Always saying yes to really hard things is something I believe in, so when elite Canadian Ski Mo and trail runner Michelle asked if I would step in at the last minute for the three-stage trail race in the mountains of Areches-Beaufort in France, of course I said yes.
A week prior to the race my achilles suddenly blew up and so I stopped training and went into major rehab because I did not want Michelle to fly over from Canada to not race. Recovery went well but I did not even know if I could make the start line let alone complete the first day and the probability of completing all three stages seemed remote. Thankfully, Michelle and I towed the line for the start of the race, I just had no idea if I could stay with her.
My training has been focused on the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc and so all my training has been at very low intensity. The Pierra Menta meant I would be working at my threshold for all the climbs – the prospect was daunting as I had not done any work at this level.
At breakfast I looked around the room and for the first time I was struck by how old I was compared to the vast majority of athletes and these people were athletes. The tight cut-off times meant that only serious trail runners apply and the room was fully of really young, skinny gaunt looking men and their slender and elegant (and often beautiful) female running partners in the case of the mixed teams. I felt my age at this event and we set our expectations relatively low at hopefully finishing in the top half of the 234 two person teams.
Stage 1 was 27km with 2,600m of elevation gain with average gradients in the early 20% which is really steep. The race started and immediately I was red lining as I dug deep to stay with Michelle on the first climb. I was working at about 95% of my threshold and did so for 1 hour and 20 minutes – it really hurt. There was then a short descent, another climb of 200m where I was red lining the whole way before a long descent. I have worked hard on my descending these last two years and it paid off, we made gains on the descent. The next climb was also big, 900m but by this stage things were a little calmer but I was still working at 95%. I was glad to complete the next descent and navigate the final short climb before a fast downhill finish. We completed the stage in 4:54 and my average heart rate was 153bpm whereas normally it would be around 125 bpm. We finished 101st overall and just outside the top 20 in the mixed.
Our strategy was to avoid having a bad day and to avoid having a bad climb and to finish each day strongly and to be consistent over the week. We felt pretty happy that we executed this strategy on day one although I did have to work really hard.
We worked really hard on our recovery – I had my massage gun and compex electro recovery tools and we both deployed these. I had no idea if I would be able to recover well from this level of intensity.
Day two was always going to be tough with a first climb of effectively 1,700m with two short descents but once again average around 20% gradient. I had not slept much during the night and woke feeling very fatigued. We set off hard once again and I was struggling from the outset and so we attached the bungee cord tow line – this provided me with a significant psychological boost. Michelle never actually had to tow me but it relieved the psychological pressure of feeling that I was in danger of falling behind. The gradients were slightly easier and I was not having to work quite as hard as yesterday, partly because there was often congestion on the trails and despite wanting to go harder, we could not. This stage included some via ferrata action (a wire to which you clip yourself to avoid the risk of falling off the mountain) and this stage was quite slow which gave some scope for recovery. This section averaged a gradient of 30%! Unfortunately, I did not stay on top of my nutrition and started to run low on fuel in the second half of the race. I slammed down some gels but as I have not been training with them, I had some stomach issues which added to my suffering. The gels did give me the lift though and I was able to finish a little more strongly and it meant we delivered identical placings in the general classification. We adopted the same recovery protocol in the evening.
The final stage was always going to be tough for me – a shorter stage with only 1,700m of vertical over just under 20km. The opening km is always a killer as Michelle pushes hard to try and secure a good position before the trail narrows and it becomes impossible to pass. If I ever have to do something like this again I will work on being able to start really fast and hard as this is the key to ensuring a good overall position. The first half of the race comprised three shortish climbs of 300 to 400m of vertical but each with a progressively more brutal gradient, 18%, 22% and a staggering 38%! The steeper it is, actually the less hard you work as everyone is moving quite slowly, these are not as aerobically challenging for me as the flatter, fast sections at the start which I have not trained for.
Unfortunately, it was Michelle’s turn to suffer today and she was struggling with losing so much fluid and her electrolytes were out of balance and she was feeling very nauseous which made taking sugar on board challenging. On the big descent I went ahead and ran through a lot of the field but Michelle had to take it more slowly and took a while to catch me back up. She recovered a little and led the charge home but we did drop our position in the stage by about 20 places. Overall, however we retained our 100th position overall and 21st in the mixed.
It was a hard and brutal three days for me but it was brilliant working with Michelle in such an incredible environment. She pushed me all the way to the edge throughout the three days and I hope we will have a chance to race together again – next time I will make sure I have done some specific training. What I learnt was that my climbing and descending is strong but I struggle to run at pace on the flats and gentle inclines.
Expeditions 