Engelberg 100km

Sam Blakeman
Aug 27
9 min read

Updated: Aug 30

On 23/08/25 I took part in the RunThrough Trails 100km race in Engelberg. This was my longest sporting event to date, taking around 21 hours to complete. Below I talk through some of my thoughts and feelings before, during and after the race.

Before

When mentioning that you are considering a mountain Ultra to friends and family you will typically be met with the inevitable 'but why?' question. It is easier to answer this question with something simple like:

I want to push myself
I want to find my limits
I like to have a goal to work towards
I want to see how I deal with hard things

but I often find from person to person it can be more complex than this and it is a mixture of motivations that are deeply personal to them. In all honesty, it can often be hard to know ourselves exactly why we are willing to put ourselves through such an ordeal.

For myself, I have struggled with the 'why' a lot over the last couple of years. Having done a 75km race in the Dolomites in 2022 I have spent the following years avoiding ultra distances and enjoying short trail races (10-30km). Indeed I am not sure why this year I signed up for the Engelberg 100km at all. Perhaps coming to an end of a long-term project at work, or the conquering of personal struggles had something to do with it. Either way in the days leading up to the event I was struggling with the 'why'. A large part of me didn't see the need to put myself through such a painful experience:

In 2022 completing an ultra meant everything to me. It felt like a goal I had to complete to feel like I was tough, that I was extraordinary, that I wasn't a fraud. In short, it felt like my value as a person was very much tied up in completing that event. However, this time I felt like a very different person. I didn't see the need to complete the event in order to prove anything. Whether I did it or not seemed to genuinely not bother me, I would still be the same person. I think this comes from being more at peace with oneself and working to not tie up my own value in sporting endeavours.
I was concerned that such a big event would damage my body and prevent me from doing what I love on a regular basis - running. This fear of injury was very strong and it felt pointless to put myself in harms way just to complete an arbitrary event.
Recently I have been more and more aware that my love of sport and running has been a form of addiction. This became particularly apparent in the build up to this event. My partner and I had booked a holiday directly after the event and I found my brain saying 'you need to do this event in order to earn a relaxing holiday without running'. This seemed like a dangerous thought and to do the event would almost feel like giving in to this addictive mindset.

Despite these 'cons' and reasons not to do the race I also identified some 'pros' that felt like genuine reasons to show up at the start line:

My partner had also signed up to the event and in the lead up we had been very excited to share the experience together. It is very rare that you get the chance to share such a thing with someone you love and to miss such an opportunity felt like a real waste.
Similarly, my physical health was good and training had gone relatively well. There were countless times in previous years where I would have wished to be in such a position. It seemed a real waste to not make the most of being physically able to show up at the start line and have a genuine a chance of success.
As mentioned above, I felt like I have worked hard to associate my value less with the sport I do. As a result I felt like this was a very interesting opportunity to experience an ultra from a completely different point of view than the 75km in 2022. How would I find the experience if I was less focused on the end goal and more on the actual day itself? Would I even be driven to finish the race when it got difficult? Would my more relaxed mindset actual lead to a more positive experience?
Finally, from experience I could see that my fear of not being able to run after the race was more a form of health anxiety than a valid concern. I had done the training, I was planning a long period of rest afterwards and if I never did things that had potential risk to my health then I would miss out on so many experiences in life. This is something I know I have to regularly fight against. If injury were to happen then I have to have the confidence that I could deal with it in a graceful way. It actually felt like this was the addictive mindset trying to speak up because it knew it needed regular running.

Taking all these things into consideration, I ultimately decided to show up on race day and give it a try. In particular, I went in wanting to focus on sharing the experience with my partner, staying as present as possible (i.e. not fixating on the finish) and not putting pressure on myself to complete the race if I found the motivation was not there.

During

The race started at 6am with a total time-limit of 24 hours. Standing on the start line with my partner I felt relaxed and happy. I wasn't really thinking too much about what was to come but instead focusing on the atmosphere and the beautiful surroundings. The event was organised by an English company and so it was really nice to hear so many voices from home (England). As soon as the start gun went off, we ran the loop around town together and then started the first big climb. I had already agreed with my partner that we would set off at our own paces at this point and that we would send each other regular voice notes to let each other know how we were finding the experience.

The first half of the race during the day was a really enjoyable experience. It felt like just one big adventure and I was in my happy place in among the mountains. The scenery was fantastic, my body felt okay and I managed to speak to several fellow runners. At half way a friend (who had done one of the shorter races) met me to give me some encouragement, which was much appreciated and gave me a real boost. We even ran a couple of kms together which was a novel experience as it felt like I had my own road crew and pacer. One thing I packed in my bag at halfway was a massage gun and I can 100% recommend this as a way to revitalise your legs at half-way.

As the night came things got noticeably more difficult but I still felt strong and believed that I could finish strong and conquer the ultra distance in a way I didn't think was possible. However, as is common with these things the truly difficult times were just around the corner. At around 11pm with about 20km left the wheels began to fall off. Bouts of nausea, sharp pain in my knee and the inability to eat anymore made this the toughest finish to a race I have ever experienced. Running downhill in particular become extremely painful and my rate of progress slowed rapidly as people began to pass me. I was also experiencing sharp pain in my shoulder, which meant that in the end I had to tuck my arm into my vest as a make shift sling to take the weight off it.

For the first time in the race I wondered if I could cover the ground quick enough to beat the cut-off and complete the race. This was a difficult change in mindset for me. For most of the race I had felt very competent but suddenly I was questioning if I could do it. I was starting fixate on the finish and how many kilometres and hours I had left before I could stop. Conditions were also becoming difficult with temperatures dropping rapidly and thick cloud coming in that meant it felt like you were running inside a freezing steam room. This also caused visibility with the head lamp to drop and the whole experience felt a little like a sensory deprivation chamber.

Fortunately, I knew I only had a few hours to survive if I kept moving forward. My partner was also having a very similar experience; feeling strong up to 80km and then suffering with a multitude of painful issues that slowed her down. However, we kept sending each other small voice notes and this really really helped. I would reward myself at the end of each tough section by listening to her latest voice note. To know someone was out there sharing the experience really did help dramatically.

Eventually the finish came into view and I managed to hobble over the finish line to finish with several hours to spare. In the end, this moment of finishing felt very empty. I thought I would get emotional (like when I thought about the finish earlier in the race) but instead I just slumped into a chair and waited for my partner to finish with very little thoughts going through my head. Its funny how this moment is often romanticised in youtube videos and other forms of media. For me it was nothing like that. Perhaps it was just the brain shutting down with low energy but I think maybe it was because for large parts of the race I thought I would finish and only questioned if it was possible at the very end. If I had thought it was impossible from the very start then I can imagine I would have felt a much greater sense of elation upon finishing. To be honest I don't know where my confidence came from for large parts of the race.

After

Now I am writing this blog post several days after finishing while enjoying a relaxing holiday devoid of all running and exercise. The dust has finally started to settle and some emotions are coming through after having very few of them immediately after finishing. The last few days have been strange, it feels as if the event has left me quite raw and I just want to enjoy the small things much more.

One of the big take ways was how much better the experience was being able to share it with people. Previously I think I have been quite individualistic and isolated myself when doing these kinds of things. However this time I had voice notes from partner, support from a close friend and long chats with other competitors. These all made the experience so much richer and it felt like it took the weight off my own shoulders in some way. However, talking to other competitors I did find that many of them do many of these kinds of events and dedicate much of their life to it. This has got me intrigued in their motivations and whether its possible to have a balanced life and mindset while pursuing these kinds of events.

Aside from the connections with others, I am truly amazed looking back that the human body is capable of such a feat. To move for that long and cover that distance in a single go really is amazing. Even more amazing is that after 3 days I can pretty much walk normally again! The only remaining issue I have is a sore shoulder but this seems to be improving each day, I certainly didn't think a shoulder would be my main issue afterwards! Nevertheless, the whole experience has definitely made me feel like I am capable of more than I thought that and that even the most difficult things are survivable.

Looking forward I have no desire to sign up to a similar event in the near future. I am grateful for the experience but the amount of mental energy it takes to put yourself through is not something I feel like I can make a habit of. It almost feels like my mental battery has been completely emptied and I need to re-charge it. Perhaps after a few years that feeling disappears and I feel the need to challenge myself and explore that space again.

For now, I feel satisfied with completing the race and I am excited to focus on other parts of my life that have maybe been sacrificed in the lead-up to the event. From a sporting perspective, I definitely enjoyed the training runs with my partner much more than the race itself and I think moving forward I will prioritise our own smaller adventures. From a non-sporting perspective, in a weird way the race has inspired me to make changes in other parts of my life that on the surface seem difficult but that could greatly improve my quality of life. While small, an example of this is to engage in my electronic devices less and focus more on reading books, writing blog posts like this and learning German.