Julien's fuzzy blog

I told you Bayswater was pretty more animated than South Ken. Well this week-end was really animated, with the Notting Hill Carnival nearby...


Photo: Reuters

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 ).

That was the time to complete the loop Full report tomorrow when I'll understand exactly what happened last week-end ! Till then, you can have a look at my timings/ranking here (1st ranking - 199 - is definitively wrong).

Update 24/08 - 13:10 : I forgot to tell you I've entered the London Marathon 2006 ballot.

The so-waited-for (*) day is nearly there ... I'm flying tomorrow morning for the Alps... A bit stressed, I reckon ! My gear is nearly ready, exhibited in my room, the MP3 playlist for the night run boost loaded in the player, but the funny gadget is still missing !

The trail will start Friday at 7pm. There were some floods on the route, so it may be slightly modified. I still wonder what will stop me: cramps, hypoglycemia, dehydratation, tireness, dodgy knees/ankle, hypothermia, lazy stomach, unconsciousness, ankle twist, renal failure, serious fall, huge blisters, burns, heart attack... or the finish line ? Maybe a combination of some of those .

You should be able to follow my race online on the UTMB website or by subscribing the SMS alert system (charged).

Am I bold if I remember you a last time that you can sponsor me for a fundraising against AIDS ? You can still send me an e-mail with you pledge or use justgiving, even during the race !

Next post when I'll be back ...

(*) nice frenchism

A couple of pictures of the flat as promised. Twice my room (green) and Marcus' one (red)

   

On Saturday was organised a last-minute trip to Oxford with Mommas and Ludo to visit Lily, William & Co. The weather was really nice, so 8 of us took two punts (detailed description on Wikipedia). We spent a couple of hours on the river and had great fun, trying to collide with the other ship, etc ... All the pictures are available on Wiliam's web site, and even a video of Philippe in the water



It's actually quite funny how the region looks like the Ried in the South of Alsace, and how punt boats and poles techniques are similar to the boat we used to drive with Arnaud ...

8 days before the UTMB, I try to keep zen. It's a long time I was thinking to carry with me a small gadget outside of the bag that would be my running mate. I've got a couple of ideas, but don't really know what to choose.
The idea is now to let you, my dear blog reader, choose this gadget through a small competition. Rules are quite simple:

• proposals must be made via the "Comments" link below - several proposals can be made by the same person
• the gadget must not weight more than 100g (anvil not allowed )
• the gadget must be waterproof, shock-resistant and hang-able
• the gadget must be available & affordable to me (alternatively sent by post)
• best gadget is selected by myself only, nobody said it was democratic

Criteria for ranking will be the following: visibility, funny, cute, unsual, message carried, ... (non-exhaustive list). Vote Now !

Just for fun, I had a look at the weatherbase web site at lunch time. In particular the average inches of precipitation per year ... What a surprise ! I've choosen 6 cities, that I've separated into two groups: the most rainy and the less ones:

group 1 (rainy)			group 2 (dry)
Nantes (F)	32		Strasbourg (F)	24.8
Manchester (GB)	35.5		York (GB) - near Hull	26.3
Nice (F)	32.4		London (GB)	29.7

Honestly, is that what you expected ?

Subsidiary question: is there another criteria that classifies the 6 cities the same way ? I can see two different answers. Clue: Bastien doesn't like hiking in the rain Follow the "Comments" link below to propose your solution.

I've spent the night in my new flat. It was incredibly quiet without the tube but with double-glazed window, darker without the street light in front of the window, more comfortable with the double bed... This room is really better than what I had before ! Looks cosy to me, but it's up to you to come and have a look. I feel more at home than at the hotel.
I will try to get some pictures soon.

This week-end I went to visit Mommas in Weybridge (SW of London). He lives in a nice, bright flat in a cute wooden-frame house. One more time, I'm jelouse...

Among all, we went wall-climbing. That was really nice. I particularly enjoyed the bouldering (see description on Wikipedia). It's a long time I wanted to start seriously to climb. I guess this was the sparkle. I will now try to find quickly a nice wall nearby (and not too expensive) before the Imperial College new sport center opens and some partner(s) to go climbing regularly.

Hmmm ... I've just noticed I didn't talk about Sin City in this cinema section. It's a pity, that was a great movie ...

I went to see The Island this week-end, with somebody I refuse to name by respect for him . This is the story of some clones trying to escape their kind of prison. However the subtitle "plan your escape", there's nothing planned, it's just a nice context for a typical action movie race... With Starwars-like flying motor bikes (even sound is the same), beautiful cars, helicopters, etc. All déjà vu. Add on top of that lots of ads for Puma, Xbox, Msn Search or Cisco. Conclusion: not recommended.

!! Update 12/08 - 16:50 : there's a SMS service to follow the runners nearly in real time. At each control point (there are around 20), you get automatically the time on your mobile. This cost 10€ (euro). If you're interested, my race number is the following: 2790.

In exactly 2 weeks at 7pm, I will start to run the Ultra-Trail (if BA flights are back to a normal service). This personnal challenge is very close now, I am a bit afraid but try to keep optimistic. I hope the week hiking in the Alps helped a bit for long distance endurance, high elevation conditions and mountain's technique. My knees didn't complain too much there. I didn't dare go on the scale this morning at the swimming pool, I hope I've not lost weight.

If you've not sponsored me yet for my fundraising against AIDS you're still welcome to do it ! To date I've collected £17+£1.24/km which means, according to the following distances:

Les Chapieux (France)	44km	£72
Courmayeur (Italy)	72km	£106
Champex (Switzerland)	119km	£165
Chamonix (France)	158km	£213

Thank you !

Once back to Nice, we didn't stop hiking anyway, we went to the Parc National du Mercantour in the Southern Alps too, for a long day hiking.
To summarise this day, I would say that the animals were really numerous and not really afraid of the humans ! We saw around 50 chamois, some of them from as close as like 3m ! We saw some young ones too, some of them still drinking their mother's milk ! And I didn't have my camera and my 300mm lens . At lunch time, a marmot came to us and stole Bastien's chunk of bread ! Then ate it proudly in front of us and came back to get the last pieces under Bastien's knees, touching him ! We also saw an ermine in summer fur, and a peacefull ibex showing an impressive 50cm-long pair of horns...

 

2 weeks ago, Bastien and me went to the Parc National des Ecrins in the Southern French Alps to hike the GR 54 "Tour de l'Oisans" with a tent. This path is told to be one of the widldest and most beautiful GR (long distance hiking). It's around 200km-long for +11,000m ascent, highest point over 2750m. The region is rather dry, so the glaciers are generally quite small and hanged on the clives. This presents a great contrast between the white snow and the black rocks.
We got different kinds of weather: very hot and heavy, warm, cold but sunny... and rainy. We saw lots of marmots. In particular, Bastien achieve to approach 2 very young marmots near their hole (at around 2m) with his camera. It was great fun to watch them playing, fighting together but also kissing, hugging. We also saw a couple of chamois, king of the place. Scenery was great in many places, just to mention the best: The Meije glacier from the Plateau d'Emparis: powerful, the Sirac, the end of the amazing valley of Jaz-la-Croix and the lake of Vallonpierre.
One morning, we saw a camp "devastated" by a group of cows... The hikers there only achieved to save quickly bags and tent, leaving the cooking gear in the middle of the cows, tasting some pasta ! They looked really pissed off, and didn't know what to do. Bastien and me went in the middle of the cows to get back their stove, and other gear from under their legs. Bastien even hit one in the nose with his bag. Some crockery was "slightly" crushed, but the stove was ok. For their first night out, they made a great start !
One camp at 2500m was rather cold, even though the weather was nice: there was some ice in the tent ! The gas stove didn't burn properly, so I had to help it by heating the bottle with the lighter.
Unfortunately, after 6 great days, a heavy rain with low clouds prevented us to pass the 2500m-high Col de la Vaurze (really slippery slopes and clives). As the schedule was rather tight, we had to cancel the last 3 days. This was quite a hard decision, I can tell you. We were nearly locked in a small village (Villard Loubière) when a guy offered to give us a lift to the nearest city (Gap): 35km and the way back alone just for us ! We always meet great people in the mountains !

     

Bastien is supposed to create a complete web site, much more detailed about this trip, with lots of pictures. He's going to tell you objectively how he was about to die many times, how I was nasty to him, etc Don't hesitate to spam him to get this site quickly online.

... and I received this letter:

Your registration as an Internal postgraduate student of the University of London has now been approved as shown below.

A nice picture sent by Karim. I don't know if it's a real one, and if it has really been written by the tube staff, but quite funny, though ...