Walser Dorflauf: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The start is above the Sportplatz Wals-Gruenau by the ice-stock hall, from where the lap heads out onto the Saalach embankment and loops back to the sports field. That lap is run twice; start and finish are the same place. The surface is asphalt and compacted embankment path - fast, though the dam is a touch softer underfoot than the road.

The course has no profile to speak of. It sits between 425 and 435 metres above sea level, 99 percent of it registers as flat, and the 23 metres of measured ascent over the full distance are spread across barely perceptible undulations in the dam. There are no climbs worth the name, and no technical sections or tight turns to break the rhythm.

The race counts towards the Euregio Zwei-Laender-Laufcup and has been run by the Naturfreunde Wals since 1994, in 2026 for the 32nd time. Wals-Gruenau sits on the western edge of the Flachgau right against the German border - the Saalach is that border; the field stays manageable at a few hundred finishers, and the gun goes on the Saturday afternoon once the children's races are done.

Pacing Strategy

There is no point on this course where lost time can be won back. That makes the plan simple and unforgiving at once: an even pace from the first minute to the last, around threshold effort for the 13.5 kilometres. Run kilometres one to three faster than planned and you repay it on the second lap, with no descent left to balance the books.

The decisive passage is the changeover into lap two. Because both laps are identical, the first one is an exact reference - if at seven kilometres it does not feel like the pace is repeatable, you started too fast. The trap here is precisely the confusion of flat with easy: with no climbs there are no forced recoveries, and the legs work in the same pattern for the whole distance.

Then there is the 15:00 start. A sunny September afternoon in the Salzburg basin can be noticeably warmer on the largely unshaded embankment than a morning race would be, and wind running along the river hits an open dam crest unchecked - both reasons to hold the first lap back a little.

Training plan for Walser Dorflauf: 12-week build

For a typical age-group field the effort lasts roughly 55 to 85 minutes. The demand is about as even as road racing gets: a continuous aerobic effort close to threshold, with no anaerobic spikes, no changes of rhythm and no section where the legs work differently than before.

What decides the race is therefore not a piece of the course but the ability to hold a chosen pace over the full distance. Training should be aimed squarely at that: longer tempo runs at goal race pace, and threshold intervals with short recoveries, so that the target pace is still available after 40 minutes of work rather than only when fresh.

Because the course runs the same lap twice, that is easy to rehearse - a flat out-and-back or lap course, run twice, with the instruction not to slow in the second half. Include a few sessions that mix asphalt with compacted path, since the dam surface costs slightly more than the road.

Conditions are the second training theme. An early-afternoon race in September argues for putting at least some quality sessions at the time of day the race is run and in warmth, rather than only in the cool of the morning; and on an open dam crest it is worth deliberately running tempo efforts in wind, to build a feel for even effort rather than even pace.