A very long run

Greg had been training to do the Swiss Canyon Trail, but that was canceled due to the Corona virus. Andrea volunteered to do support, so the next plan was to do the route of the Swiss Canyon Trail with A meeting g every 10-20km with resupply. Then the forecast started looking pretty bad. So we went spontaneous and planned a likely looking route down in Ticino. This was last minute enough that we worked out the meeting points while taking the train down on Friday evening. :-)

The meeting points we planned out:

1. Sobrio (ended up being Cavagnano)
2. Rossura
3. Deggio
4. Piotta
5. Faido
6. Giornico
7. end point outside Pollegio

These were approximately....(something is missing here...?)

along the Strada Alta Leventina

arrival in Deggio

resupply

Giornico, almost done...

Some notes on the run itself:

• The height change is pretty front-loaded, with 2200m of climbing in the first 34km. 
• The training plan paid off: greg's legs were fine throughout the run. The only problem was knee pain after the big descent to the valley (likely caused by insufficient training on rough trails).
• The weather was mostly good, but it rained like hell for a while around Madrano. This was super sub-optimal because down in the valley the trail was re-routed due to construction and we had to re-plan a meeting point. It turns out that greg's iPhone, though waterproof, it's pretty close to useless when everything is soaking wet. Fortunately he could still initiate a call (using Siri) and we planned a meeting point that way.
• Aside from the bit through the gorge, the part down in the valley wasn't nearly as nice as the part up on the valley side (no big surprise there). It would have been pretty fast going except for the knee pain.
• The original plan was to stay on the trail and do another climb after Giornico (the last leg). Given the knee pain we opted for greg to follow the bike route through the valley instead. Another long descent on a rough trail just wouldn't have been a good idea.
• Aside from the knee, which wasn't that bad, this actually ended up being Type 1 fun.

Track:

Stats: 89.5km, 3100m up and down, 12:41 total time.