From Petra Bijsterveld…
Having spent UTMB week in the Chamonix Valley last year I was keen to return to this trail running festival. Whatever you think about UTMB (and there are plenty of grounds for criticism), they sure know how to organise a big running event with a brilliant vibe. I decided I would rather be a participant than a pure spectator so I entered the ETC race, which stands for Experience Trail Courmayeur. The shortest race in the UTMB week, it is a 15km circuit with 1267 meters of elevation, starting and finishing in Courmayeur, just over the border from Chamonix, in Italy’s Aosta Valley. It is marketed as a good introduction to trail running in the mountains and at the same time it is a fast and furious race, particularly at the front end. Nothing fast and furious about my running of course, and I had worried a bit in advance about the undoubted congestion on the course, with 1200 runners on 15kms of largely single-track paths it would be busy, which is not really my thing, especially on the downhills where I tend to be significantly slower than the majority.
We were taken to Courmayeur on coaches leaving Chamonix from 10am, it involved quite a long wait in the queue to get to the Mont Blanc Tunnel (though this would pale into insignificance compared to the return journey later) but by 11 I was in Courmayeur with 3 hours to kill before the 2pm race start. Thankfully the weather was very nice and I spent it first drinking coffee outside a cafe and then writing and sending some postcards, seeing I found a shop selling cards as well as postage stamps, and with a handy post box on the shop front. After dropping off my bag at the bag store I passed some time in the inevitable toilet queue which to be fair wasn’t bad at all, and then made my way into my starting wave pen. I must say I wasn’t really feeling ‘it’ whatever ‘it’ is as we were awaiting the countdown. I felt I could just as easily have spent the rest of the afternoon on that cafe terrace. Maybe I was still a bit tired from the journey here at the weekend, a bit undertrained, not acclimated to the altitude yet, feeling the aftermath of a dental abscess and a week of antibiotics which I had not even finished yet. And it was warm, really quite hot. This not being an ultra I knew there would be little chance of taking it particularly easy. Not that I was going to be in any hurry, but when the trails are congested you kind of have to keep up with the general pace once you have found your spot in the train of runners which moves ever upwards. Normally ascents are my relative strong point but it wasn’t to be on this race. I had to step off the path 3 times and sit down as I was near fainting. It’s happened to me before so I know that eventually it passes but it was unpleasant and lost me quite a bit of time, not that that particularly mattered. All I cared about was making it round without the embarrassment of becoming some medical emergency! My nutrition and hydration including electrolytes was all in order so perhaps it was mainly the altitude bothering me. And it was hot! My t-shirt was so wet I thought my soft-flasks must be leaking, until I had to conclude it was all just sweat. Eventually I started to feel better, we reached the top, or thought we had until there was more to climb (isn’t there always!?) and the views of Mont Blanc were absolutely stupendous. Though I should say they had been pretty good from the cafe back down in Courmayeur too! But hey, drinking coffee doesn’t earn you a medal or the satisfaction of having raced. So having finally reached the highest point the other challenge started, descending for miles where I constantly had to let people pass as I am a slow descender. By alpine standards this is not a technical race but there were still plenty of tree roots and rocks to potentially stumble over. Anyway, I made it down in one piece with lots of stops to let other runners fly by. Not having studied the course profile in enough depth (the unwise ‘it’s only 15km, up a mountain and down again’ attitude) I had failed to spot the inevitable upwards sting in the tail in the last mile. I don’t think I was the only one feeling almost outfaced by this final ascent, some runners around me looked like they wanted to cry! A final few bends down a tarmac little road and I was back at the finish after 3 hours and 39 minutes, 911th out of 1183 finishers, and 6th out of 11 in my age category. Nothing to particularly write home about (but I am writing this anyway!) but I was happy enough with the result.
I was surprised how hard I found it and wondered how I had ever run the 100km CCC here last year. I guess like with any race, a lot of it is in one’s head and if you know you are only running 15k that’s what you are focussed on. There was an enormous queue for the post race snacks so I decided to head straight down to the sports centre where we had to catch the coach back to Chamonix, and instead bought some snacks from a small shop on the way. Good thing I did considering I was nowhere near home yet and I had eaten everything I had brought with me. I was on a coach that left Courmayeur at 6:15pm, sadly the queue for the tunnel was so bad that it took until 8pm for us to reach the entrance of the tunnel, it’s probably only about a mile, and we were plain stationary for most of the time! Finally we reached Chamonix well after 8pm where the coach driver, for reasons probably only known to himself, proceeded straight past the car park which had been the morning’s pick-up point and where many of us were parked, and headed down into central Chamonix. Upon which those of us with cars in the car park had to ask him to return us there, especially as it was tipping it down with rain now and no one fancied a 15 minute walk back in that weather. A minor irritation perhaps but not ideal after a rather long day out. Anyway, my medal and a nice post-race glow, as well as a cold beer in the fridge in my apartment back in Vallorcine made up for all that.