A while ago (and I can’t remember when it was) I discovered UTMB. A week of mountain trail racing around Mont Blanc starting and finishing in Chamonix, France. Some of the races starting elsewhere and also finishing in Chamonix. I think I’ve watched most YouTube videos of these events at least twice. The start line build up including Vangelis - Conquest of paradise stills gives me goosebumps (and makes Claire cry 🤷🏼♂️).
So rewind a bit to 2017 and thanks to RTTS and Centurion’s races I have enough points for CCC (not enough for UTMB itself) and enter. I also (famously now thanks to Twitter) book a lovely hotel on the wrong week, not refundable 😐. I don’t get in...but entering next year increases my chances and the 3rd attempt would be guaranteed entry. luckily my running buddy Stu takes the hotel off me and I flew out for 2 days for some mountain jogging. It was great, Chamonix was great and we got to see the start of PTL (350 odd km’s over 6 days) and lots of goosebumps.
2nd entry goes in, I get a place (Stu didn’t) and I’m going back to Cham. Stu wants to go anyway and offers to crew me and I take Claire and our boys to make it a family holiday.
Here’s the twist, i’d also decided to do Centurion’s 100 slam as I had to enter these races before the ccc ballot and ccc wasn’t a given. So I’m now doing 4x 100’s with a hilly 100k between 100’s 3/4 4 weeks after said no.3 100. Planning not my forte obviously.
2019 comes I do TP100 (see over blog) ✅ and onto SDW100. All going “ok” until I start puking, really bad. Puking so hard I hurt my throat and people can hear me a distance away. I stop eating, I stop drinking, I stop moving, game over. Seventy odd miles and I throw in the towel. This has happened before at NDW100 the year before. Theres a pattern forming, 50plus mile hilly races don’t agree with my guts and I’m doing ccc 🤔.
So, plan B. Drop all races and concentrate solely on ccc. I drop Zermatt marathon (sorry Chrissy), WW50K and NDW100 (no more slam anyway). A chance conversation with my sports massage lady who just so happens to be Rachel Fawcett (very elite jogger 👌🏻) and mentions she has a coach called Shelley who has really helped her running. So I chat with Shelley and we agree on a month by month basis and see how it goes.
Ive done a few ultras now, 50k to 100miles and apart from 3 always finished with my own training plan. TP100 was my own plan and I managed a PB, but ccc is different and I don’t want to fuck it up. Shelley had me doing things different to what I’d have done (I was working on just distance/vert). It’s also flexible and nothing is set in stone so structured around work/family life. So plan set, off I go.
I had booked time off for NDW100 and although cancelled the race didn’t cancel the holiday. Instead me and Claire got up at crack o dawn to travel Pen Y Fan in the Breacon Beacons. I hiked up, ran round the loop and repeated. Great training route and I’d definitely go back (Thanks Sarah Sawyer) and now all training is done. Fast forward to 25th August and we’re off to Chamonix via Geneva with the familam for our hollibobs 🤣😐.
We meet Stu at LutonX and fly to Geneva and collect our pimp mobile (Dodge Durango RT 👌🏻) and off to France we go. On Monday we go up Aguille Du Midi for 2 reasons. 1. we’re on holiday 2. So my lungs can experience thinner air. It sits at about 3800m and even going up stairs you can feel it’s harder. We spend a few hours up there and also an hour at the lower point about half way up. I ran .25 of a mile here and could really feel it. Tuesday morning I meet up with Stu and Lauren Gregory (also running ccc) and we jog up and past La Floria turn round and come back. This is the last mile or so of ccc before you hit Chamonix, this was nice knowing this on race day.
Wednesday is bib collection day and I opted for 6-7pm for this, as did everyone else and his mate. The bib collection is like a military exercise and works well. Unfortunately it was bloody hot outside and like a sauna inside. My kit was fine, my sheet stamped and bib collected 👍🏻
More sightseeing and hanging around town people watching. We see TDS winners come in and also watch OCC, MCC and YCC. Thursday AM I go for a run with Billy Yang, Dylan Bowmen, Sally McRae and loads of his followers off Twitter. I had originally planned to go up to plan praz and run around there and wished I’d done that now. I was chatting to a guy doing UTMB who was from New York and did all his hill training in a stairwell 👀 (made me think of Conrad 🤣).
Pizza for dinner 👌🏻 Get my kit ready 👍🏻 off to bed I go, it’s race day tomorrow (Friday).
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