It was too late to course correct once I realized that I was running too fast. I was sprinting straight down a 1,000m descent, surrounded by other runners when I tripped and fell hard while letting out a guttural yell. I don’t know why but I have a tendency to yell “huh” when I fall. This certainly got the attention of the racers around me and they all asked me if I was alright. I got up quickly and assured everyone that I was okay even though I wasn’t sure – adrenaline had taken over and I couldn’t feel anything.
Background:
In the Spring of 2015 my wife Lindsay and I decided to spend a month in the summer in France. Lindsay and I were both self employed and wanted to take advantage of it. We planned two weeks in the South of France in Nice, ten days in Cinque Terre in Italy and ten days in the French Alps, ending our visit in Chamonix. The UTMB race had been in the back of my mind ever since my trip to Chamonix, France, six years earlier. We were going to be in Chamonix at the same time as the UTMB but I couldn’t get into any of the races. There are a number of races in addition to the 106 mile UTMB but you have to register for them in December of the previous year. You also need to have run qualifying races for the longer events. We still planned to watch the start of some of the UTMB races and I found a shorter mountain race called La Sauvage (the Wild) in Pralognan La Vanoise, about 130km south of Chamonix in the French Alps. La Sauvage was 28km through a protected, mountainous park with 1,100m of vertical gain and 1,600m of descent.
Lindsay and I travelled with our two kids, Norah who was 5 years old and James who was almost 3 years old. We enjoyed Nice although it was not a great place for kids. There weren’t many young families and we got the sense that our kids weren’t appreciated in most places. We loved Cinque Terre in Italy. The five villages in Cinque Terre are beautiful and the people were much more relaxed and welcomed our kids. We had access to a small beach and we spent most of the day there. I was sad to leave Cinque Terre but excited to get into the mountains of France. We took the train to Annecy, France and spent a week in the beautiful medieval town beside a lake and surrounded by mountains. We rented a car and drove to Pralognan through the French Alps the day before the race. It was a super clear day and there were a ton of cyclists on the roads. We were going very slow as a result but we didn’t mind since the views were spectacular.
Start of the Race:
I got up early on race day and walked over to City Hall for our 6:45am pre-race briefing. Hot coffee and banana bread was available for all runners – I quickly realized that the French do racing the right way. I was in good spirits but worried about altitude sickness since I would be running at 2,700m above sea level and I didn’t know how my body would react. I wanted to run the high altitudes of UTMB at some point though and La Sauvage was a good first step.
All of the runners got on a bus which took us over to a ski village called Tignes. The bus ride took two hours because of all of the twists and turns through the mountains. It felt like it would never end. We got off the bus to freezing weather even though it was the end of August. The race director counted down from ten and we were all off running up the mountain. The sounds of all of the runners grouped together at the start made an impression on me. I heard watches beeping at the same time as we started our timers and listened to the water sloshing in everyone’s hydration packs as we started to run.
I ran uphill for around five minutes straight – I should have been hiking but most of the racers were running and I was eager to keep up. Fortunately, most of the pack started walking at this point. It was also at this point that I noticed a big guy who reminded me of the way that I used to look before I lost weight – I had lost about 40 pounds in the last two years. He was still running uphill and passing a bunch of runners, I thought that I would pass him later because he’s such a big guy. This first climb was 600m and I was winded from the excitement, altitude and the early uphill running. Fortunately, my heart rate settled down and I sped up and passed a few people which felt good. I reached the top of the climb at 2,700m and ran on the flats for about 5 minutes. I monitored how I felt and looked for signs of altitude sickness. It was a big relief to realize that I felt fine. I made it to the first aid station at this point and I thought that I hit the snack jackpot. My mouth watered from the assortment of fine chocolate, two kinds of raisins, prunes, peanuts, crackers, gummy bears, hot tea and soup.
Mid-Race:
I left the aid station and came to my first descent. I ran hard right away and passed two people fairly quickly. The last person who I passed was the big guy who passed me earlier. We started our last climb and I was getting hot. I thought about stepping off the trail to take off my jacket but I knew that I was almost finished and I didn’t want to give up any ground. I caught more racers as I climbed the hill and I decided to leave my coat on so that I could make a last big push. It was at this point that I realized that I might be a good mountain racer after all. It was my first time doing a mountain race and I was passing what appeared to be serious mountain runners. This did a lot for my confidence with trail running. I was worried at first that I couldn’t complete the race and here I was passing experienced mountain runners.
Race Finish
I came to the last aid station and had a quick drink of water and a few candies. I only had 8k to go over a descent of 1,000m and I didn’t want to burn too much time. I descended fast and started passing people again. The descent was steep and my legs were tired. This is when I fell hard and made a big cloud of dust. I had no idea if I had injured myself but I ran for a few more minutes and quickly assessed my body as the adrenaline died down. It turned out that I was okay after all but I scraped my knee and sprained my thumb. I slowed down to avoid another fall and a few runners passed me including the big guy. This was disappointing but I knew that I was still running a good race.
I finished the last part of the descent and ran into Pralognan. I was greeted by a lot of smiling (partly because I have a big smile when I race), clapping and cheers. I powered through the finish line and felt amazing even though I had a good amount of blood running down my leg from the knee scrape. I was thrilled to hear “Daddy” and to see Lindsay, Norah and James waiting for me. I finished in 3h35m which is much faster than my expected 4h40m. Lindsay said that she suspected that I might finish earlier and that she wanted to make sure that she was there. I enjoyed some more of the awesome food like sparkling water, banana bread, orange bread and cheese before leaving with my family. We walked over to the grocery store and stocked up on some more excellent French food so that we could have a little celebration.
Takeaways:
You don’t need a runner’s body to run:
I was very focused on my weight during this time of my life. I was proud of the way that I looked but I was fixated on my diet. I had reasoned that the skinnier that I got, the better I would get at running. I definitely had my perception changed when the big guy beat me in this race. Even though I would have liked to beat the big guy, I was also encouraged by his performance. This taught me that you don’t need to have the perfect runner’s body to run well in challenging races. You want to be in the best shape possible and being lean makes racing easier but you don’t need to wait until you are in perfect shape.
Going around roadblocks:
I was disappointed that I couldn’t run the UTMB, especially since we were going to be in Chamonix at the same time as the race. Instead of letting that stop me, I found La Sauvage which was very similar to a UTMB race. I knew that I wanted to race UTMB some day and I gained some very valuable experience and confidence racing in the French Alps. Everyone encounters roadblocks in their lives and it’s important to address them with the right mindset. I could have easily given up on running a race while I was in France. Instead, I kept my goal of running UTMB in the front of my mind and brainstormed different ways to accomplish my goal. Do you have a big goal that you have been blocked from accomplishing? There might be an easy solution waiting for you if you spend some time working at it.
There is no substitute for action:
I was legitimately surprised about how well I performed during the race. I didn’t expect to beat any serious mountain runners or to get my finish time. I finished the race with a lot of confidence and this came from the action of actually doing the race. I could have continued to plan and to reflect on what was needed to eventually run UTMB but that only would have taken me so far. The action of running a mountain race gave me some very valuable insights and a strong foundation for my next races.
