Borås Ultra Marathon

Taking a Ryde electric scooter up to Skatås shortly after 7 am, I met about fifty other runners ready to take on the 91 kilometres to Borås. While the trail turned out to be 94 kilometres in reality with 1,937 of elevation gain, and only 32 of us would make it all the way in the heat, I had an incredible day on trails old and new as we first followed Vildmarksleden to Hindås and then Sjuhäradsleden to Borås. For the first 42 km, I felt strong and thrilled to run in my new “Deep Atlantic” Salomon Ultra Glide 2 but, as always, there has to be a certain measure of hardship to every ultra. In this case, I started to feel intense nausea as the afternoon wore on. 

Sparing you the details, suffice to say that I had to walk much of the last 30 kilometres, before finishing well ahead of the cut-off in 13 hours and 54 minutes. Once in Borås, I had booked a hotel right in the middle of town with lots of loud partying going on outside, not that it mattered much as I could not really sleep anyway due to a wild hiccup. But, walking through Borås in the early morning hours, I felt so grateful for having yet another ultra in the books, and even more respect for all the people running those 100 miles mountain races.