Experiences of CCC , Coumayer, Champex ,Chamonix.....my part in the success of others.

Probably around six or seven years ago i was hanging around the main square in Chamonix in the French Alps. Whilst drinking surprisingly expensive beer, I became increasingly aware of the arrival  of the tail end runners of what i now know to be the Ultra trail du Mont Blanc. The year before i had climbed Mont Blanc and as a consequence fallen in love with an area of the Alps that have been a play ground for lovers of adventure for well over one hundred and fifty years.
What initially struck me was how ill this bunch of odd looking misfits appeared. Little did i know at the time what they were finishing.
 I asked a local in good quality 'Sunderland french' what was going on, to be met with a look of disbelief  . "A race for mad men" he exclaimed with his head in his hands and a pained but well humored expression. Sure enough i went back to my beer, lit a tab and watched the the rather macabre entertainment develop secretly hoping that there would soon be the excitement of a near fatal collapse followed by an incredible athletic resurrection, right in front of my very eyes.
The thing is that this scene wouldn't have been in anyway unique. Over the years i wonder how many other purposeless soles have been quietly inspired by such scenes.
As the last drops of weak French lager (at five euros a pint) left the glass ,the seeds of ambition were sown.
 If the truth be known i shed tears that day, a theme that would continue to the present. Seeing men and woman drag there almost lifeless body's across a finishing line, often accompanied by small bewildered children and sometimes even whole family's was something i hadn't experienced before. This was a special place were special things happened and i wanted to experience it. Perhaps more importantly for some reason i actually needed to experience it.
 On my return home a set about finding out a little bit more about the race and discovered that unfortunately you couldn't just turn up with a pair of trainers and a winning smile, no you had to qualify . Suitably disappointed i found that you had to 'have points', even more disappointingly i found that to score points you had to first run other long races. Fifty miles...are you taking the piss!
 Anyway fast forward a little and i found myself on the start line of The Highland fling in 2010 with a bunch of other like minded  people who would have been lucky to weigh more than about eleven stone combined. I finished this purgatory in fourteen hours and eleven minutes. Just outside the cutoffs to qualify for the necessary two points, thank god because at that point i would quite happily have never run another Scottish step in my life.   At this point i should really thank the gent from our bed and breakfast accommodation who helped me get out the bath following the race when i suddenly discovered that i'd left my legs on those so called bonny bonny banks. Nice fella , bemused look .
   Its funny how a drive back to Sunderland can result in pain amnesia. Sure enough, back on the interweb, Sums website, Cateran trail race, two points ,ah the solution, entered, room booked, three weeks to prepare, start with good rest.... a really good rest. Actually about three weeks of rest. Anyway thirteen hours and fifty minutes of pain later, points in bag. Smiley face.
 Throughout the last four years i have run many Scottish ultras. I have met many new friends and have a life that now revolves around mediocre sporting achievement and the occasional success . I have met some great people.  Kind ,helpful, self deprecating individuals with tiny egos and massive strong hearts. I count myself as better person for there friendship.
These people ,who it turns out usually hardly know each other go out of their way to help others achieve ambitions. They call themselves a family, and sure enough they are but without the need to buy each other Christmas presents.
  One thing that running these races taught me was that points were never gonna be enough in themselves. Self discipline, desire and a strength of character as well as physical ability were the real qualifications that would carry you to the finish line.
 Anyway i didn't want to 'over complicate' things so instead last year i just took me chances, entered the CCC , the so called little sister to the Utmb, lost a stone and cut down on the fags. Okay so ive never been the most committed athlete but i don't do that bad for a slightly chubby forty something lad from Englandshire.
 Ive never done these things for the challenge of it all, my ego is big enough without inflating it further with success. Instead i do things coz i like the countryside and buying shiny kit. Its a bonus if it doesn't hurt to much and im not last.
 So what a bloody shock when i was accepted. I did train a bit, ran some hills and cycled a lot and to be honest was in reasonably good shape on the morning of the 30th August.
 Its probably a good idea at this point  for those reading this blog to appreciate that if your interested in important detail, statistics and strategy then you kinda reading the wrong blog. Instead il give an idea of the route, a bit of a human perspective and show some pretty pictures.
 If you cant wait to see what happens at the end , well ill tell you now.....i didnt finish so there. So if your only interested in success you can also switch off here. For me this was always gonna be about the experience.

We arrived a few days before the race planning to spend a week there.The town of Chamonix is used to sporting events but even by their standards the Utmb is massive and completely envelopes the whole region for months beforehand .The town soon filled up as the days passed. Runners from seventy two nationality's ( including the great sporting nation of Sunderland ), their friends family's and supporters. An almost ,tangible anxiety could be sensed in the air.An excitement that was difficult to quantify,both frightening and somehow addictive all at the same time. For my part i was simply shiting myself and wishing id trained an awful lot more. Did i belong here,...i dont think so ! What fool accepted my application.....not one that knew me that's for sure! I sensed failure, the only question would be how spectacular that failure will be and would it potentially involve death ?

Part of the preparation was to spend a few days at a reasonable altitude. The CCC course goes up to just short of 2600 meters at the Col de Grand Ferret on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massive. I've climbed at altitude before and although  8000 or so feet isn't particularly high it will effect your breathing especially when running. I took advantage of the chair lifts and spent around 6 hours in total walking above the 2000 meter mark. The picture above is taken at Lac Blu just above the Grand balcon Nord above Chamomix. We also spend some time across the valley on the lower slopes of the Grand balcon Sud. These are wonderful places in themselves frequented by runners and cyclists through much of the summer and off piste skiers during the winter months. My wife Andrea and daughter Annie came  along and then spent the next two days hobbling like Penguins around the town. Oh the resolve of such athletes that they could still make the bar.They actually did a lot better than i would have expected, i think they were carried along by the atmosphere. Everywhere you turned there were runners practicing and posing. I've never seen so much licra ,ive often wondered how popular brands like Salomon are. Well now i know , i didn't half look out of place in a pair of old school footy shorts and my green flash. Well at least i stood out.

On Wednesday morning i went down to sign in ,I found my name on the list, disappointed that there was now no backing out.The kit list its fair to say is perhaps a little excessive.I normally carry far less into the summer Scottish mountains. But these people know there own hills so everything will be there for a reason. As usual i think i ran  for the whole race with never once having to open my pack. If the weather had deteriorated though things could have been a lot different and i would have been glad of the foresight of the organizers.
The running festival comprises of four different races,they vary in length from 65 miles up to the multi day PTL which is a team event of around 200 miles. At check-in we were all given a different colored band showing which race you were running. The next few days were spent wandering round Chamonix sneaking a look at the colors of others. Quickly covering your wrist when you were in the company of those of a higher standing but waving your arm around with knowing superiority when in the company of band less wimps , good looking girls and impressionable small children.
 After check in i was relaxing triumphantly on the grass outside when i was approached by the Utmb TV camera crew keen to interview a potential winner. In broken English the interviewer asked who i was supporting....cheeky bugger !

I slept well the night before benefiting from a medicinal glass of wine and sticking to my pre race plan of just having the one fag to aid relaxation. This seemed to work , i arose sprightly and full of optimism and good cheer . Leaving the chalet at around 6am i walked towards Chamonix and my bus to Coumayer very much now in the vane of a condemned man. Yes my optimism lasted all of around  three seconds and was quickly replaced by a strange feeling in my stomach. Then again that may well have been the athletes breakfast i consumed before my departure, fearful that death on the hill may well leave me a little peckish.

The race itself starts in Coumayer ,this gorgeous Italian town is otherwise famous for giving may wife a particularly virilant and messy case of food poisoning some years previous. A story that i'm sure she wont mind me sharing. She blamed the pizza ,the bus driver blamed her and i blamed the bus company for the grossly irresponsible lack of protective covering to the bus seats. A relationship has to be strong to withstand that kind of experience....enough said, i'm sure you get the point. Anyway luckily no one in the town appeared to remember me so i went about my checking, stretching, posturing  and prancing in peace.
 Now the race was supposed to start at 9am. Thats 8am by my watch , well  4 minutes past actually...,that's the problem with digital watches, if you forget the instructions on how to change them you're knacked. Its also strange as well how the art of addition and subtraction can leave you when you've been on the go for 12 hours and more.So by my watch the race started at 8.34am, but thats 9.34am Italian time. Oh i just asked other people....
 Anyway for some reason it didnt start till 9.30am which made calculating the cutoffs even more difficult. Instead we were treated to long speeches by dignified old men, children dancing,natives in national dress and every euro pop hit since Aqua. I got the impression that we nearly started a number of times but then nothing, prehaps someone knew what was going on.  Needless to say, by the time we did kick off every one was to stiff to run and our 'grand depart' was more of a minor shuffle not really in keeping with the grand spectacle of one of the greatest trail runs on the planet. Still we were off and i wer'nt last just yet !

We started by running around the streets of Courmayer for a mile or so before heading steeply up hill and into forests. Townsfolk were out in force , much cheering and the ringing of cowbells. At this point  my anxiety's quickly dissipated leaving me feeling like a bit of an athlete .Don't worry this feeling did'nt last for too long.
 For those keen on facts its probably worth mentioning a little bit of strategy.
Normally most people are  happy enough to hang around at the back to begin with till they gain their rhythm. The first three miles or so of the CCC contain a number of awkward bottlenecks over steep ground that cant safely be bypassed. I was stuck in queues for over half an hour and as a result those ahead of me made a great deal of ground while i stood around. Next time il be looking for a much more forward position in the earlier stages. Once at the back it becomes very difficult to pass people thus hampering pace in the first quarter of the race whilst people were still quite keenly bunched. I mention this because it has quite a significant impact upon comfortably meeting what i original believed to be fairly generous cut off times. These cut off times turned out not to be that generous after all especially factoring in congestion and difficult terrain. Do yourself a favour, start quick then slow down after the first hour or so.
 The first climb out of Courmayer was a bit of a little shite to be honest. Tete de la Trouche tops out at around 2600 meters. Not as bad as it first sounds when you remember that Coumayer already stands at around 1200 meters above sea level. This is a theme carried on throughout the race were the trail never drops below around 1200 meters.Its just short of the height of Ben Nevis but thankfully  a lot steeper, i do so love relentlessly steep quad thrashing terrain.It makes me feel so alive. Honest.

 At this height there is an effect upon the breathing due to rarefied air. Thankfully though not for long as you quickly loose height as you head for the first checkpoint of Refuge Bertone at a more reasonable 1989 meters. I was feeling fairly strong at this point and keen to keep moving but i had been warned about the importance of taking full advantage of nutrition as you go around.
 At altitude the body metabolizes quickly and when the effects  of exercise are taken into account the importance of hourly food and drink cant be over emphasized.With this in mind i ate a small snickers bar every hour, something i managed all the way round along with electrolyte drinks, something i normally loath but seemed more palatable with a fuller stomach. Again i was warned that if you become hungry at any time in this race then your race is over, there'll be no catching up.

 At every checkpoint there was a wide selection of food stuffs especially the latter ones. Salami , cheese , noodle soup, breads , fruits , coke and plenty of sweet things etc.I also carried a small amount of food, but other than as snacks in the first  five miles or so this would not have been necessary. Food and fluids were a plenty throughout the race. I was quite happy with the nutritional provisions, i normally end up quite nauseous but not on this occasion.
 From refuge Bertone we moved consistently through the checkpoints of the Bonnatti refuge and on to Arunuva the sight of our first timed cut off.

 Well we had seven hours to cover the first 26 km's. How easy i hear you say, a mere 18 miles. Stop just there.  With an accumulated height gain of 1800 meters and rough alpine tracks it had become a war of attrition , again a theme that would continue throughout. This was turning out to be bloody hard work. The looks on the faces of those around me suggested that i was suffering less than most. Theirs nothing like the misery and misfortune of others to boost ones own moral. Perhaps i wasn't as far out of my depth as i had first envisaged.

 Comfortably within the cut off at Arnuva i hung around a bit at the checkpoint feasting on cheese , salami , noodle soup and bananas. I also chatted for a while to a young lady with a very sporty physique by the name of Gabrielle. I attempted to tell her about my sporting prowess
but then she let slip that she'd completed the same course last year in a time considerably less than i was expecting this year. I felt deflated, made my excuses and moved on. I think she may have felt a little sorry for me. Still any female attention is better than none at all.
 If Tete de la Trounche had been a bit of a shite then Grand col Ferret was a decididy large toilet blocking log ! By this time the accumulated height gain was around 2540 meters and i felt every meter of it. Its steep, relentless and broken.

The weather, thus far  pleasant throughout ,did cool a little with some loss of visibility however this was more to do with the altitude than the any general deterioration. Over the last three years the race has been marred by poor weather and regularly been stopped or re routed often effecting its fidelity.          Still moving consistently though i moved on to enjoy a consistent downhill of around 18 km's over good trails picking up a number of places now that the paths were less congested and generally wider and more navigable.
 More Salami and noodle soup at La Foulay, which marked our entry into Switzerland, was followed by another gentle decent into Praz de Fort . By this time we had pretty much lost the light and were at around the 50 km point. This very chocolate box type village is at the low point of the route at around 1150 meters. Bugger i hear you say , its all uphill from here and sure enough it was !
 Praz de Fort is beautiful , its everything you would expect of a Swiss mountain village, old fashioned , quaint ,immaculately presented. All the more of a shame really that i couldn't see it , it seems that to avoid clutter they dont bother with street lighting. As know one usually ventures out though after 9pm they dont normally need it.

 What they did have though were villages that had set up small tables with hot and cold drinks , with snacks and cakes. I had perculated sugary coffee and chocolate cake . You don't get that back in blighty at any checkpoints i know that's for sure. All very civilized. It was then time to move on to the larger town of Champex Lac.
 Unfortunately this required a sneaky little height gain of 300 meters that id all but forgotten about. By now we were in complete darkness but were guided into the checkpoint by load music and frivolity , obviously not belonging to the runners who were mostly now looking a little jaded . On the assent to Champex  locals had set up small camp fires in the woods and cheered runners along all adding to the rather spooky atmosphere.

 The Swiss town of Champex marked the half way point at around 54 km with an accumulated height gain now of 3255 meters ( that's about 10,000 feet for the older readers ).
Unfortunately and in hindsight this marked the point were the wheels began to come off. Champex provided a hot meal of pasta, with salami , cheese ,biscuits , coffee and coke.
 I had set off at the beginning of the race with the belief that my best hope of finishing was moving pretty close to the 'cutoffs' and thus reducing the chance of exhaustion. What i didn't take into consideration was the inconsistency of European measurements. There is no way that a french kilometer equates to an English one, likewise a french meter is considerably greater than its anglophile cousin. Either the french cant be bothered to measure correctly, which is highly likely if there rather casual attitude to 'cutoffs' is anything to go by,.... or my mind has been badly effected by the altitude. Whatever, it was by now it was starting to feel like two steps forward and one step back.

  Time seemed to pass quite slowly at Champex, im not even sure whether i may well have nodded off, i wouldn't have been the only one, people were certainly dragging there heals to leave. Before i knew it we were being reminded of the cutoffs and being ushered out into the by now, decidedly chilly night air. There is something motivating in itself about running in such beautiful and ethereal surroundings. Even so i was struggling now to justify my ambitions.
 I had read about the next hill, La Bovine 'the hill of the cows', well id describe it more as a pig ! After leaving Champex mildly refreshed, although now behind schedule we descended by around 100 meters. What on earth were the route makers thinking of sticking a bloody decent here of all places, surely with all of the alps to choose from they could of avoided a down hill section. This meant a climb of a further  750 meters up to the rather chilly high point of an accumulated 4006 meters.
The hill itself was scattered with cows. Now i foolishly believed that cow bells were merely a tourist thing but no. Each cow could be heard some way off jangling down the hill, my head torch occasionally catching their eyes. What with the cowbells in the town, cowbells in the hills and now of all things,cowbells on the cows, i was starting to develop a violent aversion to the clangy things regardless of their tourist appeal.....shut the ---- up ' im trying to die quietly up here !

 I think that it was on the early stages of La Bovine that i first toyed with the idea of withdrawal. The lowest points of the race tended to come shortly after leaving the warmth of checkpoints. This coupled with , for the most part fairly solitary running, darkness and an unfamiliar and at times scary environment tended to have a dampening effect upon my spirits.
 At a point shortly before the main climb on La Bovine i felt a waves of quite debilitating exhaustion quickly followed by nausea. I waited hoping it would pass and as a consequence was passed by a number of other runners, who themselves seemed in quite high spirits.
 I looked at my time, calculated my rate of progress, looked at the remaining and rather substantial height gain and felt that the sensible decision would be to turn round and pull out.
 So with a heavy heart i checked my rucksack, turned on my head torch and then for some totally inexplicable reason , proceed on to Trient , the next checkpoint. What was all that about, my head made a sensible and measured decision to stop but my heart stood well and truly in opposition. Regardless of what psychological war was being waged i was off with renewed vigor up what would unknowingly become my last climb of the race.
  When people consider the height gain of this race , perhaps they should also remember that with every hill comes a decent. Alpine descents are a challenge in themselves. Tough, loose and at times unrelenting. Iam used to long Scottish hill descents and in many ways there were lots of similarity's. What made the difference with these was the accumulation of decent. By the time i pulled out i had both ascended and descended a total of nearly 13,000 feet. This coupled with a distance of 71 km's had taken its toll. The renewed vigor i had experienced an hour or two earlier had once again left me.
 The decent into Trient was unremittingly steep and jarring. I was tired and quickly loosing concentration. On more than one occasion i tripped and nearly fell in surroundings that would have taken no prisoners. The final 15 minutes into the third from last checkpoint was a harsh lesson in character.

 Just inside the 'cutoff' time of 3am i walked wearily into the warmth of a marquee pitched just next to the 17 th century church  that sits close to Trient village center. By now there was a rather tired feel to the occupants, most of which had been on the go for many hours. There was a feel of a party about the place that had gone on for a few hours to long.
 Once again i checked my time, made some calculations and thought about the final 5000 feet of ascent that lay between this safe place and the finishing line in Chamonix. To be honest the final 15 miles or so might as well have been vertical.
 On this occasion there was to be no fight back, no last minute equalizer or result snatched from the jaws of defeat . Any remaining spark of desire had left me. My fire had gone out.
 I thought about those that were following my progress over the internet, i thought about my family , keen to cheer me into Chamonix. I even thought about myself and how i would feel in a few days time when i re-evaluated my decision.
 Momentarily my mind wandered back to that first Alpine holiday and those odd looking misfits from some six or seven years earlier.I thought about my first ultra, my friends, my hopes , dreams , the many inspirational people i have met along the way and ...i even thought about Salami. Nothing however could boost my moral. The decision when it finally came was an easy one, far easier than i would ever have imagined. A relief to be truthful.
 I sent a few texts, stuck a status of acknowledgment on Facebook. No going back now, decision made, just got to stand by it. I received a phone call, two in fact, i knew who it was and what the calls would be about so i ignored them. I did'nt want to hear the truth. I'd been without a friendly voice for nearly eighteen hours and somehow talking to someone i knew unsettled me. A voice on the phone would'nt have been enough.
 I handed  my chip to the marshal , he unceremoniously cut off my bib bar code and that was it .You've admitted defeat, you've made your decision . Now 'man the fuck up' !
 Within a couple of hours i had been repatriated by the marshals back to Chamonix. I made my way back to our chalet, the same one i had left 24 hours earlier.I avoided the center of town, not keen to see my compatriots finishing their race successfully. At the time it was too bitter a pill to swallow, but i wouldn't have taken their success away from them , even if i could have claimed it for myself. There's a solidarity between those that move long distances over land that binds us together.

 So, will i do it again. Well that's the kind of question who's answer changes depending upon how broken you feel . If you'd asked me at 3am on Saturday morning the answer would have been far less complimentary.Thankfully though the human mind can compensate , rehabilitate and recover. When necessary our minds produce despondency to slow down our relentless march towards perceived self destruction. Shortly afterwards though, when that same threat seems to have subsided we can once again think clearer.We regain some objectivity, clarity and hope.
What iv'e learned is not to underestimate the spiky Alps. I've learned that strategy is important. Know your race, plan and stick to it. I've learned to eat, regularly and adequately even when you don't think you need to, or for that matter want to.
 Perhaps most importantly iv'e learned the importance of comorardary . When i was at my lowest ebb emotionally, i was alone. There was no one there to kick my arse or massage my ego, no one to comfort me or make me laugh. I was surrounded by others but , the language barrier alone made approaching those others difficult. This enforced solitude robbed me of objectivity, it just became to easy to convince myself that my race was over. More importantly though ,being alone spoiled my enjoyment, it made me not want to be there.
 At around 4.30 am the call came from the marshals that our lift home had arrived, those that had chosen to leave the race at Trient made there way slowly through the village to the pick up point .The thing is that when we 'drop outs' walked to the repatriation bus i found myself leading by some distance , not because i was in a hurry to get home but because my bloody legs worked. Oh i was tired, i ached ,and i could certainly have done with a bit of a kip ,but my legs worked. Was i fit enough to carry on,... not sure. Would i have finished, ...who knows. Should i have stopped , no, i shouldn't have stopped. If there's one thing i shouldn't have done it was to stop. I can see that now, but at 3am , far from home and feeling sorry for myself , i could'nt see it then.

 Will i be back though next year. Well when i left England i wasn't sure whether i would return successful or defeated. What i now know is that next time, and there will be a next time' i am strong enough, i wasn't out of my depth....i just lost my way a little , that's all.
 This race enthralls me , its neither the hardest or the longest but it is for mere mortals.You see its only a little bit out of reach, not completely, but 'just' a little out of reach. So the answers yes, of course il be back, not to beat it, just to be part of it. Next time though , i have a plan......

  Its probably a good time now to thank some people ;
Firstly my sponsors Aldi and Lidl who provided me with sock, compression wear and a rather fetching t- shirt. Pete Bland sports for having a nice half price sale that allowed me to get some super yellow Salomon X missions , and very good they were to in that terrain ,sure footed, cumfy and  no bloody blisters. Easy jet for cheap flights. The Super U supermarket chain for cheap beer. Darren Barnes for lending me his posh OMM jacket so i looked the part and e-bay who also sent a number of important items my way. My wife for organizing our holiday as well as lending me her silk underwear , the best defense against chaffing on the planet, and sexy on the skin to boot. Finally the people of France , Italy and Switzerland who fed me tasty treats were ever i did wander. I had a lovely time thank you very much for having me and look forward to seeing you all again next year :~}  Allez , Bravo and Belissimo...