The legs were pretty well prepared from all the hill training in the previous 6 months. I have never run as many hills as I had previously before any event. I must say I actually enjoy running hills more
than flats, so this suited me. I had a niggling hamstring injury that I nursed closely for the last 3 weeks. This turned out to be OK through the whole race.
I was stretching on the plane and working in the office standing up in order to not put pressure on the injured area, quite comical in fact. But it all meant that I could get to the start line in the best shape possible. Because of the lack of knowledge of the course and the fact I had no benchmark, I had originally thought that I would finish in about 17 to 18 hours which would have positioned me between 150th and 250th. The final morning build up was huge and I was constantly telling myself that I must not get too excited.
The Courmayeur hotel staff got up early top prepare a huge breakfast and they offered plenty of best wishes, including an early flowering pink rose that was just outside the breakfast window which, according to the Manager of the hotel was good luck for us. He also gave us a detailed weather report which showed that the rain was coming from the North East side of the Mt Blanc Massif and would be at least 24 hours away (this turned out to be incorrect). The temperature was about 9 deg C. I also had Andy’s ‘final words’ email in the front of my mind….”dont go out too hard & burn matches early, there is a long way to go.”
So…we left Courmayeur (Italy) at 9am with a huge countdown in Italian. We started relatively fast but not too hard. The reality was that it is hard not to get caught up in the emotion of the event, with the bells, the whistles, helicopters, cameras, our wives, the foreign accents and the high level of expectation we had put on ourselves. There was 1,350m of elevation in the first 10kms which was huge, I had never completed a training run with this sort of constant elevation, let alone raced it.
There were helicopters at eye level and an enormous conga line of racers on the single track that you could see filing up into the clouds. The first climb up ‘tete de la tronche’ appeared to never end. We ran through an inversion zone (cloud layer) which was very special. I reached the first major peak ‘tete de la tronche’ (2580m asl) in 206th position (in under 2 hours) which was about where I imagined I would be. I felt OK & Matt was right behind me. Matt & I had a plan where I would pull him up the hills and he would pull me along the downhills & specifically the flats. From this first peak I could fully appreciate the majesty of the mountains and I had one of those realisation moments where you feel so insignificant surrounded by such vast snow-capped mountains, glaciers & rocky terrain.
We then ran to Refuge Bertone in another 30 minutes. This was surreal because it was the first & main checkpoint that I had seen in countless hours of You Tube footage of the race. I felt good and there was beautiful food here, cakes, soups, bread, dates, lemon, biscuits, water, pepsi…etc. It was sunny and we had helicopters again at eye level. I was close enough to the front runners to feel part of the elite pack (though in the back of my mind it was just my ego talking).
We were really on top of the world at this point. Then onto Refuge Bonnatti another hour later. I still felt OK and we were still running up and down small hills and very rocky terrain. The landscape was windswept grassy hills with sharp rock. We were running in thin single tracks. 45 minutes later we were in Arnuva (1800m asl). This was a really interesting leg. I saw shepherds with their dogs and some beautiful ‘run-down’ stone buildings that these herders must have been living in. They would have been freezing in winter with the wind chill factor! It was cooler up here with only a little wind. This was the last stop before the 2nd major climb of the race - Grand Col Ferret.
The journey up to Grand Col Ferret was steep, very steep. I was glad I had trained with my poles so much. This leg took 1:25hrs and was hard work. The legs were still smarting from the first climb over 3 hours ago. Reaching the summit of the second climb, the view was unbelievable; however the body was hurting more than I had anticipated. I was only 5.5hrs into the race now (32kms mark). In fact there were demons in my head at this point saying to me that I was only 1/3 of the way through the race and I was not sure how I would make the next 69kms. On the plus side, my hydration & nutrition was working (no upset stomach), I was consuming about 600ml/hr of water mixed with something called Tailwind (a nutrition powder I had trained with). At every 4th checkpoint I was eating / drinking ½ cup of noodle soup, which was salty. I would only swallow a few of the noodles. I also tried a wedge of lemon at one stage but spat it out as I remembered Andy say that I shouldn’t try anything I had not trained with.
We then had another 20kms of descent (1,500m), through La Fouly to Champex-Lac in Switzerland. This took 3 hours and followed a huge fast flowing river for many kms. We constantly were passing walkers & mountaineers all wishing us the best, yelling ‘allez, allez’ or ‘courage’. At one stage we ran past 3 walkers who said ‘good onya fellas’! We immediately recognised our Aussie brethren and yelled out to them that we were Australian. This spun them into a frenzy and they yelled at us as we ran off, saying how happy they were to see fellow Aussies in the race and that we were the leading Aussies! This definitely gave me a lift. The pace quickened here and the trails were more runnable. The rain started pouring down and the wet weather jacket was out. The rain continued for most of the rest of the race.
KMs 52 to 56 involved quite a steep climb to Champex-Lac and this was unexpected. This was the first of 3 checkpoints where we could have assistance, the other two were at the 72 & 83km mark. The fact that Chay was waiting for me at this checkpoint was a huge motivation. I knew I had fresh clothes and an accent I could understand which was a very comforting thought. In the last km leading to this checkpoint, you could hear the crowd & festival atmosphere (bells, live music, etc).
Running into this point I felt 10ft tall & bullet proof and couldn’t help smiling. I was hurting and Chay’s leg massage helped a lot. What I hadn’t realised is that it took Chay & Matt’s wife (Steph) 6 hours to reach this checkpoint by bus. They had altitude sickness and the roads were so narrow and dangerous they also were feeling nauseous. I left this checkpoint with Matt (17mins stopover) feeling quite refreshed & ready for the next half of the race. Matt was feeling better than me here and we agreed that he would head out earlier than me and I would try to chase him on the 3th climb to La Giete.
This next section was tough. It took 2.5 hours to get 13kms to La Giete including the 3rd steep climb. I snapped a pole on the beginning of this leg with a pretty heavy fall as I ran through one of the many creeks that was taking the snow melt off the mountains. I landed on my left elbow and drew a bit of claret but disappointingly this meant that I only had one pole to climb the 3rd major ascent & descent. This really slowed me down and this was the worst part of the race for me. I lost a lot of time here and with Matt ahead of me I had no way of letting him know my pole had snapped. There was a bright side though. I ran through a few small medieval towns that looked deserted however all residents had gathered in one house and were cheering madly, ringing bells, yelling “allez, allez” & “courage” and offering us motivational support.
All the local towns had natural stone troughs with constant flows of water into these troughs which was fantastic to wash the sweat off my face and have a few gulps of water as we raced through. There was also a really steep descent into Trient (72kms) where I know the girls were meeting us. This was very slow as my quads were smashed, my arm sore and only one pole to navigate the steep descent. To my surprise I caught Matt on the decent, unfortunately for him he had severe stomach upsets whish was debilitating. I entered Trient in darkness feeling pretty depressed, but very excited about seeing Chay. I also was comforted by knowing that I had a spare pole in Chay’s bag which would assist me to increase my speed dramatically.
The stop in Trient was 23 minutes long, a sign we were not travelling too well. This climb was really slow, taking almost 2 hours. Mat was throwing-up again on this leg. I felt for him and he agreed to stay on my heels on the climb and we had to stop several times so he could empty his stomach. He was not the only person on this leg vomiting. Just before Catogne it really bucketed down and I stopped to put on my wet gloves and over pants. Matt had run out of water, he couldn’t stomach anything else and headed off with another person in the dark thinking that it was me he was running with. In fact it was just another competitor in the dark with a similar headlamp.
We had 7kms to Vallorcine so I left Catogne fast to try to catch Matt. He managed to find a stream & get some water & I caught him just as I came into Vallorcine. Both our spirits were lifted here and we knew that once we left this checkpoint, we were going to finish as there was only 18kms to go. Again the girls were fantastic support for us arranging food & had our extra gear all laid out. They had a pretty bad trip to get around to these checkpoints and we were extremely grateful for their efforts. Over the race, the three supporter checkpoints were packed with people with lots of food available for consumption. Vallorcine was no exception, just the runners were looking more tired and wet.
We left knowing that the next time we would see the girls would be at the finish line (hopefully) and headed up to the famous La Tete aux vents. This is a windswept peak above Chamonix at about 2,250m asl. Unfortunately the beauty was cloaked in darkness & we could only see the really sharp rocks and sheer drops off the edge of the trails which were lit up by our headlamps. Pretty scary considering our condition. Matt still had a hypertonic load in his stomach and was not well. After consultation with other folks, we determined it was the soup that was to blame. This 5th and last major climb was brutal on the hamstrings but once we had summited we knew we had 11kms of down hill to go. I could see the lights of La Flegere (last checkpoint at 92kms) from about 2 kms away and this seemed to take a long time to reach.
I got there feeling very surreal, somewhat of a ‘dream state’. We were told by one of the medics that the last 11kms of downhill was all runnable, this was great news by proved not to be true. Matt & I agreed that we should really push this last section as our hamstrings were no use to us anymore and we had nothing to lose. The first 2 kms were steep and runnable with some snow drifts but then we came to the ‘tree roots’ trail that Andrew Tuckey had warned us about, which was about 3 kms of really technical trail. Once we passed this we were on a ‘chicken run’ type of ski slope that passed by a ski hut, running along their verahdah past the chairs set up to take advantage of the view of Chamonix. This kept going for another km or so and we then hit the bitumen and into town.
These last few kms on tar were a blur but I can tell you that Matt & I were so pumped up we ran the bitumen in about 4:30/km. In total we passed about 15 people during this last 11kms. Matt & I crossed the line together at 4:37am, 19:37hrs in total in 328th position out of 1900 starters (I think about 1400 people finished). We were greeted by the girls at the finish line tired, happy and somewhat dazed. There was plenty of food & beer on offer here but I was so full of caffeine I was just sitting there smiling to myself and trying to absorb the moment. I managed to collect my finishers’ vest and tried to digest the last 24 hours. There was too much to discuss and it was early morning so we agreed to meet up the next day to see the winners of the 100mile UTMB race, where an Aussie mate of ours ended up finishing 6th.
The next few days were spent trying to walk off the lactic – though I was walking like a cowboy and this lasted about 5 days. The big next question is “what’s next?”. I will run the 6ft track in April and the NF100 in May, however, not sure what I should run in between… Perhaps the Tarawerra 100 in Rotorua NZ in Feb but not quite sure.
My preparation was solid except for the final 3 weeks when I was in a forced taper because of my hamstring. During the race, I would have probably used the caffeine tailwind earlier than the last 11kms, but this may have affected my stomach so I will never know if this would have assisted me. Thanks to Andy DuBois (coach) who had run the UTMB in 2009 and had knowledge that we applied in training which proved invaluable.
Nothing could have actually prepared me for the relentless hills & type of terrain we encountered. I now understand why the Europeans run our flagship event (NorthFace 100) in the Blue Mountains and call it relatively flat. Some interesting stats for the 4 race series over the 5 days (from the UTMB organisers). 450kg salami; 3,000kgs cheese; 9,700L of Soup; 15,000L of Cola; 5,200 cans of beer; 50,000 Tuc (biscuit); 23,000 cereal bars; 9,000 bananas & 2,000 volunteers.
