Reflections On TDS

I am now home from Chamonix where I had a fantastic two week holiday but, unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in completing the 119km TDS ultra run (Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie). I can not convey how disappointed I am in not completing this event.  It had been the race that I was most looking forward to. However, there are a lot of positives to be taken from the experience, and my disappointment has made me even more determined to go back and finish next year. I will try to write about the event itself in a few days, first I am going to focus on why I failed to complete the run and what I have learnt.

First of all my failure was partly down to completely underestimating how hard the TDS would be. Because I had finished the 80km Swiss Mountainman last year I thought I had a very good idea of what running 119km around Mont Blanc would be like.  I was so wrong. The Mountainman was probably about 60% runnable, where as I’d say the TDS was only about 30 to 40% runnable, and that level of difference is huge. The TDS is described as being wilder and more technical than the 100km CCC and 168km UTMB, the other two main events during the UTMB week. What that means is lots of paths that are difficult enough to walk on, let alone run. At times we were climbing and descending on paths which required use of hands as well as feet. On one steep section of descent we needed to use ropes to climb down (more on that later).

I also hadn’t trained enough for downhill running. In hindsight this seems like such a basic error. When I was training for the Mountainman I spent weekends in the Peak District and a long weekend in the Lakes where I trained hard at slogging up hills and running down. I knew that those weekends had been really valuable last year, but I didn’t get round to repeating those training runs this time around. This was partly due to the fact that my weekends have been so busy on taking part in other events. I had two weekends in my diary when I’d planned to go to the Peak District but because I’d been away from home so often I scrapped those weekends and did my training around Cambridge instead. Because I wasn’t training on Peak District hills I did some runs dragging a tire behind me. This had helped to prepare me for the uphill slogs but it did nothing to help me for the descents. Before halfway we had two really long downhill sections. The first long descent went downhill for 9km and dropped a total of 830m. We reached this descent after 21kms and it provided the first real opportunity to do some running, which was a relief at first but towards the end my quads were starting to feel trashed by such a long downhill run. The next long descent came after 39km and dropped 1360m over the next 14km. This descent started as a gradual decline but then got steeper and steeper as it neared the valley floor. If my quads had been complaining before, they were in agony by the bottom of this descent. I’ve never needed to take walking breaks on a downhill run before. Where can you train for that level of downhill running in Britain?

So why hadn’t I trained to run downhill this year. There are two reasons. One is because of my fairly ambitious target of running 26 marathons or ultra marathons, which has meant many weekends away from home running, but not necessarily doing the right sort of running. The other reason is one I mentioned previously in that I underestimated how hard the TDS would be. I had casually assumed that I could run all those other events and just slip in the TDS as another event during the year. I now realise that the TDS requires more respect and I should have been doing more targeted training. The Thunder Run had helped prepare me for staying on my feet for a long period of time, but it is such a soft event by comparison. The North Downs Way had been a great event to do earlier on, but I should have followed this with another tough and perhaps more mountainous event, i.e. The Welsh 3000s Sky Race. This is now noted for next year.

The reasons above set out why I think I failed with the benefit of hindsight and from analysing my performance in the cold light of day. There is also a part of me that still thinks I could have perhaps finished, but perhaps a broken man. Part of me believes that maybe I should have sat down, had something to eat and given myself a talking to, and that maybe, just maybe I could have pressed on to the next checkpoint. However, at the point that I abandoned I do also know that I was in a lot of pain.

I had just spent 5 hours 30 minutes travelling 16kms. The previous checkpoint was at Bourg Saint Maurice at an elevation of 840m. Over the next 16kms we had to first ascend 1530m over a distance of 10kms, then we descended a short 140m over 2.5kms followed by another 330m ascent over a short 1.5kms. This was then followed by a steep 540m descent over 2kms. That last descent averages out at a gradient of 1 in 3.7, but the top of the descent was probably steeper than 1 in 1 and was the section that required ropes. I came very close to falling off the side of the mountain at this point and it was only my grasp of the rope that prevented me from plummeting to a serious injury or worse. Once over the roped section the gradient levelled out slightly for the next third of the descent and levelled out even more over the last third. By the time I reached the checkpoint my knees felt trashed, I was slightly shaken by my near fall, and I was knackered. I looked at the profile for the remaining 50kms and took in how much descent was required. I wasn’t so put off by the remaining 2500m of ascent, but I seriously couldn’t imagine doing any more descents. My head had been filling up with negative thoughts anyway, as I wasn’t progressing as quickly as I thought I should be, but with my knees in agony from the last descent I came to the decision to pull out of the event.

Ruth was waiting for me at the checkpoint, and I guess having the opportunity to get on a bus back to Chamonix with her was also appealing. When we got on the bus and sat down my legs still throbbed with pain. I couldn’t get comfortable. Sitting with my knees bent to 90^o was painful. Having my legs stretched out in the aisle of the bus was painful. The most comfortable position was to lay out flat with my legs up on the opposite seats across the aisle of the bus. We had to wait a good 45 minutes before the bus departed for Chamonix. As we waited several more runners got on the bus, which was a small comfort, at least I wasn’t alone, but a part of me also hoped the bus wouldn’t get too full as I selfishly wanted to hold on to the three seats I was taking up.

I am still in pain today, four days after the event. My knees still hurt a small amount, but my worst pain now is in my back, which I’m sure is connected to the run in some way but probably not helped by carrying a heavy backpack around on the journey home yesterday. On the whole I do feel I made the right decision in abandoning the race, but that still doesn’t deflect my disappointment. My level of regret only makes me realise how much I want to go back and complete the event. So I am determined to train better and give it another go next year.

I did say there are plenty of positives I can take away from the event. One is that it got me to run and trek through some very beautiful and demanding terrain in the Italian and French Alps. If it hadn’t been for the TDS I would never have visited that particular corner of this amazing planet that we live on, and now I will have a second go at trekking and running through that environment. It has also been the hardest event that I have ever taken part in. I still have ambitions to complete the full 168km UTMB, and the 67kms I managed to complete this time has given me greater respect for the region, for the all the races in the UTMB week and for all those who do complete each of the races. I will also make sure that in future I will treat each ultra event I enter with the level of respect they deserve. I never want to fail at an event again, so I will make sure I do not over look any aspect of the required training. Not completing an ultra marathon has been a new experience, as has dealing with the disappointment. I believe I will be able to draw from the experience to give me strength and greater determination in future.

Chamonix, I will be back!

View of Mont Blanc