Morbach Swim and Run: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The 300 metres are six lengths of the 50 metre pool at the Freibad Morbach in the Hunsrück, so turns at the wall rather than buoys in open water. Because of the short distance and the pool setting, the usual overhead of wetsuits, sighting and chop disappears entirely.

The run is three identical laps of roughly 1,000 metres each, and that lap is unusually built: down from the baths into the Alfons-Jakobs-Stadion for a full circuit of the 400 metre tartan track, back out, past the baths and north past the tennis courts to a turnaround, then back again. So the surface alternates between tartan and asphalt every kilometre, and the direction changes twice.

The profile is unspectacular but not flat: 33 metres of climbing across 3,000 metres, eleven per kilometre, only 28.6 per cent of it level and no registered climbs. The elevation band of 425 to 433 metres tells the story; it is constantly rising and falling gently without ever becoming a hill. This 20th edition is staged by TV 09 Morbach, the field is capped at 30 places, entry is by e-mail, and women and men are scored separately.

Pacing Strategy

With 300 metres in the pool against 3,000 metres of running, the weight clearly sits on the run; the swim takes most people four to six minutes. That is exactly why it is tempting to sprint it. Instead, hold a speed you can control by your breathing and use the last two lengths to build, so that you leave the pool with a clear head.

The race is decided on the first run lap, and specifically at the change from pool to track. After swimming without a wetsuit, legs and trunk are cold and your heart rate is high, and the opening stadium circuit on tartan invites a pace that cannot be held for three laps. Run the first lap deliberately around five seconds per kilometre slower than target and build across the second and third.

The main trap is the change of rhythm inside every lap. Tartan track, asphalt, a turnaround behind the tennis courts and back: each kilometre brings two decelerations and two changes of surface, and on a lap that is barely a quarter level, no self-sustaining rhythm ever establishes itself. Choose a fixed cadence rather than a fixed speed. The 18:45 evening start in August works in your favour here: cooler air than during the day, though a pool that after a warm day feels more pleasant than the wind chill that follows it.

Training plan for Morbach Swim and Run: 12-week build

The Swim and Run takes roughly 16 to 25 minutes depending on your level. The demand is correspondingly uncompromising: one short, continuously high-intensity effort at or above anaerobic threshold, without any passage in which anything could recover.

Because there is no bike leg in between, the race's single transition is also its most critical moment. Going straight from the water into running means an abrupt rise in heart rate with cold leg muscles that have had no blood flow, and with only 3,000 metres to follow, there is no time to ease into it.

The training emphasis therefore belongs on swim-to-run transitions, once or twice a week: 300 metres in the pool at race pace followed immediately by 10 to 12 minutes of running, two or three times through. It is the only session that reproduces the decisive moment realistically, and over this distance it works faster than any increase in volume.

Add two supporting blocks. First, speed endurance over 3 to 4 times 1,000 metres at target race pace, run alternately on track and asphalt because the course demands both surfaces every lap; build a 180-degree turn into each repetition. Second, pool sessions with turn practice and clean 50 metre pacing, because 300 metres consists of six lengths and five turns. This race needs no open-water training at all.