First of all, I really want to
acknowledge many people in a messy order: all those that encouraged
me before the race but also the numerous ones that have never
understood me and still think I'm crazy, all those that sponsored
me for my
fundraising
against AIDS (it's not too late
),
Catherine
Poletti (the amazing organizer of the race), the 600 volunteers
that were along the route with huge smiles day and night, under the
sun or in a freezing rain, the nice kinesitherapists that provided
me nearly brand new legs at Courmayeur and Champex, all the
supporters around the race that clapped their hands (with special
acknowledgments to those at the Contamines), Ludo from the hot-dog
shop in Chamonix, the guys&girls of the youth hostel, Mark and
Jean-Philippe who both ran a long time with me during rather
difficult moments and all those I forgot. To summarise your
feelings I would like to quote the last thing Marcus told me before
I left and that I kept in my head all race long: "I don't know if I
should encourage or dissuade you to do that...".
Now what should I start with ? A global idea ? The entire race was
amazing. I met loads of people during the race but also beside,
such as in the street, at the youth hostel, in the train, the
coach, the shops, etc ... There is a kind of solidarity between the
runners which is really great. Everybody talks to everyone without
any problems.
We ran on large paths, roads, narrow paths, stones, grass, ...
There were some check-points and food+water stations every
10km-ish. There were also 4 big base camps at the Chapieux (km44),
Courmayeur (km72), Champex (km119) and Chamonix of course, in which
were provided hot meals, beds and massages.
The race started slowly from Chamonix (France) on Friday at 7pm
with nice "runners jam". We got quickly an stunning sunset on the
Mont-Blanc chain of mountains of which even the locals said was
unsual. Then was the night, with a clear sky. Everything went well
for me all night long, power walking the ascents, running the flat
and not-too-sloppy descents. Lots of people in the street to
encourage us. It was very nice to watch backwards the snake of
light made by the runners head torchs, swinging in the montains. A
couple of hours after the sunrise I arrived in Courmayeur (Italy)
on Saturday morning. I changed my clothes (only once in 35h30 !),
got a great massage and ate some lasagne. For the first time I felt
a bit tired.
Leaving from Courmayeur, I made a big mistake by climbing very fast
after eating a lot quickly. I felt really dizzy, head spinning and
stomach ache. I really doubted about being able to finish or even
to reach Switzerland. That was the worst moment of the race. I had
a 30-minute rest at the refuge Bertone and, lucky me, I was fresh,
stomach cleaned, and could leave running full speed ! This rest
explains my small drop in the ranking for those that noticed. The
way to Champex (Switzerland) was a bit more difficult than before,
sometimes boring, starting to be alone more and more often. Also
more and more people were stopping because of tendinitis-like or
stomach problems. I arrived at Champex a bit before the night, were
I got a hot meal first, to have time to digest and then a massage.
I planned to sleep for an hour, but I didn't feel really tired and
thought it would be therefore worst, so I left alone in the night,
the rain and the fog !
On top of the very bad weather, this was also probably the most
technical part of the trail: a long ascent in the rocks and roots
by night. The batteries of my head torch went quickly down, but I
took a lot of time to realise that (I started to be tired, but I
wasn't really conscious I was). So I was walking seeing virtually
nothing but my shoes. I didn't feel confident at all. Then I
decided to change the batteries (and here the second torch is
usefull !) and felt much better. I then found a runner to go on
with. I had a couple of hallucinations: I saw lots of beautiful
paintings on the rocks around the path. But that was not funny
compared to some runners having seen some crocodiles in the forest
or mice climbing their legs... The descents were awfull, with up to
15cm of mud and no visibility because of the combo night+fog. We
were more skiing than anything else, and it lasted for hours. We
heard many times people shouting that they were bored (well, they
screamed it obviousy in quite a more direct manner
).
Eventually we arrived at Argentière - 9km of full-of-stones
path left. I was really fed up with that, because it's very hard to
run that by night, and I wanted to finish it fast. Eventually at
6am the day appeared more or less. So I took my MP3 player with
loud dance music to boost me up and ran rather fast the last 4km
virtually without stopping. The last title I heard was "I like the
way you move".
The following one in the playlist was "I will be there". That's a
funny coincidence because arriving at 6:30am, there's not much
people around ! Around 20 persons only were standing nearby the
finish arch. Also the photographer was not ready and asked me to
slow down a bit
. The advantage is that I've been greeted personnaly
by Catherine Poletti (the organizer) during 5 minutes.
In the list of potential problems I could have got, I was then
quite lucky. Cramps: no but rather stiff right calf, hypoglycemia:
no, dehydratation: no, tireness: a couple of minutes of
sleep-running, dodgy knees/ankle: only in the last 20km,
hypothermia: no, lazy stomach: yes but fixed quickly,
unconsciousness: only minor hallucinations, ankle twist: no, renal
failure: no, serious fall: even not a single fall !, huge blisters:
only a small one in the last 10km, burns: no, heart attack: no, the
finish line: YES !
I was not really fresh when I arrived, but I thought I was. The
fact is that I didn't really realised I finished ! I was slightly
happy, nothing more. I actually realised what I've done yesterday
while leaving Chamonix by bus and had an amazing emotion taking me
suddenly for half-an-hour. Surprisingly, I couldn't sleep for very
long after that. And even last night I woke up every hour.
I guess it's the longest post I've ever made, so I'll stop here. I
will soon gather most of the info about the trail that has been
posted here plus some extra in an article (for the posterity
).
