Austria eXtreme Triathlon: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The swim is in a river, not a lake. Two kilometres run downstream with the Mur along the right bank, 1.8 kilometres back up along the left, finishing in a side arm near Thondorf. The water sits at 14 to 18 degrees, which is why a wetsuit is mandatory, and the start happens in the dark – no announcer, no field, only head torches. The swim cut-off closes at 06:45.

The bike course runs 186.6 kilometres northwest across Styria, and it does so on open roads: traffic keeps moving, drafting is prohibited, and one bike has to last the whole distance. The first fifty-odd kilometres out of the Graz basin are flat. Then come four climbs back to back up to the Gaberl, putting you above 1,500 metres by kilometre 71, before 850 metres of descent drop you into the Mur valley. Via Schönberg and Kammersberg the route reaches the Sölkpass: from kilometre 161, six kilometres at 9.5 percent up to 1,790 metres, the hardest climb on the bike and also the last. The road then falls to a good 900 metres at the Sölksperre.

The run starts at that reservoir, passes through the Strubschlucht gorge and reaches the Enns valley, where the course stays flat and low between kilometres 11 and 20 – the lowest point of the day. After that it climbs almost without interruption: past the Silberkarklamm, past the Lodenwalker, and over the final four kilometres at an average of 11.7 percent with ramps to 24 percent up to the valley station below the Dachstein south face. Those last 17.4 kilometres from the Silberkarklamm have to be covered together with your registered supporter.

Pacing Strategy

This course pushes its difficulty to the end, and pacing has to reflect that. By kilometre 53 on the bike several hours of racing have already gone by without a single climb worth the name. That is exactly where most people lose their day: on the flat stretch out of Graz that feels effortless, even though without drafting every watt has to be produced yourself.

The result is set up on the Sölkpass. Anyone who treats those six kilometres at 9.5 percent, after more than six hours in the saddle, as a climbing contest steps off at the Sölksperre with legs that will not deliver the final ascent. Ride it as a controlled steady effort and use the two long descents to eat and drink – the course offers few other quiet kilometres.

The second trap is the flat valley section of the run between kilometres 11 and 20. After the gorge it runs easily, and that is precisely why it is regularly taken too fast. The bill arrives over the last four kilometres at 11.7 percent, which after thirteen to eighteen hours of racing are hiking terrain and not running terrain. Plan the alternation of walking and running deliberately, rather than accepting it only once it is forced on you.

Training plan for Austria eXtreme Triathlon: 12-week build

For age-group athletes this day typically lasts 13 to 18 hours; the fastest arrive just under 13. The effort is calm and aerobic for long stretches and is interrupted decisively three times: at the Gaberl, on the Sölkpass, and on the closing climb to the Dachstein. What you train is therefore not speed but the ability to still work uphill after ten hours or more.

The last 24 kilometres of the run, from the Enns valley onwards, decide the race. They ask for uphill running and fast hiking on pre-fatigued legs, and that ability can only be built in the order in which it is needed: a long ride with real climbing, immediately followed by a mountain run. Six to eight hour rides with 2,000 metres of climbing or more, with the hardest ascent deliberately placed in the final hour, mirror how this course is built; strength work for calves, hips and trunk is what carries the ramps beyond 20 percent in the finale.

Conditions belong in the plan on equal footing. Water at 14 to 18 degrees over 3.8 kilometres, 1.8 of them against the current, calls for cold acclimatisation and open-water sessions in a wetsuit rather than pool kilometres. A 04:30 start in the dark needs rehearsed pre-dawn sessions, breakfast timing and head torch included, and the finish at 1,752 metres can be markedly colder than the Graz basin was that morning, even in June.

Finally, the format itself has to be practised. Nutrition and clothing changes run through your own support crew, which must be reached at every checkpoint, and over the final 17.4 kilometres the registered supporter runs alongside you. Rehearsing the handovers, the fuelling plan and that shared closing stage repeatedly is as course-specific here as any session on the bike.