice sunrise.
The way down , including the section to the same train station 🚉 was almost 9 kms. That was a short but very intense exercise before starting work 👨💻.
Key figures
Distance: 1.92 kilometres
Elevation: 1000 meters
What you need?
Trail running shoes
Helmet (officially required)
Poles (optional)
Some water depending on temperatures
Resources
GPX
Fully_VK_1000m_
.gpx
Download GPX • 422KB