The TDS
ultra marathon started in Courmayer,
Italy, at 7am
on Wednesday 27th August.
This meant getting on a bus in Chamonix at 5.15am for the trip through
the Mont Blanc tunnel from France
to Italy.
Before going into details of the race itself I’m going to mention the
registration process, in case anyone reading this is tempted to try the event.
The
information available prior to race day was very detailed in some respects and
then somewhat vague in others. Registration for the event took place on Tuesday
inside a large sports centre in Chamonix. I
knew from people who had completed some of the runs before that registration
would involve a kit check, but I never received an email telling me so and I
couldn’t find any information on the website to confirm this. I decided to turn
up in my race kit and with my backpack filled with all the compulsory items
that I needed to carry anyway. Others weren’t quite so prepared and were turned
away after almost an hour of queuing to go and fetch items of kit for inspection.
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| Waiting for race registration to begin. |
I got to
the sports centre about 30 minutes before the doors were due to open for
registration to find a long queue had already formed, which snaked around
inside the building’s entrance hall. When the doors opened there was a chaos of
pushing and shoving as some people tried to jump the queue. There was a lot of
hissing and tutting amongst those who were incensed by those cheating the
system, but the wrong doers got away with their misdemeanours. I was typically
British and stood my ground in the queue. Shortly afterwards I spotted
Annabelle, a runner I’ve met at a few marathons and ultras in the UK over the
previous year. She was with her partner Richard who I had also met at the
Pilgrim Challenge in February. Annabelle was also running the TDS, whilst
Richard was on supporting duties. I was quite happy to allow them to jump the
queue and join Ruth and me for some company whilst we stood in line. Richard
had also run the UTMB twice before so it was useful having someone to hand who
knew the system.
Once inside
the registration process was fairly slick. First we had to check our running
number (6334) and go to a desk where we were handed a form containing a long
list of all the items we needed to carry. Five items had been randomly selected
from this list. We then had to collect an airport security type plastic tray
and place these five items into the tray. The items on my list requiring
inspection were the foil blanket, two working torches both with spare
batteries, waterproof jacket with hood, whistle and mobile phone. I noticed
that some people had been caught out by the need to have their spare food
reserve checked. This was the one thing I hadn’t packed, if this had been one
of my items I would have been legging it back to the apartment to pick up my
malt loaf and energy gels. It was also possible that if the person inspecting
my kit didn’t think anything was up to scratch then I would have to go off to
buy a new piece of kit and then return to have it re-checked. Fortunately,
everything was in order.
Once the
kit had been checked we then had to collect our race number and timing chip,
which had to be signed for. After this we collected two drop bags; one to bring
items back from Courmayer to Chamonix and one to be filled with any spare
clothing and food that we wanted at Cormet de Roselend at 67kms. We also had to
collect our T-shirts and a bus ticket for the early morning bus journey to
Courmayer. The whole process took less than two hours, including the time spent
queuing at the start.
I then spent
the afternoon unpacking and repacking by backpack to make sure that I did have
everything that was required plus any extra items I thought I should have. We then
met Annabelle and Richard for an afternoon beer to try and settle the nerves.
Kit checklist:
waterproof coat with hood,
bottles to carry at least 1 litre of water and a mug,
windproof and waterproof gloves,
warm hat and a cap (not shown),
food reserve (for me gels and malt loaf (not shown)),
two working head torches and spare batteries for both,
foil blanket,
some money in case of emergencies,
bandage and scissors,
passport,
mobile phone,
waterproof trousers (not shown).
I also chose to take a buff, small tub of vaseline, surgical tape and some plasters.
Walking poles were highly recommended, which I chose to use.
I didn’t
really get any sleep Tuesday night but I was feeling up for the challenge when
I got up at 4am Wednesday morning. We made our way through the dark pre-dawn
streets of Chamonix to the buses that would take us through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Courmayer. There was absolute
silence on the journey.
When we
arrived in Courmayer we were deposited in a street close to a sports stadium
without any instructions about what to do next, another example of the lack of
competitor information. A few people started walking towards the sports stadium
and everyone else followed. We entered the stadium and found more runners who
had been transported on earlier buses sitting around on the floor looking
listless and half asleep. Ruth had come with me as my number one supporter and
she suggested I find some space on the floor with everyone else whilst she
looked around. When she came back she told me that there was no sign of anyone
official but she had at least located the toilets.
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| Trying to stay calm and relaxed before the start. |
Between
killing time and queuing for the toilets I bumped into Annabelle and Richard,
and was relieved to have someone familiar to talk too. Then whilst Ruth was off
visiting the loo everyone suddenly seemed to get up and exit the building
without any prior announcement. By the time Ruth got back from powdering her
nose the building was practically disserted. Annabelle was starting to get a
bit anxious and had also gone on ahead of me. Ruth and I then followed the tail
end of the crowd towards the centre of Courmayer and the start line, where I
found myself almost at the very back of the race start.
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| Almost time to go. |
When the
race finally got going at 7am I found myself doing a lot of slow jogging and
walking for the first kilometre as we wound our way through the narrow streets
in the centre of town. We were soon on wider streets so I had the opportunity
to do some overtaking. Then we were suddenly going up and after a very short
period of time I had to stop to peel off a couple of layers of clothing, during
which time I was overtaken by a vast number of people I had just passed.
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| Course profile. |
The first
12.5km was then spent mostly walking up a steep incline from 1220m to 2445m. We
were on a fairly wide track that allowed the throng of runners to walk roughly
4 people abreast, but there was very little opportunity to overtake so I had to
just settle for going at the same pace as the pack. Pretty much everyone was
using walking poles in the very tight confines of a pack of some 1600 runners.
This meant that I periodically got jabbed in my Achilles by someone’s walking
pole from behind, but I in return occasionally accidental jabbed the person
ahead of me.
Once we
reached the top of the climb it felt as if we were already deep into the
mountains. We had amazing views all around, with the snow capped peaks of the Mont Blanc massif to our right. The path got much
narrower towards the top and then as soon as we’d reached the Arête du
Mont-Favre we found ourselves plummeting down a steep rocky trail. We had the
opportunity to do some running at last! I stuck to the rock strewn trail like
most people whilst others who had either been more frustrated by the slow pace
to now, or had suicidal tendencies, took the more direct route down the
mountain. On the trail the row of runners ahead of me would periodically come
to a complete and sudden stand still as, no doubt, someone ahead braked to
avoid colliding with a rock, or something, resulting in a ricochet of braking
behind them. Once at the bottom of the
descent we got to run on a wide, flat track that led to the first feed station
at Lac Combal.
The food on
offer included noodle soup, a selection of cheese and cold meat, bread, cake
and fruit. In truth there could have been other things available but the food
tent was so packed it was hard to see exactly what was spread out on the table.
I stood in a short line for the noodle soup and immediately got elbowed out of
the way by less patient runners. “So it’s going to be like that”, I thought and
decided to follow the example being set by others and barged my way through to
collect a bowl of soup and some bread. I ate my food, had my water bottles
re-filled and continued on my way.
What
followed was another slow climb from 1970m to just over 2600m. This time the
path was only wide enough for a single file of runners. There was a steep drop
to one side and a wall of mountain on the other. The top of the climb was the
highest point on the course. According to my GPS watch this was kilometre 21.5,
which I reached after 3 hours and 45 minutes. The other way to put that is that
it was the slowest half marathon of my life by a massive margin.
The next
9kms was all downhill as we dropped to 1780m. We were running alongside a deep
ravine to our right, which we’d cross at a small bridge somewhere way below. As
we dropped into the valley the landscape softened as we temporarily lost sight
of the high mountains. At first it felt great to be running downhill, but the
effect on my quads after 5 or 6k was starting to be quite punishing. The final
section of descent suddenly steepened dramatically and led straight into a very
boggy field. By the time I’d crossed the field I was covered in mud to just
above my knees.
So with wet
trainers I started the third climb of the day to the second feed station at
2200m. On paper the climb doesn’t look too bad, but it was certainly feeling
like hard work. We briefly dropped into a small depression around a pretty
mountain lake before the final slog up to the checkpoint at Col du Petit Saint Bernard, where Ruth and
Richard were waiting. Annabelle had already been through the checkpoint about
30 minutes ahead of me.
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| Runners approaching the final climb to the checkpoint. |
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| Me on the last little push to the 2nd feed station. |
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| Noodle soup. |
I once
again filled up with noodle soup, bread, cheese, meat and a slice of cake
before continuing on my way to Bourg Saint Maurice.
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| And I'm off for the 15km to Bourg Saint Maurice. |
The next
15km to the third feed station was all downhill. Given that I can usually run
10km on the flat in less than 40 minutes you could perhaps assume that it
should be possible for me to run 15km downhill in less than an hour. Ruth was
worried that I’d get to the next checkpoint before the bus. Luckily for her
there was a bus departure almost straight after I’d left the checkpoint. I
initially made good progress on the descent, but the more the path dropped the
steeper it became. My legs were screaming in agony after about 40 minutes of
descent and I had to slow to a walk to give them a break. As the path got
closer to the valley floor I had to do short bursts of very slow running
followed by a walk. It seemed ridiculous to be walking downhill, but it was the
best I could do.
Once we’d
reached the bottom of the descent I thought the checkpoint was going to be
really close. I hadn’t realised that there was first a small village to run
through before reaching Bourg Saint Maurice. As I exited the village I was very
confused and wondered if I’d missed the checkpoint. If there hadn’t been more
runners ahead of me I would have been convinced that I’d taken a wrong turn. I
decided to keep going and to follow everyone else. We eventually reached the
outskirts of Bourg Saint Maurice and it was a relief to realise that I hadn’t
actually missed the checkpoint.
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| Arriving in Bourg Saint Maurice. |
I met Ruth
at the feed station and this time she was allowed to come in with me to offer
any help I needed. I wasn’t sure what help Ruth could have provided, but I
noticed that other runners were being delivered food parcels by their wives,
husbands, friends and partners. Ruth also found that she reached the checkpoint
with plenty of time to spare, given that it had actually taken me almost 1 hour
and 40 minutes to run the 15km downhill section! Richard and Ruth had both
narrowly missed seeing Annabelle who was extending her lead over me. At this
point I had been on the move for about 8 hours and had covered 51km. The
hardest section of the course now lay between me and the fourth feed station at
Cormet de Roselend.
I left the
checkpoint to find that the route turned upwards at a very steep gradient. We
would be climbing from a height of 840m to Passeur Pralognan at 2560m, with a
steep little descent to encounter on the way. I tried not to think about the
climb too much. My aim was to switch off and plough on at a steady pace and focus
on small goals. The first goal was to just clear the tree line. My expectation
was that the tree line would be just a little below 2000m. I breathed a sigh of
relief once I was out of the woods, so to speak, and checked the altitude on my
watch, which alarmingly told me I was only at about 1400m, so I still had over
a 1000m to go.
I could see
a building that looked like a fort a very short distance ahead, so I focused on
that. I then focused on what was obviously going to be a false peak where I momentarily
stopped to admire the view and to get my breath back before looking ahead for
my next target. As I was standing still I was passed by several runners going
the wrong way. They had clearly had enough of the climb and were heading back
to Bourg Saint Maurice to abandon the race.
My next
target on the climb was another building. This was yet another fort and the
location of a water station to fill up bottles as well as an intermediate time
checkpoint. This made me realise that I was really thirsty and that I had
hardly drunk anything on the climb so far. So I made sure I had a really good
drink before carrying on. I was now just below 2000m and had been climbing for
about 2 hours. In total I had been on the move for just over 10 hours. I tried
to convince myself that I was near the top of the climb and that it had to
level out at some point. I ploughed on.
We
continued to go up and up, then after another hour I finally reached a downhill
section. At this point I stopped to eat some malt loaf and sat down on a rock
for a brief rest. As soon as I stopped a few others joined me. I pulled my
phone out and decided to take a couple of photos of the amazing landscape, the
only photos I’d taken all day. The fact that I was using my phone to take
photos makes me think that perhaps I was already starting to think about
abandoning the race.
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| Enjoying a little sit down. We'd come up from the right and were heading down to the left. |
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| That's roughly the direction we were heading. |
After my
brief sit down I started on the descent. I thought I must be at the Col de la
Forclaz and had reached the short descent that is shown on the course profile,
but I was mistaken. The descent I was on didn’t even register on the profile
and after a brief bit of painful downhill running I was going up again and
finally reached the Col 30 minutes later.
The initial
descent from the Col
was quite tricky and slow going, at least for my knackered legs. In fact I
found the whole of the descent to be tricky and slow going. We dropped down to
an altitude of 2230m and then had the final steep climb to 2560m. One short
section required the use of hands and feet, which meant my walking poles were an
inconvenience all of a sudden.
I was
starting to make my descent to Cormet de Roselend at 7.30pm. The next feed
station was just 4km away and it was mostly all downhill. The only problem was
that the downhill in question was almost a grade one scramble. I have to
confess that I don’t really have any idea of what a grade one scramble would be
like, but my imagination and tired body told me that I was on one. The descent
was tricky enough for there to be ropes fixed to the side of the mountain. I
don’t know if the ropes were permanent or just put in place by the organisers
of the race for our benefit. I was glad they were there. If they hadn’t been my
progress would have been even slower. As it was it took me almost an hour to
make the 590m descent. Once at the bottom Cormet de Roselend lay just 2km away
on a fairly level path. My quads and knees were feeling well and truly trashed
by this point. I tried to run but it was too painful. I walked the last 2km to
the checkpoint and by the time I got there I had convinced myself that the
sensible thing to do was to abandon the race.
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| Annabelle arrives at Cormet de Roselend almost 2 hours ahead of me, with Richard alongside. |
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| By the time I got to Cormet de Roselend the sun was going down. |
I met Ruth
and told her of my decision. She wasn’t allowed to join me inside the
checkpoint, where my drop bag was waiting. Before committing myself to
abandoning I collected my bag and tried to have something to eat. I didn’t
really fancy any more noodle soup, so I tried to eat a small piece of cake
which made me gag. This was the only time that I struggled to get any food
down. I considered sitting down but knew that it would then be really hard to
get back up. Without thinking about it too much more I took myself off to the
small tent for those wishing to abandon. A couple of other runners were also
there ahead of me. When it was my time I was asked if I wished to withdraw, to
which I said, “Yes”. I was then asked if I was sure. “Yes”, I said. Then
without further discussion my barcode was cut off my race number and that was
that. The only thing to do now was put on some warmer clothes, meet Ruth
outside the checkpoint compound and get on a bus for the 2 hour journey to Chamonix.
I am now at
peace with my decision to quit. I’m convinced it was the right thing to do. My legs were in pain for several days and then my back was painful until last Thursday, just over a week after the event. I have
since had a sports massage with Mike Power at Cambridge Sports Massage which
did help immensely. I also made the decision to see Daniel Rollins an osteopath
I know through Ruth’s connections. He found lots of kinks in my spine and
pelvis which he gently worked on and has given me lots of advice to help get me
back into running shape. I am feeling highly motivated to follow his advice to
the letter.
Yesterday
(Sunday) I went for a very gentle 11 mile run with a few of the Sweaty Betties.
It was great to be running with the girls at a leisurely conversational pace,
but I feel that this shortish run was perhaps a little too much for me at this
stage. My legs felt quite stiff for the whole day afterwards, although not so bad
this morning.
Right now I
am finding it painful to do squats and lunges. This doesn’t bode well given
I’ll be teaching beginner kettlebell classes from next week. I’m hoping I will
be much improved by next weekend.
