Desselbrunner Kinderlauf: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

Start and finish are on the Dorfplatz in Desselbrunn, and the race is three laps of roughly two kilometres. Each lap leaves the village centre to the south, loops around the cluster of houses on the south-eastern edge and returns to the Dorfplatz along the western side via the Güterweg Hametinger and adjoining field tracks. The whole course sits in a band between 419 and 427 metres. Across the full six kilometres it adds up to 36 metres of climbing, a good six per kilometre spread over gentle undulations; the course profile finds not a single climb and not a single steep section, and almost 44 percent of the distance is flat.

Desselbrunn is a small village in the Hausruckviertel of the Vöcklabruck district, and the lap shows exactly that: one half asphalted village street between houses, the other half farm track and field path between arable land, with the patch of woodland east of the village as the backdrop on the way out. That means the surface changes twice on every lap. The race is run on a Sunday morning in early September.

The adult race goes off at 11:05, in the middle of the children's programme that runs from 11:00 to 11:40. You therefore turn your laps through a village that is entirely out on the course. 2026 is the sixth edition, organised by the ÖVP Desselbrunn for a ten-euro entry; at the fifth, 24 youth and adult runners lined up over the six kilometres alongside 97 children. The prize giving hands out medals, certificates, small prizes and an apple, and the mayor congratulates the field. This is not a race with results ambitions; it is a village's own running morning with an honest 6 km inside it.

Pacing Strategy

On a course with no climb, nothing regulates the pace for you. Most runners take six flat kilometres at or just below threshold, and the lap structure gives you two clean checkpoints for that. Run the first lap a few seconds slower than your target implies and plan the third as the fastest. Go out the other way round, which the start through the village with its spectators and the simultaneous children's races invites, and you pay those seconds back twice over on lap two.

That is exactly where the race is decided: on the middle lap. On a three-lap course it is the point where the pace quietly drops, because the lift of the start is gone and the finish is not yet in sight. No gradient forces anything on you here, so it comes down purely to attention.

The second peculiarity is the surface. The way back is no longer village street but farm track and field path, and the same effort usually yields slightly less speed there. Read that section deliberately on the first lap and then accept that it feels slower, rather than trying to win the seconds back on it. And expect sun: the field-track half is completely open, and the only shade is in the village.

Training plan for Desselbrunner Kinderlauf: 12-week build

For a typical recreational runner the effort lasts roughly 26 to 35 minutes; trained runners are considerably quicker. The demand is as uniform as a running course can make it: one continuous aerobic effort at or just below threshold, with no changes of pace, no recovery and not a single section that asks for anything other than the ability to hold tempo.

That makes the training focus unusually clear. Tempo runs of 20 to 30 minutes at threshold reproduce the demand directly. Add three repetitions of two kilometres at target race pace with short jog recoveries, because that is exactly the race structure and it teaches you what the second lap is allowed to feel like. One or two full six-kilometre simulations round out the preparation and rehearse the one decision that matters here: even, rather than too quick at the front.

Conditions are the second training input. The switch between village street and field track comes twice per lap, so six times in the race, and if you only train on asphalt you lose a little rhythm at every transition. Put part of your tempo work on farm tracks and unpaved paths, and pick a shoe you can run fast and safely on loose ground. A late-morning start in early September is usually pleasant, but the exposed field section can still get warm on a sunny day.

One note on where this fits: it is a small village race with a ten-euro entry and a field of a few dozen adults. It does not work as a season goal, but it works very well as a first race, as a tempo test inside a half marathon or marathon build, or as a morning out with children running their own races alongside. Plan it accordingly, as a sharp tempo session rather than a race you taper for.