Walliseller Lauf: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

Start and finish are on the Gemeindehausplatz in the middle of Wallisellen. The grosse Runde first works through the village, along Zentralstrasse and Kirchstrasse to Säntisstrasse, then climbs around fourteen metres over three hundred metres from kilometre 0.85 up to Zielackerstrasse. It drops back down again and leaves the built-up area on Butzenstrasse.

Between kilometre two and three the route runs on field tracks past the Furtbach allotment gardens, at the lowest point of the lap. That is where the Rebberg begins: from kilometre 3.05 the course rises twenty-six metres over roughly six hundred and thirty metres of compacted unpaved track through the Brandenberg vineyard, a good four percent on average and over ten at its steepest, by far the steepest section of the whole event. Grundackerstrasse and Brandenbergstrasse then carry the lap back down into the village, and for the 10 km the whole thing is run twice.

The race has been organised since 1993 by the Turnverein Wallisellen in aid of children and young people affected by cancer; more than 900,000 francs have gone to the cantonal cancer league of Zurich since then. The 180 starters of the first edition have become around 1,600, entry needs no licence, there are changing rooms in the Mehrzweckhalle and a band beside the course. Early November means short days, cold light and a real chance of rain: in 2025 it rained through practically the entire event.

Pacing Strategy

This lap is not flat, but it is not a hill race either. Around two thirds of it are quick village and field-track kilometres where a steady target pace carries you. The two rises per lap, the short pull up to Zielackerstrasse at kilometre 0.85 and the Rebberg from kilometre 3.05, are run on effort rather than on the watch. Try to hold your kilometre split up the Rebberg and you pay for it twice over the following two kilometres.

The 10 km is decided on the second Rebberg, from kilometre eight. The climb is the same as the first time, but it arrives after an hour of work with barely a kilometre left behind it. Run the first Rebberg under control and you can pass people here; attack it in the red and you lose time at the top, because no fluent rhythm comes back on the unpaved surface.

The trap is the descent off the Rebberg. It feels free and invites a far too quick transition back into the village, precisely where the second lap is about to start. Then there is the surface: the twenty percent of unpaved track sits exactly in the climb and the descent, and in early November it is often wet and soft. Plan for less speed there, more secure footing and a deliberately shorter stride.

Training plan for Walliseller Lauf: 12-week build

For a committed age-group runner this 10 km takes roughly forty to sixty minutes. The demand is a threshold effort broken twice per lap by a climb: about six to eight minutes of total climbing spread over four ramps, with fast flat running in between. It is neither a pure tempo race nor a hill race but an alternation of the two.

The second Rebberg decides it. A six hundred metre climb at around four percent on average, run tired and on an unpaved surface, asks for exactly the thing that cannot be improvised. Build in hill repetitions of six to ten minutes on a comparable gradient and deliberately run them at the end of a session rather than at the start.

The second emphasis is threshold work, because most of the lap is flat. Two to four blocks of eight to ten minutes at threshold, or a twenty to thirty minute steady run in the same range, cover the flat share. One session a week in which a threshold block runs straight into a climb reproduces the course's transition most closely.

Among the conditions, surface and season matter. Twenty percent of the lap is field and vineyard track, and a November Sunday in the Zurich region regularly brings rain, as in 2025 when it poured almost throughout. Do part of the hill work on wet unpaved ground rather than only on asphalt, choose shoes with usable grip, and plan your kit for a 13:30 start in single-digit temperatures with waiting time before the gun.