Mont Blanc Ultra Trail 100 Mile Run - August 2006
Pictures can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/wildexplore
The travel website advertised a tour which would visit three countries in two days. The tour would start and end in the European Alps at Chamonix, France, crossing into Italy, Switzerland and then back into France. The tour would circle 100 miles around the Mont Blanc Massif (mountain range), visit nine villages, go over ten mountain passes, and ascend and descend 57,000 feet elevation. The $120 cost included all the food I could eat, places to sleep along the way if I was interested, and even free massages. The only catch was I had to supply my own transportation and it had to be by foot! REI Adventure Travels offers a two week hut-to-hut trip on the same trail for well conditioned backpackers. Participants this the Ultra Trail Run have only 45 hours to cover the same distance. Two years after reading the website, I was at the starting line of this ultra run, finally ready to begin my adventure of The North Face Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc.
Forty minutes before the start of the race I was sitting on the ground 15 meters from the start, surrounded by the other 2500 runners, hoping the swelling in my ankle wasn’t too bad. The two week taper leading up to this moment had been phenomenal. My wife Lisa and I had been having a blast traveling through Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy and France. During my final training runs I had run up the side of a cliff on a 5000 year old trail in Hallstatt , Austria; run through the cobble stone streets in the medieval Czech town of Cesky Krumlov; run for miles along the Danube River in Vienna; and run up-river in the Northern Italian town of Bassano del Grappa. The taper was not all about running – for instance, the day before we headed to Chamonix to get dirty trail running, I got cultured by attending the Verona Opera in a 2000 year old Roman arena. I was blown away by the perfect acoustics with no microphones for the singers and the silence of the 25,000 normally animated Italians.
Contrary to the enjoyable taper time, the day of the run was troubling. The North Face, as the run is called in Europe, starts at 7 PM on Friday night with a cutoff time of 45 hours. We had until 4 PM Sunday to complete the tour. On Friday morning I woke up with an extremely sore hip. Visions of my struggle to finish the Western States 100 two months earlier played in my head. I gently and repeatedly stretched until the problem went away. Around 2 PM Lisa and I walked with our new friends from the UK, David and Angela Brown, to the free pre-race pasta feed. I hadn’t been feeling that well and while eating plain pasta I felt really sick. We returned to the hotel where after a two hour nap I felt much better. We met David and Angela again and walked our drop bags, containing dry clothes and energy gels that would be waiting for us at mile 45 and 70, over to the sports center. When David and I were leaving the sports center, I was focused on finding Lisa and Angela in the crowd and stepped into a hole in the grass near a sprinkler head, badly twisting my ankle. I silently swore. With the run starting in less than an hour I put the best face on this troubling situation. I told Lisa that I hoped I had gotten all the run related negative effects out of the way before the start. During the run I realized that I was not to be quite that lucky.
Counting down the start of the run was like counting down New Years Eve; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… and we were off!! It felt great to be running through the streets in the crush of excited runners and hearing the huge crowds of spectators who were ringing cowbells, shouting and clapping. I said to myself: “I am actually running Mont Blanc!” It was strange to kick around Europe for two weeks and then get back into my comfort zone of trail running.
I felt comfortable running in the crowd, though I did have to watch out for a few errant trekking poles. We ran down the river for about 4 miles, crossed the road and started our first of many climbs. Climbing up the slope of a ski hill with the chair lift overhead was similar to the start of Western. Not bad, I thought to myself. Just run comfortably until you hit the big climbs at mile 20.
I heard someone behind me ask ‘How’s it going?’ I knew it was someone who knew me because they were speaking English. Terri Schneider, who lives 40 miles from me in Santa Cruz, California came up along side me and we chatted. I had introduced myself to Terri the day before at the check-in. Terri was one of 20 Americans signed up for the run. Meeting her was one of the several ‘small world’ things that happened during my run. Despite the small percentage of Americans I knew or randomly met most of the Americans who started the race.
At the top of the climb at Col de Voza (9:07 pm Friday /8 miles /2,900’ cumulative elev. gain) the first fully stocked aid station was so crowded I could not see the tables. I did manage to grab a banana and fill my water. I was surprised to see the table stacked with 2 liter Evian bottled water and Avre sparkling water. I later found out that every aid station had bottled water. I stayed away from the bubbly water in order to keep my stomach in check. This was the first place that I was ‘wanded’. A chip with my runner number was embedded in the bib. When we came into a control point a volunteer would wave a wand in front of me and 15 minutes later my time at that location would show as a text message on my crew’s cell phone.
At the Col I heard people say there was a 5 kilometer downhill section after the aid station. We had climbed 2200 feet and now we were going to give it back. I took off at a fast comfortable pace weaving around people. After a few miles, it was getting dark so I switched on my headlamp. We hit traffic when the trail narrowed to a single track and everyone stopped to wait for the runner in front of them to move forward. Patience, I thought, we still have 90 miles to go.
The trail opened up onto a paved road by a church in Contamines (11:02 PM Fri/ 15mi/ 4,000’ cum). As I passed the church I heard some scream “Joe!” My friend Tim Geyer’s girls, Rachel and Katlyn were jumping up and down cheering me on. (Tim was still out on the second half of the course running his first 50 mile run. Tim’s run started 7 hours before mine at the 45 mile mark (in Courmayer, Italy.)) Also in the crowd were Lisa, Angela and Tim’s wife Pam. I gave Lisa a kiss, told her I was having a great run, and took off to the check point.
After the checkpoint and three miles of a gentle uphill trail alongside a babbling brook in a dense forest we started up the Roman Road, an ancient route from Italy into France for a one mile vertical climb in five miles of trail. The Roman engineers did not know how to build switchbacks so they built a road with a 15 percent grade. I hiked the road at a steady pace keeping my heart rate at 150 beats per minute. As we were climbing in the night we passed a bar where all the patrons were wildly cheering us on. Drunk is drunk in any language and I wondered: who would hurt worse in the morning, them or me?
The road changed into a single track trail after the La Balme aid station (12:39 AM Sat. /21 /5,800’). When I got into the station, I tried a few crackers and cookies to see if I would be eating them for the next two days. Phew. They did not taste very good so I put on my best “French face of disgust” and spit them out. I decided to stick with the food that I was carrying. This was my first run with trekking poles and I was struggling to be able to fill my water and hold onto the poles. It took a few aid stations until I got in the habit of setting my poles against the side of a building or on the ground before taking care of business.
The weather was perfect. The night sky, with a new moon, was full of stars. I could look up and see the several thousand feet of climbing I had in front of me because the mountain was a dark silhouette against the bright stars and the stream of light from all the runners' headlamps lit the way.
I crested the 7982 foot Col du Bonhomme( 23 mi/ 7,800’), our second mountain pass, and started to run the downhill. The downhill, I was surprised to find out, was just as steep as the uphill. I am not sure what I expected, but I did not expect to find my toes jammed into the front of my trail shoes. I retied my shoes and started down again. My toes were all the way forward but fortunately I had clipped the toenails enough that they did not bother me (Yes, we can learn from our previous mistakes!.) We dropped 2900 feet over the next 3.3 miles. I could see small town lights and hear the live rock music wafting up from far, far down the mountain-side.
When I pulled into Les Chapieux at 3:29 AM I had covered 44 kilometers, climbed 8300 feet and thought I was way ahead of my schedule. I was a bit disoriented and thought that Couermayer was just over the next “hill.” I thought that I would be at Couermayer, the half way point major aid station at mile 41, by 6 AM - 2 ½ hours ahead of schedule. When I pulled out my map for the first time I discovered I had fourteen miles to go, not the four that I expected. I had only finished my first marathon in seven hours. Covering the next fourteen miles in three hours wouldn’t have been a problem except that I had two more passes to cross with a 4800 foot ascent and 5900 foot descent.
I ran for an hour out of Les Chapieux, passing the walking runners until we started up a steep climb where we all fell in line. I climbed up the switchback trail, following the stream light from the runners’ headlamps for another two hours and still could not see the top of the pass. Looking back, I could see lights dancing in a single file all the way back to Chapieux. As I crossed from France into Italy an hour later at Col de la Seigne (5:56 AM Sat /34 /11,500’) , I realized that from one vantage point I could see runners separated by four hours. The front runner I saw was four hours ahead of the last runner I saw.
The sky turned from black to light during the 500 meter (1700 foot) drop into Refugee Elisbeabetta (36 mi, 9400). The Italian Army soldiers working the aid station were cooking what I thought was breakfast in large pots. I was waiting for a warm cup of oatmeal, tea or coffee because it was cold and I had run all night in shorts and a layered top. When they pulled spaghetti out of the pot to see if it was cooked my stomach turned, so I took off.
As the sun came up and lit Mont Blanc, the morning did not warm up at all. The mountains to the east cast a shadow on the trail at the lower elevation, causing a false pre-dawn effect that lasted for hours. After crossing Arete Mont-Favre (8:09 AM Sat /39 /13,000) and while running downhill, I slipped on a granite slab that had frosted over. When I pushed my trekking poles down into the slab in front of me to arrest my fall, they slipped and I fell face-first off the trail. Immediately I was surrounded by three runners trying to help me. My knee was a scraped and a bit bloody; my thumb hurt; and, worst of all, my pole was broken. I thanked all the other runners, refused their help and got back to running down the trail. The physical scrapes didn’t bother me, but it would be a struggle if I continued without poles. To fix the situation I did what any outdoor adventurer would do when out in the back country: I pulled out my cell phone and called Lisa. (Who of course is the best crew any runner could ever have!)
The race organization had set up buses to help the race crews get to and from the various major Aid Stations to help their racers. Lisa spent a lot of time on buses chasing me around the mountain during the run. Lisa’s bus was just emerging from the 6 mile long Mont Blanc tunnel between Chamonix and Couermayer when I called and asked her to go to a sports store and buy me the lightest pair of trekking poles they had, regardless of the cost. Lisa hustled to find a store that was open, bought the poles and then ran to the sports center aid station where we met just as I was arriving. It was 9:39 Saturday morning. It had taken 14 hours and 38 minutes to cover 45 miles and climb 13,100 feet. I changed clothes, gave in and did eat spaghetti for breakfast, and took off for Switzerland at 10:10AM on Saturday.
My original plan was to climb the 2700 feet over 3 miles to Refuge Bertone (12:07 PM Sat/ 48/ 15,800’) and then run hard the next seven miles to Arnuva. However, I was tiring and during the climb I let lots of people pass. A 20-something runner and I pulled each other up the hill. We never talked, but she would lead for a while and stop, then I would lead for a while and stop. When I got to the top of the climb at Bertone at noon, I was too tired to run so I went to the edge of the flat spot; looked back over up the valley at 20 miles trail I had run,;laid down and fell asleep listening to the music of the spoken French language.
I didn’t set an alarm because I am good at taking cat naps. I slept peacefully for 15 minutes, got up and took off at a strong walk. I did not feel bad about not running because an elite runner friend told me that by the time the trail was something which could be run, I would be too tired to run. Tim was right.
I got my second wind and felt good for the next 12 hours while enjoying the beauty of the glaciers on Mont Blanc and the surrounding rugged mountains. The trail gently rolled up and down from Bertone into Arnuva (2:34 PM Sat/ 55 /17,300’).
The challenge after Arnuva was a 2600 foot climb in 2.4 miles over the Grand Col de Ferret (5:29 PM Sat, 58, 19,900’) into Switzerland. Half way up this climb I looked up, swore softly, and decided the Europeans would put a trail up anything. I had violated my mental rule about climbing until I reached a pass without thinking about how much further I had to go. As payment for my violation, the Sound of Music song, “Climb Every Mountain,” came into my head and I could not get it out.
The day in Italy had been warm and clear. The rain that started as soon as I got into Switzerland alternated between a drizzle and a downpour. The trail turned muddy and it became a challenge to stay upright on the steep downhill. The trail finally leveled out and we ran gradually downhill for the next 7 miles passing through La Fouly at 102K (7:20 PM Sat/ 63 /19,900’). I turned on my headlamp for the second night of running as I was climbing into the major aid station at Champex Lac (10:48 PM Sat/ 74mi 21,800’).
I arrived at Champex at 11:30 p.m., 30 hours and 30 minutes into the run, where I met Lisa, Angela and David. (David had unfortunately missed a cutoff time at Contamines because they closed the station early. He and Angela had graciously come along with Lisa to help out.) I felt tired and wanted to sit down but did not want to go into the aid station tent because it was warm inside and I preferred the cool outdoors. Unfortunately, there was no place to sit because of the wet so we went in. I sat down and because I had stopped exercising so abruptly, my heart rate and blood pressure dropped, which caused me to start to shake uncontrollably. I wasn't cold but I was nauseous. Lisa had never seen me like this and I was worried that she was worried. I put my head between my legs and rested for a few minutes. Finally I decided to try sleeping to see if the sickness would go away so I asked Lisa to let me sleep for 20 minutes. Compounding my exhausted state was the warning of the Bovine climb; a 33% grade, 1750 foot climb in less than a mile. I had heard about that climb before I even got on the plane for Europe. After Lisa let me sleep for 30 minutes, I felt much better. Lisa, who has always shaken her head at my newly found running obsession, gave me a pep talk. (Lisa was obviously suffering from some form of dementia brought on by lack of sleep and too many diesel fumes.) She told me that I was running strong and had been on a 38 hour pace before I came into Champex. I pulled my stuff together and after spending an hour and a half in the tent went out to attack the Bovine climb.
When I got to the bottom of Bovine I was feeling good again. The climb from there was 500m – mentally, I segmented the climb into 100m increments so it didn’t seem like such a long stretch to the top The climb was a hand-over-fist scramble. When I reach the top at Fremes de Bevoine (3:51 AM Sun/ 78mi /24,100’) I ran and hiked around the ridge of the mountain and down the muddy trail into Trient, Switzerland. The trail was so slick that I fell on my rear a couple times even though I was using poles.
As I was running through the village of Trient (5:50 AM Sun/ 82mi / 24,300’), a man standing in the street asked if I want a massage. I was confused and thought either I was hallucinating because I was on my second night of running with only 45 minutes cumulated sleep, or the French really knew how to treat the runners. After I declined he told me the aid station was one half kilometer down the street. By this time I had stopped eating or drinking anything in the aid stations except for tea and was subsisting solely on water and eCrank energy gel shots every half-hour.
It was a bit surreal for the rest of the night. When it was getting light, I kept thinking I was seeing houses in the woods just off the trail ahead of me. When I approached a house, it turned into rocks and trees.
I slowed down a little as I dropped from Switzerland back into France at Les Essert (86/ 26,900). I enjoyed listening to the church bells for the 7 a.m. Sunday Mass as I passed through Argentiere at 148 km (10:36 AM Sun/ 92mi / 27,600’). With only 10 km left, I could feel the finish and picked up the pace and started running again. I had learned during my other long runs that speeding up got the blood circulating and actually reduced the pain in the legs. I was excited and alert and started passing other runners. During the last 4 km I felt like I was running at a blazing speed down into Chamonix.
Turning the corner onto the main street 500 m from the finish, I almost ran into the crowd of cheering spectators. The thick cheering crowd parted as I ran toward the finish. The scene was reminiscent of the stage finishes broadcast for the Tour de France. People were taking my picture and then jumping out of the way as I ran.
I had a huge smile on my face as I finished in Chamonix (12:19 PM Sun/ 98 miles/ 28,200 feet climb and 28,200 foot drop). Lisa and the rest of my newly formed crew were waiting for me. After receiving my finisher’s jacket I went over and had real food for the first time in two days. The cheese and sausage sandwich washed down with beer tasted wonderful. I felt remarkably good for a guy who just ran and hiked for forty one hours. My time, not that it really matters, was 41h17mn58s.
The Tour du Mont Blanc was fun. I was well conditioned and rested going into the race. I did not have any of the epic struggles with blisters, stomach or muscle problems that I had during my two Western States 100 mile runs. My only minor issue was a little blister on my baby toe. I lanced that blister at Champex Lac but did not even bother to bandage it. I ran a smart race. When I look back at my split times it shows that I continually moved up in the standings. I truly lived in the moment of the run. Though I had a rough idea of the course, I had no idea what was ahead of me since I had never been on the trail. I just kept going. I made sure I was well ahead of the cutoff times and just enjoyed the beauty and the people around me.
Much of the fun was derived from the people around me. Thanks to Lisa for following me around. She slept only a little more than I did. She tells stories of riding back to Chamonix from Couermayer and Champex Lac with buses full of tired, smelly, dejected runners who did not finish. Thanks to our new Brit friends David and Angela. Thanks to my running buddies, Tim, Asaf, Steve and Marc for keeping me company during the six months of training runs. And finally, thanks to my coach, Scott Jurek, for guiding me with run schedules, nutrition, hydration, gear suggestions, blister prevention methods, and his positive reinforcement while I pushed my physical and mental limits.
After running the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run and the North Face Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc within two months, I am ready for a rest!
The travel website advertised a tour which would visit three countries in two days. The tour would start and end in the European Alps at Chamonix, France, crossing into Italy, Switzerland and then back into France. The tour would circle 100 miles around the Mont Blanc Massif (mountain range), visit nine villages, go over ten mountain passes, and ascend and descend 57,000 feet elevation. The $120 cost included all the food I could eat, places to sleep along the way if I was interested, and even free massages. The only catch was I had to supply my own transportation and it had to be by foot! REI Adventure Travels offers a two week hut-to-hut trip on the same trail for well conditioned backpackers. Participants this the Ultra Trail Run have only 45 hours to cover the same distance. Two years after reading the website, I was at the starting line of this ultra run, finally ready to begin my adventure of The North Face Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc.
Forty minutes before the start of the race I was sitting on the ground 15 meters from the start, surrounded by the other 2500 runners, hoping the swelling in my ankle wasn’t too bad. The two week taper leading up to this moment had been phenomenal. My wife Lisa and I had been having a blast traveling through Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy and France. During my final training runs I had run up the side of a cliff on a 5000 year old trail in Hallstatt , Austria; run through the cobble stone streets in the medieval Czech town of Cesky Krumlov; run for miles along the Danube River in Vienna; and run up-river in the Northern Italian town of Bassano del Grappa. The taper was not all about running – for instance, the day before we headed to Chamonix to get dirty trail running, I got cultured by attending the Verona Opera in a 2000 year old Roman arena. I was blown away by the perfect acoustics with no microphones for the singers and the silence of the 25,000 normally animated Italians.
Contrary to the enjoyable taper time, the day of the run was troubling. The North Face, as the run is called in Europe, starts at 7 PM on Friday night with a cutoff time of 45 hours. We had until 4 PM Sunday to complete the tour. On Friday morning I woke up with an extremely sore hip. Visions of my struggle to finish the Western States 100 two months earlier played in my head. I gently and repeatedly stretched until the problem went away. Around 2 PM Lisa and I walked with our new friends from the UK, David and Angela Brown, to the free pre-race pasta feed. I hadn’t been feeling that well and while eating plain pasta I felt really sick. We returned to the hotel where after a two hour nap I felt much better. We met David and Angela again and walked our drop bags, containing dry clothes and energy gels that would be waiting for us at mile 45 and 70, over to the sports center. When David and I were leaving the sports center, I was focused on finding Lisa and Angela in the crowd and stepped into a hole in the grass near a sprinkler head, badly twisting my ankle. I silently swore. With the run starting in less than an hour I put the best face on this troubling situation. I told Lisa that I hoped I had gotten all the run related negative effects out of the way before the start. During the run I realized that I was not to be quite that lucky.
Counting down the start of the run was like counting down New Years Eve; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… and we were off!! It felt great to be running through the streets in the crush of excited runners and hearing the huge crowds of spectators who were ringing cowbells, shouting and clapping. I said to myself: “I am actually running Mont Blanc!” It was strange to kick around Europe for two weeks and then get back into my comfort zone of trail running.
I felt comfortable running in the crowd, though I did have to watch out for a few errant trekking poles. We ran down the river for about 4 miles, crossed the road and started our first of many climbs. Climbing up the slope of a ski hill with the chair lift overhead was similar to the start of Western. Not bad, I thought to myself. Just run comfortably until you hit the big climbs at mile 20.
I heard someone behind me ask ‘How’s it going?’ I knew it was someone who knew me because they were speaking English. Terri Schneider, who lives 40 miles from me in Santa Cruz, California came up along side me and we chatted. I had introduced myself to Terri the day before at the check-in. Terri was one of 20 Americans signed up for the run. Meeting her was one of the several ‘small world’ things that happened during my run. Despite the small percentage of Americans I knew or randomly met most of the Americans who started the race.
At the top of the climb at Col de Voza (9:07 pm Friday /8 miles /2,900’ cumulative elev. gain) the first fully stocked aid station was so crowded I could not see the tables. I did manage to grab a banana and fill my water. I was surprised to see the table stacked with 2 liter Evian bottled water and Avre sparkling water. I later found out that every aid station had bottled water. I stayed away from the bubbly water in order to keep my stomach in check. This was the first place that I was ‘wanded’. A chip with my runner number was embedded in the bib. When we came into a control point a volunteer would wave a wand in front of me and 15 minutes later my time at that location would show as a text message on my crew’s cell phone.
At the Col I heard people say there was a 5 kilometer downhill section after the aid station. We had climbed 2200 feet and now we were going to give it back. I took off at a fast comfortable pace weaving around people. After a few miles, it was getting dark so I switched on my headlamp. We hit traffic when the trail narrowed to a single track and everyone stopped to wait for the runner in front of them to move forward. Patience, I thought, we still have 90 miles to go.
The trail opened up onto a paved road by a church in Contamines (11:02 PM Fri/ 15mi/ 4,000’ cum). As I passed the church I heard some scream “Joe!” My friend Tim Geyer’s girls, Rachel and Katlyn were jumping up and down cheering me on. (Tim was still out on the second half of the course running his first 50 mile run. Tim’s run started 7 hours before mine at the 45 mile mark (in Courmayer, Italy.)) Also in the crowd were Lisa, Angela and Tim’s wife Pam. I gave Lisa a kiss, told her I was having a great run, and took off to the check point.
After the checkpoint and three miles of a gentle uphill trail alongside a babbling brook in a dense forest we started up the Roman Road, an ancient route from Italy into France for a one mile vertical climb in five miles of trail. The Roman engineers did not know how to build switchbacks so they built a road with a 15 percent grade. I hiked the road at a steady pace keeping my heart rate at 150 beats per minute. As we were climbing in the night we passed a bar where all the patrons were wildly cheering us on. Drunk is drunk in any language and I wondered: who would hurt worse in the morning, them or me?
The road changed into a single track trail after the La Balme aid station (12:39 AM Sat. /21 /5,800’). When I got into the station, I tried a few crackers and cookies to see if I would be eating them for the next two days. Phew. They did not taste very good so I put on my best “French face of disgust” and spit them out. I decided to stick with the food that I was carrying. This was my first run with trekking poles and I was struggling to be able to fill my water and hold onto the poles. It took a few aid stations until I got in the habit of setting my poles against the side of a building or on the ground before taking care of business.
The weather was perfect. The night sky, with a new moon, was full of stars. I could look up and see the several thousand feet of climbing I had in front of me because the mountain was a dark silhouette against the bright stars and the stream of light from all the runners' headlamps lit the way.
I crested the 7982 foot Col du Bonhomme( 23 mi/ 7,800’), our second mountain pass, and started to run the downhill. The downhill, I was surprised to find out, was just as steep as the uphill. I am not sure what I expected, but I did not expect to find my toes jammed into the front of my trail shoes. I retied my shoes and started down again. My toes were all the way forward but fortunately I had clipped the toenails enough that they did not bother me (Yes, we can learn from our previous mistakes!.) We dropped 2900 feet over the next 3.3 miles. I could see small town lights and hear the live rock music wafting up from far, far down the mountain-side.
When I pulled into Les Chapieux at 3:29 AM I had covered 44 kilometers, climbed 8300 feet and thought I was way ahead of my schedule. I was a bit disoriented and thought that Couermayer was just over the next “hill.” I thought that I would be at Couermayer, the half way point major aid station at mile 41, by 6 AM - 2 ½ hours ahead of schedule. When I pulled out my map for the first time I discovered I had fourteen miles to go, not the four that I expected. I had only finished my first marathon in seven hours. Covering the next fourteen miles in three hours wouldn’t have been a problem except that I had two more passes to cross with a 4800 foot ascent and 5900 foot descent.
I ran for an hour out of Les Chapieux, passing the walking runners until we started up a steep climb where we all fell in line. I climbed up the switchback trail, following the stream light from the runners’ headlamps for another two hours and still could not see the top of the pass. Looking back, I could see lights dancing in a single file all the way back to Chapieux. As I crossed from France into Italy an hour later at Col de la Seigne (5:56 AM Sat /34 /11,500’) , I realized that from one vantage point I could see runners separated by four hours. The front runner I saw was four hours ahead of the last runner I saw.
The sky turned from black to light during the 500 meter (1700 foot) drop into Refugee Elisbeabetta (36 mi, 9400). The Italian Army soldiers working the aid station were cooking what I thought was breakfast in large pots. I was waiting for a warm cup of oatmeal, tea or coffee because it was cold and I had run all night in shorts and a layered top. When they pulled spaghetti out of the pot to see if it was cooked my stomach turned, so I took off.
As the sun came up and lit Mont Blanc, the morning did not warm up at all. The mountains to the east cast a shadow on the trail at the lower elevation, causing a false pre-dawn effect that lasted for hours. After crossing Arete Mont-Favre (8:09 AM Sat /39 /13,000) and while running downhill, I slipped on a granite slab that had frosted over. When I pushed my trekking poles down into the slab in front of me to arrest my fall, they slipped and I fell face-first off the trail. Immediately I was surrounded by three runners trying to help me. My knee was a scraped and a bit bloody; my thumb hurt; and, worst of all, my pole was broken. I thanked all the other runners, refused their help and got back to running down the trail. The physical scrapes didn’t bother me, but it would be a struggle if I continued without poles. To fix the situation I did what any outdoor adventurer would do when out in the back country: I pulled out my cell phone and called Lisa. (Who of course is the best crew any runner could ever have!)
The race organization had set up buses to help the race crews get to and from the various major Aid Stations to help their racers. Lisa spent a lot of time on buses chasing me around the mountain during the run. Lisa’s bus was just emerging from the 6 mile long Mont Blanc tunnel between Chamonix and Couermayer when I called and asked her to go to a sports store and buy me the lightest pair of trekking poles they had, regardless of the cost. Lisa hustled to find a store that was open, bought the poles and then ran to the sports center aid station where we met just as I was arriving. It was 9:39 Saturday morning. It had taken 14 hours and 38 minutes to cover 45 miles and climb 13,100 feet. I changed clothes, gave in and did eat spaghetti for breakfast, and took off for Switzerland at 10:10AM on Saturday.
My original plan was to climb the 2700 feet over 3 miles to Refuge Bertone (12:07 PM Sat/ 48/ 15,800’) and then run hard the next seven miles to Arnuva. However, I was tiring and during the climb I let lots of people pass. A 20-something runner and I pulled each other up the hill. We never talked, but she would lead for a while and stop, then I would lead for a while and stop. When I got to the top of the climb at Bertone at noon, I was too tired to run so I went to the edge of the flat spot; looked back over up the valley at 20 miles trail I had run,;laid down and fell asleep listening to the music of the spoken French language.
I didn’t set an alarm because I am good at taking cat naps. I slept peacefully for 15 minutes, got up and took off at a strong walk. I did not feel bad about not running because an elite runner friend told me that by the time the trail was something which could be run, I would be too tired to run. Tim was right.
I got my second wind and felt good for the next 12 hours while enjoying the beauty of the glaciers on Mont Blanc and the surrounding rugged mountains. The trail gently rolled up and down from Bertone into Arnuva (2:34 PM Sat/ 55 /17,300’).
The challenge after Arnuva was a 2600 foot climb in 2.4 miles over the Grand Col de Ferret (5:29 PM Sat, 58, 19,900’) into Switzerland. Half way up this climb I looked up, swore softly, and decided the Europeans would put a trail up anything. I had violated my mental rule about climbing until I reached a pass without thinking about how much further I had to go. As payment for my violation, the Sound of Music song, “Climb Every Mountain,” came into my head and I could not get it out.
The day in Italy had been warm and clear. The rain that started as soon as I got into Switzerland alternated between a drizzle and a downpour. The trail turned muddy and it became a challenge to stay upright on the steep downhill. The trail finally leveled out and we ran gradually downhill for the next 7 miles passing through La Fouly at 102K (7:20 PM Sat/ 63 /19,900’). I turned on my headlamp for the second night of running as I was climbing into the major aid station at Champex Lac (10:48 PM Sat/ 74mi 21,800’).
I arrived at Champex at 11:30 p.m., 30 hours and 30 minutes into the run, where I met Lisa, Angela and David. (David had unfortunately missed a cutoff time at Contamines because they closed the station early. He and Angela had graciously come along with Lisa to help out.) I felt tired and wanted to sit down but did not want to go into the aid station tent because it was warm inside and I preferred the cool outdoors. Unfortunately, there was no place to sit because of the wet so we went in. I sat down and because I had stopped exercising so abruptly, my heart rate and blood pressure dropped, which caused me to start to shake uncontrollably. I wasn't cold but I was nauseous. Lisa had never seen me like this and I was worried that she was worried. I put my head between my legs and rested for a few minutes. Finally I decided to try sleeping to see if the sickness would go away so I asked Lisa to let me sleep for 20 minutes. Compounding my exhausted state was the warning of the Bovine climb; a 33% grade, 1750 foot climb in less than a mile. I had heard about that climb before I even got on the plane for Europe. After Lisa let me sleep for 30 minutes, I felt much better. Lisa, who has always shaken her head at my newly found running obsession, gave me a pep talk. (Lisa was obviously suffering from some form of dementia brought on by lack of sleep and too many diesel fumes.) She told me that I was running strong and had been on a 38 hour pace before I came into Champex. I pulled my stuff together and after spending an hour and a half in the tent went out to attack the Bovine climb.
When I got to the bottom of Bovine I was feeling good again. The climb from there was 500m – mentally, I segmented the climb into 100m increments so it didn’t seem like such a long stretch to the top The climb was a hand-over-fist scramble. When I reach the top at Fremes de Bevoine (3:51 AM Sun/ 78mi /24,100’) I ran and hiked around the ridge of the mountain and down the muddy trail into Trient, Switzerland. The trail was so slick that I fell on my rear a couple times even though I was using poles.
As I was running through the village of Trient (5:50 AM Sun/ 82mi / 24,300’), a man standing in the street asked if I want a massage. I was confused and thought either I was hallucinating because I was on my second night of running with only 45 minutes cumulated sleep, or the French really knew how to treat the runners. After I declined he told me the aid station was one half kilometer down the street. By this time I had stopped eating or drinking anything in the aid stations except for tea and was subsisting solely on water and eCrank energy gel shots every half-hour.
It was a bit surreal for the rest of the night. When it was getting light, I kept thinking I was seeing houses in the woods just off the trail ahead of me. When I approached a house, it turned into rocks and trees.
I slowed down a little as I dropped from Switzerland back into France at Les Essert (86/ 26,900). I enjoyed listening to the church bells for the 7 a.m. Sunday Mass as I passed through Argentiere at 148 km (10:36 AM Sun/ 92mi / 27,600’). With only 10 km left, I could feel the finish and picked up the pace and started running again. I had learned during my other long runs that speeding up got the blood circulating and actually reduced the pain in the legs. I was excited and alert and started passing other runners. During the last 4 km I felt like I was running at a blazing speed down into Chamonix.
Turning the corner onto the main street 500 m from the finish, I almost ran into the crowd of cheering spectators. The thick cheering crowd parted as I ran toward the finish. The scene was reminiscent of the stage finishes broadcast for the Tour de France. People were taking my picture and then jumping out of the way as I ran.
I had a huge smile on my face as I finished in Chamonix (12:19 PM Sun/ 98 miles/ 28,200 feet climb and 28,200 foot drop). Lisa and the rest of my newly formed crew were waiting for me. After receiving my finisher’s jacket I went over and had real food for the first time in two days. The cheese and sausage sandwich washed down with beer tasted wonderful. I felt remarkably good for a guy who just ran and hiked for forty one hours. My time, not that it really matters, was 41h17mn58s.
The Tour du Mont Blanc was fun. I was well conditioned and rested going into the race. I did not have any of the epic struggles with blisters, stomach or muscle problems that I had during my two Western States 100 mile runs. My only minor issue was a little blister on my baby toe. I lanced that blister at Champex Lac but did not even bother to bandage it. I ran a smart race. When I look back at my split times it shows that I continually moved up in the standings. I truly lived in the moment of the run. Though I had a rough idea of the course, I had no idea what was ahead of me since I had never been on the trail. I just kept going. I made sure I was well ahead of the cutoff times and just enjoyed the beauty and the people around me.
Much of the fun was derived from the people around me. Thanks to Lisa for following me around. She slept only a little more than I did. She tells stories of riding back to Chamonix from Couermayer and Champex Lac with buses full of tired, smelly, dejected runners who did not finish. Thanks to our new Brit friends David and Angela. Thanks to my running buddies, Tim, Asaf, Steve and Marc for keeping me company during the six months of training runs. And finally, thanks to my coach, Scott Jurek, for guiding me with run schedules, nutrition, hydration, gear suggestions, blister prevention methods, and his positive reinforcement while I pushed my physical and mental limits.
After running the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run and the North Face Ultra Trail Tour du Mont Blanc within two months, I am ready for a rest!
posted by Joe | 10:59 PM
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