WELL WIZARD
Our annoyingly cheerful ultrarunner Damian Hall has been running up mountains in Austria and wearing a strange hat
TOKEN BLOKE
Abracadabra! A humbled Damian in his Austrian hat
The fine people at Inov-8 invited me to a trail race in Austria recently, the popular Inov-8 Innsbruck Alpine Trailrun Festival. I agreed before my legs could pipe up with the not unreasonable protest that it was only two weeks after a 150-mile week at the Marathon des Sables (MdS).
I was very hungry for several days after MdS, and cold, too. And that was in Britain. When I landed in Austria, it was snowing. I was well brrrr. But it’s a bit ruddy gorgeous there. Icing sugar dusted the forests. Huge white mountains disappeared into the sky. The town, that’s twice hosted the Winter Olympics, had cobbled streets, a baroque cathedral, even a building with a golden roof. Architectural bling.