It’s a sunny Saturday, and the village and all the public transport will be crammed with day trippers. We can avoid all that by hiking on our local trails high above the village. We got the ski lift up to Allmend and paused to see the racers on their way down. It’s the Inferno Triathlon today, and the guys and girls who do it are the toughest of the tough.

Here’s the programme for this crazy race:

Swim in lake Thun: 3.1 kilometres,

Road bike: Oberhöfen to Grindelwald, 97 kilometres,

Mountain bike: Grindelwald to Stechelberg via Kleine Scheidegg and Wengen, 30 kilometres,

Run: Stechelberg to the summit of the Schilthorn, 25 kilometres.

So that’s 155 kilometres, or almost 100 miles. Here they go.

We watched for a while and climbed towards Männlichen, stopping at a bench for our lunch.

Inspired by the triathletes, we continued to climb and we got a good deal higher than we’ve ever managed before. Eventually we turned for home.

Here’s an airborne view of the triathlon course. Press play.

The winner was Samuel Hürzeler from nearby Wilderswil. He completed the course in 8 hours and 47 minutes.