Ultra Chicken

Ultra chicken loves to run,
She runs around the world for fun.
Come scorching sunshine, rain or snow
It's Ultra Chicken; go, go, go!

Now here's a very silly thing,
This race is called the Piece of String.
You must run, and run, and then
Go out and run, and run again.

No one knows quite when to end,
S' enough to send you round the bend.
But focus, try, and persevere...
You'll likely fail - so try next year!

The mountain race UTMB
Is held each year in Chamonix.
In the mountains way up high,
It's clucking tough, and you might die.

UTMB Race Report 2017 - Needs More Cowbell

The UTMB is one of, if not the most well known mountain ultra in the world. Granted, that is a fairly niche category in which to find yourself at the top of the heap. However, find yourself in Chamonix or any of the villages surrounding Mont Blanc at the end of August during the UTMB festival of running, and you might think that you had stumbled upon a big city marathon nestled away in the mountain valley. The atmosphere is, quite simply, electric, with the sounds of cowbells and shouts of "Allez!" ringing out day and night. And the finishing chute in Chamonix, where runners pass hundreds of cheering supporters high fiving kids as they go, is teeming with energy no matter the weather or time of day (or night).

Race week consists of five main events; the titular UTMB (Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc - Chamonix to Chamonix, 171 Km, 10,000 m ascent), the CCC (Courmayeur to Champex-Lac to Chamonix, 101 Km, 6,100 m ascent), the TDS (Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie, 119 Km, 7,200 m ascent), the newer OCC (Orsiéres to Champex-Lac to Chamonix, 56 Km, 3,500 m ascent), and the team based PTL (Petitie Trotte a Léon, 290 Km, 26,500 m ascent). They are spaced out so that there is always something going on around Chamonix, with the main event of the UTMB concluding proceedings.

At what point do I stop calling myself an ultrarunner?!

Boy, I am out of practice. Not only at writing this blog (I think this is my second one so far this year), but also at running in general. I hurt my foot in November 2015 (annoyingly it wasn't running related), and it has never quite been right since. It's not too bad, and I still run on it most days without too many issues, but if I try and run longer than 5 miles I quickly remember that it is not "right". I've tried various different treatments to no avail, so now I'm just going to bite the bullet and pay to get somebody to MRI it and get a good look at what the issue is. I just need to finish selling my house first so that I actually have some money...

But what I am struggling to get my head around at the moment is whether or not I still count as an ultra runner. I don't really care too much about being able to say I run ultras (I actually dislike the phrase anyway and tend to just call myself a "runner"), and my wife will tell you how poor I am at counting. But I do love running longer stuff and making a day (or two) out of it. And this is what I haven't really done for a long time - and I'm really missing it.

Because I wasn't running, and because of moving my whole family across the country to start a new life (which is going marvellously, thanks for asking), I've been away from races and away from social media a lot. And to be honest I am struggling to get back into it all. Who would have thought posting inspirational memes could be so hard. But I really miss the community of ultra running and I'm going to try and ease my way back in.

I even tried to race a few weeks ago, taking part in the Serpent Way 100K from Haslemere to Petersfield. The race ran through various trails around the South Downs that I have never run on before, and due to its winding nature it was never more than about 45 minutes away from where I live. I figured I could give it a go, and if it all went to shit I would be able to find a way back without too much hassle. 

Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc, 2012

For the past week I have been following various people on twitter showing off the fabulous weather around Chamonix; beautiful blue skies, glorious sunshine, temperatures above 30 degrees. It was therefore slightly disappointing to arrive in Chamonix on Thursday to cold weather, a lot of rain, and a massive bank of grey cloud where the mountains should have been. Yes, unfortunately the weather gods were not smiling on the UTMB for the third year in a row, and with rumours of another shorter route a la 2010, the disappointment was palpable.

Somewhere behind those clouds there's a mountain with my name on it!

I traveled over to Chamonix with James Elson, who unfortunately had suffered the UTMB curse on his previous trip in 2010. He was, understandably, not amused. We were kindly offered a lift by Richard Felton who was driving over with his girlfriend Kady. Somehow we managed to displace his parents, but they didn't seem to mind!

UTMB - Prelim

This time next week, I will hopefully be recovering having spent my weekend running around the Mont Blanc mountains in France/Italy/Switzerland. The Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc (UTMB to those in the know) is possibly the most well known ultra event in the entire world (with the possible exception of the Marathon des Sables) despite only being in its tenth year, and even occasionally gets some TV coverage on Eurosport.

The route itself is a 168 Km (104.4 miles in real money) jaunt around the highest mountain range in the Alps, with a crazy elevation profile giving us 9,600 m (31,500 ft - bloody Europeans...) over the entire route and hitting a maximum altitude of 2,500 m (8,200 ft) above sea level. So there's a few hills to worry about. Can't wait!

Start of the 2009 UTMB - that's a whole lot of people! (From www.petzl.com)

This is my 'A' race for the year, and may well be the only chance I'll have of ever running it, so I had better make it count! Following on from my finishing time of 17 hours at the SDW100, and the fact that the small portion of the Lakeland 100 that I did felt pretty good hill-wise (until I went over on my ankle - let's not do that this time), I tried to predict a finishing time. I figured that 24 hours was a good shout, giving me an extra 7 hours to deal with the extra 20,000 feet of ascent. However, a quick check of the previous years' results suggests that this would put me in the top 10 - highly unlikely! Hmm. So I have been doing more research, following the blogs of others who have run it and have tried to come up with a more realistic finishing time. My aims are (in decreasing order of importance to me):