I’ve been feeling inadequate all weekend. On Friday evening I watched the start of the UTMB on the race website. One of the biggest races on the ultra running calendar, the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc is over 100 miles around Mont Blanc, the course traversing three different countries and scaling 10,000m (32,800ft) of ascent. It’s not a race for the faint-hearted.
My interest was piqued after I recently entered my first ultra marathon (the South Devon Endurance Life coastal trail ultra in February). I’ve got a lot of training to do, so I was out hill running on Saturday, and then trundled around a slow 10 miles on Sunday. I didn’t break any records, but it was a start.
Yet, I couldn’t get those stirring scenes from the start of the UTMB out of my head. As the two thousand or so runners lined up, Vangelis’ haunting Conquest of Paradise played out across the town square in Chamonix, France. You could see the fear and nervous anticipation on the faces of the runners as they prepared to set out on their huge undertaking. When I woke up on Saturday morning, after a good night’s sleep, my first thought was: “They’re still out there, running.”
Then, on Saturday night: “They’re still out there.” Well most of them. I saw on Twitter that a wild thunder storm had unleashed itself on the mountain. After over 24 hours running, that was tough. What was going through their minds?
Then as I ran my slow 10 miles on Sunday morning, I thought: “Lots of them are still out there, still running.” It seemed insane, yet somehow wonderful. I began to feel a strange envy of the UTMB runners, and formed a vague plan to look into doing it myself one day.
One person who was in this year’s race was sometime running blog contributor Damian Hall who finished in an amazing 19th position. Another contributor, Robbie Britton, was a brilliant 11th in the epic CCC race the day before (101km), which is also part of the same festival of running in Chamonix. In fact there are five races in total. I know some of our regular readers and contributors were toeing the line; we bow down to you all: Claudia from Advent Runners, Emily Foy, Kirsty Reade … who have we missed?
Meanwhile, Kate Carter, our resident running blog head honcho, was also there, but as a journalist rather than a competitor. She will be writing the whole event up in the coming days, so watch this space …
But perhaps all this ultra running is not your bag. Maybe, like Laura Muir, your achievements this weekend were of a shorter nature. They all count, of course, from your first jog in years, to world steeplechase records … as always, let us know what you’ve been up to this weekend.
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