Welser Sparkasse OÖ Silvesterlauf: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The race runs a loop of roughly 1,700 metres through the centre of Wels, partly along the river Traun. It starts on the Stadtplatz, covers three laps, and finishes not at the start point but on Minoritenplatz. The course is measured, so times run here count officially.

It is about as flat as a road race gets: around half the distance registers as completely level, the remainder splits almost evenly between gentle rises and gentle falls, and not one metre is classified as steep. The route stays between roughly 315 and 326 metres throughout.

The lap does have a shape, though. Leaving the Stadtplatz it drops some ten metres over the first few hundred metres, runs flat along the Traun, and climbs back to its starting level towards the end of the lap. Three laps mean three of these small counter-rises, and the last of them leads straight into the finishing straight on Minoritenplatz.

Pacing Strategy

On a course without a climb, nothing corrects a mistake for you. Decide your target pace before the start and run lap one at exactly that. And because this race falls on 31 December, one factor is specific to it: your muscles are cold, and five kilometres is too short to ease into the effort mid-race. A full warm-up is part of the pacing plan here.

The trap sits in the opening metres. The road drops away gently from the Stadtplatz, the field is dense and pushing, and the loss of height hands you a speed that is not your own. Ride that into lap one and lap three takes back more than you gained.

The race is decided on the last lap, and within it on the short rise back to the level of the Stadtplatz. Ten metres is nothing in itself, but it arrives after four kilometres at high intensity and immediately before the finishing straight. Keep your cadence there and accelerate at the top rather than before it.

Training plan for Welser Sparkasse OÖ Silvesterlauf: 12-week build

For an age-group runner this race takes roughly 17 to 30 minutes depending on level. The demand is a sustained high load at or just above individual threshold. On a profile with no steep ground and no genuine descent there is neither a forced pause nor a recovery, so the whole race unfolds at a single high intensity.

What decides it is how you handle the lap structure. Three near-identical laps give you precise feedback on your pace every few minutes, and that is exactly what makes them dangerous: run lap one clearly faster than planned and you will see it immediately, yet most runners carry on at the same speed anyway. Lap three is where that gets paid for.

Training should centre on threshold and interval work. Repetitions of three to five minutes at maximal aerobic intensity build the required capacity, and longer intervals of eight to twelve minutes at intended race pace stabilise it. Sessions built from three blocks of about 1.7 kilometres are worth adding, because they mirror this course's lap length directly.

Then there is the season. The race sits on the last day of the year, which puts your sharpening block in midwinter. Schedule quality sessions deliberately in the cold, test clothing and shoes on wet or slippery asphalt, and get used to a longer warm-up routine than you would need in summer.