Part One of My 2025 Preparation: MIUT & Lavaredo Ultra Trail
My 2025 race calendar
I designed this year's race calendar around the intention of focusing on distances where I know I'm strong, with the aim of maximizing my performance. So, after careful study and planning of the year, the races I chose are: MIUT 60K, Lavaredo Ultra Trail 50K, GIIR di Mont (a training race for OCC), OCC by UTMB 56K, Le Grand Trail des Templiers 80K and Ultra Trail Cape Town 50K.
Together with my coach, Frederic Sebater Pastor, we built a long-term plan adapted to this calendar, so that we'd have a clear organization in our minds.
According to my coach. This training season was initially divided into 4 main phases. An initial preparation period until March, followed by a "race prep" period for MIUT and Lavaredo. The summer would be a preparation period for OCC, and this would be followed by a "late season" period focused on training for Templiers and UTCT.
Base preparation (January – March)
The winter preparation went very well. I trained a good volume without feeling fatigued, because I had better control of intensity. That helped me a lot. My goal in this period was to increase muscle mass, mainly in the gym, so that I'd reduce injuries later on and stay healthy and strong.
I can say that this worked. I saw big differences in my strength: for example, in squats I started at 50 kg and by the end of the preparation I reached 85 kg.
In addition, ski mountaineering is a sport I love and can't be missing from my preparation, because it lets me increase my training volume, even taking part in small races, without tiring myself musculoskeletally.
Finally, in the base period it's important to work on our weaknesses. That's why we included a weekly session on the track, mainly 400 m repeats. I soon saw big differences in my speed and felt more comfortable at pace.
My training volume over these 3 months was 260 hours: 40% running, 20% cycling, 20% ski mountaineering and 10% strength.
According to my coach. The main goal of the winter period was to do work that would let us train more, and with better quality, during the race-specific preparation. Konstantinos used alternative forms of training, such as cycling and ski mountaineering, so he could keep a high volume of aerobic training without excessive strain. This volume was also achieved through better control of intensity compared with the past.
In addition, we used the winter period to introduce some more advanced forms of training, which we may or may not continue in the future, such as double threshold sessions on the same day. The goal of those sessions was mainly to practice and understand how his body reacts to them, not to build them permanently into the plan.
Another key element we focused on was strength training.
Preparing for MIUT
I chose MIUT on the beautiful island of Madeira because it's part of the World Trail Majors and its characteristics suited my abilities perfectly. In 2022 I had already run in Madeira, at the Golden Trail World Series final, so I knew the island's terrain well and knew it suited me.
For the preparation, I decided to go to the island a month before the race, to adapt to the climate and the course, but mainly to gather the vertical gain this race demands. In addition, MIUT has a particularity: a lot of stairs. I knew I'd need good adaptation to feel comfortable on them.
Everything was going excellently with the preparation. I felt stronger every day, ready for the challenge. I had run the course many times and studied it in depth, which helped me a lot to build confidence.
Unfortunately, though, things didn't go ideally at the end of the preparation. Six days before the race, I had a fall and hit my ribs. The pain was intense and made it hard for me not only to run but also to sleep. As you can imagine, my morale collapsed. I was very angry with myself.
On race day, I wasn't even sure I could finish, since I thought the rib pain would especially hold me back on the descents. But that day something almost magical happened: I felt almost no pain.
According to my coach. We had a small setback at the end of February, which led to about two weeks without any running, only alternative training on the bike and skis. Konstantinos suffered a quadriceps muscle injury during a hard session. We had to be especially careful, since Konstantinos was about to travel to Madeira, where he wouldn't have his bike with him, so running would be the main form of training there.
With reduced running volume, a careful return to training and targeted stretching, Konstantinos recovered well and we were ready to train in Madeira. Our main goal there was specific training and exploring the race course so he'd get to know it well.
Examples of sessions in this period included climbs on the first uphill of the race at race pace, as well as steady 10–20 minute blocks, also at race pace, on the course itself, on both uphill and downhill sections. The training was highly targeted, with an emphasis not only on intensity but also on the exact part of the course where each session would be done, so that Konstantinos could work on race pace on flats, climbs and descents.
The MIUT 60K race
I started the race very conservatively, with a very good feel for the intensity I could sustain on the first climb of 1,800 meters of elevation gain. I decided to stay back in the group, while keeping full control of my pace.
About halfway up the climb, Tiago Vieira and I found ourselves at the front and reached the top first. We continued together on the first descent, but on the second big climb (~1,100 meters of positive elevation) I felt very good and decided to break away. It was the right moment.
The preparation had paid off. I managed to keep the intensity high until the end and finish with a time I didn't expect: 5:24 for 58 km and 3,350 m+.
Altitude training camp in Sierra Nevada
After the race in Madeira, I returned to Thessaloniki for a month, where I rested and slowly started getting back into my training routine.
Then I left for Spain, specifically for one of the best-known training centers in Europe, Sierra Nevada, at an altitude of 2,400 meters.
On one hand I was looking forward to the experience, to see what it's like to live and train at that altitude, but on the other hand I felt a bit anxious that the adaptation might not go well and I'd get overly tired.
So, together with my coach, we designed a very careful training plan, so that I'd get the necessary adaptations without overloading myself. The first 10 days were quite easy: the volume was consistently high, but all sessions were at low intensity.
At the same time, every day we monitored HRV (heart rate variability) and RHR (resting heart rate), to see how my body was responding to the altitude and to keep an eye on fatigue.
After the initial adaptation period, and for the next almost three weeks, we increased the intensity. We emphasized sessions at 50K race pace, and added some faster ones, because I felt the need to raise the intensity a little.
Everything was going very well, until the last few days, when I developed a high temperature and elevated heart rate. It was most likely a mild case of heatstroke, due to the intense solar radiation at altitude, but fortunately I had no serious or dangerous symptoms.
So, with Lavaredo Ultra Trail coming up, we decided on a more gradual taper, sharply reducing training stress over the last 8 days, by which time I had already returned to Greece. The goal was to let my body recover quickly and fully.
According to my coach. Right after MIUT, we decided Konstantinos would go to Sierra Nevada before Lavaredo. He doesn't have extensive experience of altitude training, which made this period more demanding. Sierra Nevada in June has two elements that make training especially difficult: the altitude where athletes stay is around 2,300 meters, higher than other well-known training altitudes, and a lot of the training happens above the tree line in southern Spain, where heat and sun exposure are intense.
For this reason, we wanted to be careful in the early stages of training. But perhaps we overdid it a little toward the end, mainly because we underestimated the heat and solar radiation. Training in this period included a mix of long endurance sessions, steady runs at race pace and some faster sessions, such as fartlek and tempo-pace intervals.
The Lavaredo Ultra Trail 50K race
I chose Lavaredo because, first, it's one of the best-known and most historic races in Italy. In addition, I knew that with a good performance I could secure my qualification for the UTMB final in 2026, which I ended up achieving.
I started the race conservatively, placing myself in the top eight over the first kilometers, which satisfied me. I knew that if I felt strong I could gradually pass some athletes, since everyone was very close together, except for the first two, who had already opened a small gap.
After the main aid station, there was a climb of about 500 meters of elevation gain. I thought: "Time to make the difference", because climbing is my strong point. I raised the pace and by the end of the climb I managed to reach 4th place!
At this point I want to share a special feeling I had: as I passed the spectators, they shouted with enthusiasm "Go Kosta, Grecia!". Particularly moving was the moment I passed Marco De Gasperi and Maurizio Torri (a well-known photographer). They are two people who I know respect and support me, and the feeling was mutual. I saw the joy in their eyes and it gave me a huge psychological boost.
On the final big descent of the race, one of the athletes I had passed overtook me again in the last kilometer. So I finished 5th, among very strong names in the sport.
It was a race that filled me with joy, experience and confidence for what comes next.
Translated from the Greek.