RUNNERS HIGH
Three- quarters of an hour, two beers and one unisex changing room later and I’m sitting on the dazzlingly bright terrace of Restaurant Hotel Niesen-kulm, taking it all in. It’s an extraordinary spot. I never imagined that the ESB Run-up would be bettered for stop-and-gawp finish-line impact, but the summit o f the Swiss P yramid, a s the Niesen is fondly known, is out on its own. I have a pilot’s-eye view of the cloud-dappled valley floor far below, yet sit above the cloud line. There’s the visceral thrill of knowing that I’ve got all the way up here under my own steam; and it’s not often you get to run a ( linear) race for 90- odd minutes yet can still make out the start line when you’re done.
The race is won by 25- year- old Jonathan Schmid, in what must surely have been an infuriating one hour and 20 seconds. A quick chat with the tall Swiss confirms as much. ‘ I really wanted to break the hour mark,’ he says, mustering an unconvincing smile. Second is Friedrich Dahler, a man with some serious vertical pedigree – he holds the world record for the most metres climbed in 24 hours (20,407m). It’s pretty much a rule, I’ve found, that whenever you do something extreme, there’s always someone who’s way out in front of you on the scale.
Prizes are handed out in a low-key ceremony on the terrace (fourth, Silas Walther, gets the OdorEaters) and everyone settles down to eat, drink and recover. I sit with Bruno and race organiser Urs Wohler, a jovial bear of a man. Bruno, who loves this mountain so much he wrote a book about it – Derniesenundseinebahn (there’s a chapter on
the race) – regales us with stories of Francisco Sanchez’s record-breaking ascent in 1991. ‘He had incredible power,’ he enthuses. ‘He was like an antelope – it was the Niesenbahn’s “were you there?” moment.’
I quiz Urs about expansion of the race, whose limited places are known to sell out quickly. There’s clearly scope to internationalise it: the highest-placed non-swiss runner is 38th, and I’m one of just three Brits among 227 finishers. Rather than just a few hours a year, why not take the railway over for a day? Make a party of it? Have music at the top? A festival atmosphere? Clearly, I’ve had too much beer.
Urs indulges me but isn’t entirely convinced. A bigger field would have its benefits, sure, but at what price to this race’s considerable charm?
I speak to Patrick Gallagher on my return to the UK. He’s a huge fan of the Niesenbahn stair race, but sees the event as something of an anomaly on the circuit (‘uniquely different’, he calls it), though an important component in raising the profile of the sport – and in helping it to earn the respect he believes it deserves.
‘ It does annoy me the way that stair running is treated in some quarters,’ he says. ‘I’ve seen races screened on TV with commentators treating it as an absolute running joke. But that doesn’t make any sense: the men and women at the top level of the sport are 30-minute 10K runners. And I can tell you this: it’s certainly not a joke for anyone who has trained for one, or who has actually stepped up and done one.’
As I finish my beer, collect my sodden kit and join the queue for the Niesenbahn’s long, slow, treacherously steep descent, I can certainly vouch for that.