There are two ways to approach your first trail race. You can spend months researching every climb, memorising GPX files, watching POV footage and convincing yourself you know exactly what’s coming. Or you can do what I did and book a flight to Romania having never raced on a trail in your life, armed with little more than an optimistic training plan and a cousin who assured me it’d be “a good one to start with”.
That cousin was Max. Years ago he introduced me to structured marathon training and has been my running sounding board ever since. Somewhere along the way he left Britain for Boulder, Colorado, where becoming a trail runner is almost compulsory. He’s since settled in Berlin, but the obsession with mountains has remained. So when he suggested meeting in Transylvania for the Transylvania100, alongside his girlfriend Corinna and a handful of runners from their Berlin run club, it sounded far too interesting to turn down. Within an hour of first speaking with Max about this race I’d entered the 30-kilometre discipline.
Looking back, I’m glad I knew almost nothing about it.
These days we’re conditioned to consume experiences before we’ve actually had them. You can scroll through every corner of a destination before you arrive, watch race recaps from every possible angle and read endless advice from people you’ve never met. By the time you get there, very little is left to discover for yourself. I wanted Romania to remain Romania, not a place I’d already visited through someone else’s Instagram account. I’d started reading an old race report a few weeks before travelling, but stopped after a couple of paragraphs. I decided I’d rather be surprised. That decision made Bran feel all the more special.
Most people know it because of the castle. Dracula has done a decent job for local tourism over the years, regardless of how historically accurate any of it might be, but the village itself is quieter than I expected. Small guesthouses sit beneath the castle walls, farm tracks disappear into rolling fields and everything beyond that is dominated by the Carpathian Mountains, which spend much of their time disappearing behind thick cloud. The town belongs to the landscape it exists within.
I flew into Brașov airport, which appears to have been dropped into the middle of a field with the expectation that everything else would sort itself out later. The first thing that greeted me wasn’t spectacular scenery but the familiar smell of agriculture. Growing up in rural Lancashire meant it felt oddly comforting. Romania, it turned out, smelled remarkably like home. Unfortunately my navigation skills travelled less well.
Within minutes of leaving the airport I’d managed to board entirely the wrong bus, embarking on an unplanned tour of villages I’d never intended to visit. It wasn’t the most efficient start to the trip, but it did reinforce one important point. I was somewhere completely unfamiliar, which was exactly what I’d wanted.
Once I’d finally arrived in Bran, the days before the race settled into a comfortable rhythm. Easy runs through the surrounding lanes, plenty of food and the sort of wandering that only happens when you’re in no particular rush to be anywhere. The roads quickly gave way to dirt tracks winding between farmhouses, with cows grazing in open fields and mountains looming somewhere beyond the cloud. These days of limbo provided me with ample opportunity to acquaint myself with my new Mammut kit. It didn’t take long to realise everything created by Mammut, from the Aenergy Ultra Low trainers to the ultralight Aenergy trail jacket, was some of the highest quality trail gear you can get your hands on. Nothing felt cheap, everything felt like it would be on your side when things get tough. For me, that’s all I could ask for.
As race day approached, the weather became steadily more dramatic. The mountains remained hidden beneath dense cloud for most of the week, occasionally revealing a dusting of snow on the upper slopes before disappearing again. Not knowing what lay above the tree line suited me. Trail running already felt different to road running, less concerned with pace and precision and more about the environment itself. The mystery became part of the attraction.
The night before the race, thunder echoed across Bran while lightning briefly illuminated the mountains we’d be climbing the following morning. Up until then I’d managed to keep the event at arm’s length, treating it more like another reason to travel than something I’d actually have to run. Sitting alone in my room with waterproofs spread across the floor and mandatory kit laid out beside them, that illusion finally disappeared.
Road races ask surprisingly little of you. Pin on a number, lace up your shoes and remember a couple of energy gels. Mountain races assume things might go wrong. Laying everything out made that abundantly clear. Water, food, gloves, waterproof layers, emergency blanket, headtorch and enough compulsory safety equipment to fill every pocket of my Mammut Aenergy Trail Vest. It looked less like the preparation for a race and more like I was about to spend the weekend surviving in the hills. By the time everything had found its place, there was nothing left to organise. All that remained was the running.
Because we were tackling the 30-kilometre course, Corinna and I enjoyed the rare luxury of not having to be awake before dawn. The longer races had already disappeared into the mountains by the time we wandered towards the start, coffee in hand, joining hundreds of runners making final adjustments to backpacks and comparing weather forecasts that nobody seemed particularly convinced by.
The atmosphere felt relaxed. Almost suspiciously so. Then Rammstein’s Du Hast blasted across the start area, the countdown began and several months of fairly inconsistent preparation suddenly became irreversible. The opening kilometres lulled everyone into a false sense of security. We wound our way through Bran on tarmac, climbing gently while locals stood at the ends of their driveways clapping us past with expressions that suggested they still weren’t entirely sure why anyone would voluntarily spend a Saturday running into the mountains.
Conversation flowed easily, people settled into groups and, despite every piece of advice I’d been given beforehand, I found myself moving far more comfortably than I probably should have been. Max had warned me not to get carried away early. Experience suggested he was right. Before long the road narrowed, the trees closed in around us and the forest swallowed the last signs of civilisation. The gentle climb we’d been enjoying all morning quietly disappeared, replaced by something altogether more serious. The mountain had finally decided to introduce itself.
It didn’t take long for running to become hiking. The climb steepened until everyone settled into the same rhythm, leaning forwards and grinding uphill beneath the trees. Road running has a habit of making you obsess over pace and splits while the only objective here was to keep moving.
This was where the poles finally came into their own. After a slightly clumsy deployment (user error), the Mammut Aenergy Ultra Carbon poles quickly proved their worth, turning the relentless climb into something far more manageable. With every step the forest grew quieter as runners spread out, conversation disappeared and cloud began creeping through the trees.
Eventually the tree line gave way altogether. We stepped out into a completely different world where snow covered the ground, the temperature dropped sharply and visibility shrank to little more than the footprints ahead. Ravines appeared without warning before disappearing into white on either side of the trail, leaving little room for error. There were no spectators, no reassuring voices from marshals, just runners picking their way across frozen slopes somewhere high in the Carpathians.
At the time I wondered whether I was being overly cautious. Afterwards I discovered several competitors had slipped into those same ravines, with mountain rescue teams dealing with injuries and hypothermia throughout the day. It turns out these crossings deserved every ounce of respect I gave them.
The first checkpoint emerged from the cloud looking more like an Antarctic field station than an aid stop. Volunteers scurried out of their flapping tent, scanned race numbers and sent us straight back into the fog, where the climb immediately became an equally awkward descent. Ice concealed loose rock beneath it and every runner seemed to have adopted a different technique for staying upright. Some picked their way down carefully, others accepted defeat and slid wherever gravity allowed, while experienced trail runners drifted past with the sort of confidence that only comes from spending years in terrain like this.
Eventually the snow softened into mud and the first aid station appeared. It felt strangely civilised after everything that had come before it. Flasks were refilled, handfuls of sugar masquerading as nutrition disappeared into pockets and everyone took a few precious minutes to regroup before heading back into the hills.
Only a few hundred metres later, the mountain reminded us we were still very much in bear country. A small group of mountain rescue volunteers stood just off the trail, watching something moving through the trees above them. Then I saw it too. A bear, calmly making its way across the hillside as though hundreds of runners weren’t passing nearby. Nobody panicked. The rescue team barely seemed surprised. Then a shot echoed across the valley, the bear turned and disappeared into the forest, and within moments everyone was moving again.
It was a surreal interruption to an already unforgettable day, but there wasn’t much time to dwell on it. Waiting ahead was the biggest climb of the race, and if I’d assumed the hardest part was already behind me, the mountain was about to prove otherwise.
The climb beyond the bear encounter made everything that had come before it feel like a warm up. Running disappeared from the equation almost immediately as the gradient shot up once again, forcing everyone into the same slow, metronomic march. Looking too far ahead served no purpose. The summit was hidden inside the cloud, and the only thing that mattered was the next step. One by one, runners settled into their own little worlds. There wasn’t much conversation left by this point, only the sound of poles and crampons striking the ground and heavy breathing drifting across the hillside.
Eventually we hit the highest point of the race, which was met with muted ‘woops’ from some overly zealous runners. I say overly because we were on flat ground for around 10 metres before immediately facing an equally sketchy descent. The snow had hardened into long sheets of ice, making upright running almost impossible. Some runners embraced it immediately, sitting down and sliding hundreds of metres down the mountain with expressions that swung between delight and mild panic. I never quite committed to that approach. Instead I spent the next section alternating between cautious steps, controlled slips and the occasional reminder that ice doesn’t particularly care how confident you’re feeling. I still have a mark on my backside from an almost-race-ending slip in this section.
Once we dropped below the snow line, the race finally began to resemble something I’d recognise. Forest trails replaced frozen slopes, the temperature climbed and it became possible to think about running again rather than simply surviving. The second aid station appeared at exactly the right moment, offering a brief return to civilisation before we disappeared back beneath the trees.
From there, the character of the course changed once more. The technical terrain gave way to faster trails where gravity finally became an ally instead of an enemy. It was the first time all day I found myself looking further ahead than my next foot placement, although my legs were beginning to remind me just how much climbing they’d already endured.
The field compressed as runners began catching one another again. Some were chasing times, others simply trying to reach the finish in one piece, but everyone carried the same slightly battered expression that only a long day in the mountains seems capable of producing. Somewhere below us lay the finish line, along with dry clothes, hot food and the opportunity to finally stop moving. It felt close enough to imagine, but anyone who’s spent time in the mountains knows better than to celebrate early…
You’ll find the conclusion, along with the full race report, in the latest issue of Proper Magazine, out soon.
