Grafschafter Sparkassen Crossduathlon: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The 3-kilometre opening run starts at the lowest point at around 260 metres and climbs immediately: 800 metres at three per cent on average deliver the first 24 metres, after which the ascent continues more gently to the high point at just under 297 metres shortly after kilometre 1.5. The second half of the loop drops back, partly steeply.

On the bike the same forest loop is ridden four times. Every lap repeats the same pattern: roughly 680 metres of climbing at 3.4 per cent with ramps to six, then a descent back to the starting level of which 3.3 per cent of the distance is classified as steep, while nothing on the way up is. Over four laps that comes to 160 metres of climbing with only 19.5 per cent of the course level. The closing 1.8-kilometre run is a separate, shorter loop and the most extreme of the race: 830 metres of climbing almost from the first stride, then downhill to the finish: 52.8 per cent up, 36.1 per cent down and 5.6 per cent flat.

The setting is deliberately small. The triathlon section of TuS Ahrweiler stages the race for the 18th time, starting at two o'clock on a Saturday at the end of September, and the event also closes the regional youth cup and hosts the Rhineland-Palatinate youth championships. Riding is on forest and farm tracks; the organiser recommends a mountain bike, and cross bikes are permitted outside the state championship. Because the run and bike courses use the same path network, you already know half the bike lap after the opening run.

Pacing Strategy

A cross duathlon opens with the section in which it is easiest to ruin everything. The first run climbs from the opening metre, and following the field there rather than your own effort puts you on the bike with a high heart rate on a course that immediately climbs again. Run the first 800 metres deliberately controlled and use the descent in the second half of the loop to loosen off rather than to attack.

The four bike laps decide the race. Since every lap contains the same climb and the same descent, the comparison is incorruptible: ride lap one markedly faster than lap four and you got your sums wrong. Take the climb seated at steady cadence (on loose forest ground, getting out of the saddle breaks traction quickly) and ride the steep descending sections looking at your line, not at your watch.

The trap comes at the end. The 1.8 kilometres of the closing run are too short for a plan and consist of more than half climbing, starting straight out of transition. After twelve off-road bike kilometres the legs feel especially heavy there. Plan that section in advance as a race phase of its own, hold effort rather than pace over its 830 metres of ascent, and run the downhill second half assertively.

Training plan for Grafschafter Sparkassen Crossduathlon: 12-week build

For the X-Sprint, expect roughly 1:05 to 1:35 hours depending on your level and the state of the ground. The demand is anything but even: on none of the three legs is more than a fifth of the distance level, so your output constantly jumps between climbing and descending and no section lets a steady rhythm settle.

The climb on each bike lap and the closing run decide the race. Four identical ramps mean four chances to ride too hard, and the bill arrives without fail on the 830 metres of ascent in the second run. Handle those two points and you lose no meaningful time anywhere else, because the course makes no extreme technical demand.

The conditions are the second governing factor. Everything is ridden and run on forest and farm tracks, and at the end of September those tracks can be damp, covered in leaves and considerably more slippery than in summer. That mainly affects the steep descending sections, which come round on each of the four bike laps. Tyre choice, pressure and braking technique matter as much as fitness here; a mountain bike is explicitly recommended.

Three priorities follow. First, hill intervals on the bike of two to four minutes on gradients of three to six per cent, ridden off-road and seated, with a controlled descent instead of a rest afterwards. Second, brick runs straight off those sessions, deliberately starting uphill, because that is exactly what the race asks for twice. Third, regular running on rolling forest tracks rather than asphalt, to train foot work, sure-footedness and downhill running under fatigue.