Health - Injuries, the Bossons Glacier above the French village of Chamonix glows in radiant brilliance, much the way a stained-glass window lights up the inside of a great cathedral.
The hallowed place of worship, in this case, is the 15,782-foot Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe and one of the defining anchors of the French Alps. Covering more than 150 square miles in parts of France, Italy and Switzerland, the formidable Mont Blanc massif boasts 35 jagged peaks that soar above 11,000 feet and dozens of ancient glaciers that hang precariously over its edges.
As 2,300 runners from 65 countries are about to find out, maneuvering around the Mont Blanc range on the trails that circumnavigate its perimeter is a monumental task. Relentlessly steep climbs and long, thigh-pounding descents are connected by desolate, exposed passes above treeline. The footing is treacherous, the vertical gain and loss nothing short of overwhelming.
This is the setting for the 103-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race (UTMB), which has become the world's ultimate proving ground for trail runners and the sport's most revered spectacle.
The mountains are really impressive just because they're so steep and the relief is so great," says Mike Wolfe, a 33-year-old attorney from Helena, Mont., who's returned to the UTMB after finishing second in the storm-shortened version of the race last year. "There's just nothing of this magnitude in the U.S."
One of the premier U.S. ultrarunners in recent years, Wolfe arrives in Chamonix as fit as he's ever been. He lost an epic late-June duel with 23-year-old Spanish sensation Kilian Jornet at California's Western States 100--where a mere 4 minutes separated the two after more than 15 and a half hours of neck-and-neck running through the rolling Sierras.
Aside from the fact that Wolfe works a full-time job for the U.S. Justice Department and Jornet is a full-time professional trail runner for Salomon, another big difference is that Jornet is a two-time winner of the UTMB and regularly trains on the steep mountain trails of the Pyrenees and the Alps. Wolfe logged many long training days in the mountains of Montana--including a 9-hour effort in Bozeman with 50,000 feet of vertical gain and loss with training partner and fellow UTMB runner Mike Foote--but it hardly compares to the training ground of his European counterparts.
Given their recent histories, Wolfe and Jornet could be headed toward another dramatic showdown. But this year's field is the deepest ever assembled, and running around Mont Blanc is unlike any trail-running race in the world, so there's no telling how things will play out. What's certain, though, is that every runner, from the top contenders up front to those just in it for the adventure, will be physically, emotionally and perhaps even spiritually tested by the mountains.
"This mountain is living, it has a soul and it is so strong," Jornet says. "When you run some races like Western States, it's more about running with the runners and with the community, but
not with the mountain. Because at Western States, the mountain is quiet. Here, we run first with the mountain and after that, it's a race. But first is always the mountain."
Within the mountain-oriented culture of the Alps, the pursuit of adventure has been woven into the fabric of everyday life for centuries. Even before the Tour du Mont Blanc routes were officially designated in the 1970s, European hikers had been linking up various trails to complete the loop in seven to 10 days while on holiday--the length of their daily treks often dictated by the distance between the small villages or high-alpine huts that provide overnight accommodations.
By the late 1990s, as long-distance trail running gained a foothold and durable lightweight shoes and packs followed--thanks in part to the rapid growth of ultrarunning in the U.S. and an international boom in adventure racing--hearty local souls started running the Mont Blanc route in the span of a couple of days. But it wasn't until visionary Chamonix residents Catherine and Michel Poletti successfully organized the UTMB in 2003 that racing around this rugged section of the Alps became possible.
Not only was it the first true 100-mile trail race in Europe--the distance an American invention started by the Western States 100 in the 1970s
but slow to catch on elsewhere--it also took the place of the fast-fading sport of adventure racing, which required too much time, travel and gear to be sustainable. From the start, though, the Polettis wanted it to be as much a collective cultural immersion as a foot race.
What the advent of the UTMB ultimately did was set off a new genre of ultradistance trail running in Europe--events that package the epitome of personal adventure and achievement into the reasonable time constraints of a weekend for every level of competitor--perhaps similar to how the Ironman Triathlon and big city marathons did in previous generations, albiet with a unique mystique. With the help of title sponsor The North Face, they've also successfully branded and broadcast the race around the world, by way of, for example, the cinematic online videos posted during and immediately after the race.
"It's always been more than just about sport; it's an expedition and an experience," Catherine Poletti says. "I think for the same reasons it has attracted people from this region, it has attracted people from around the world. It's about the culture of the mountain. It's about experiencing nature and the challenge of the trail first, and racing on the trails second."
That said, it's quickly become the most competitive ultradistance trail race in the world, this year attracting top talent from the U.S., Japan, Russia and more than a dozen European countries.
The Polettis have worked hard to foster a special connection between the runners and the mountains, as well as the 15 communities along the course. While they aren't hampered by restrictive land agency permits that limit most U.S. races, they've made sure respect for the environment and other competitors was written into the doctrine of the race and have also worked with local villages to ensure maximum participation and a display of local culture. For example, the course intentionally snakes through the old buildings and cobblestone streets of several towns; runners encounter French school children singing supportive songs in St. Gervais and men playing alphorns in the Swiss resort village of Champex-Lac. Crepes, espresso and other local items are available at some of the aid stations.
The result has been a self-perpetuating, multilingual phenomenon much like the Tour de France, in which throngs of people support the race around the clock, either volunteering at checkpoints and aid stations or simply waving flags, blowing horns, ringing cow bells and celebrating along the course.
"What makes the race so special is how the thousands of years of unique mountain culture comes to life in each of the villages around Mont Blanc," says Montrail/Mountain Hardwear president Topher Gaylord, who helped get the first race off the ground and has since finished among the top 25 five times, including second in the inaugural race. "The energy you feel as you pass through each town is really electrifying. It's unrivaled by any other event in the world."
Last year, a torrential downpour forced the postponement and ultimately the cancellation of the UTMB. A truncated 55-mile race from Courmayeur, Italy, to Chamonix was held the following day, but not all runners were alerted when and where the race was restarting and there weren't enough buses to get all of the athletes to the Italian town on such short notice.
This year, even though it's pouring at 3,400 feet in Chamonix when the race begins, race officials have been in constant contact with local weather experts and a plan is hatched to push the start back five hours to 11:30 p.m. so that the worst of the weather will have passed through the area before runners reach the 8,000-foot Col du Bonhomme on the westernmost portion of the course.
"The mountain can bring out all four seasons in one race," Jornet says. "Sometimes it's very hot. Sometimes it's very cold. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes it snows. That's part of the soul of the mountain."
From the mountain village of Les Contamines, 19 miles into the race, the lead group (pictured above) leaves civilization behind and begins an 8.7-mile, 4,300-foot backcountry climb to the top of Bonhomme Pass. After dumping rain for the first 3 hours of the race, the storm has finally moved to the east, leaving cold but dry conditions, a dusting of new snow and clear skies full of stars.
The Spanish trio of Jornet, Miguel Heras and Iker Karrera sets the pace for the lead group, which also includes Hungary's Nemeth Csaba, Portugal's Carlos Sa, Frenchmen Pascal Giguet and Sebastien Chaigneau and Americans Mike Wolfe and Geoff Roes. A series of steep climbs and descents through the night will take its toll, dropping Sa, Giguet and Roes, thus thinning the group to six by morning.
While the highest point of the UTMB course is 8,300 feet above sea level--that's considerably lower than the low points at Hardrock or Leadville in the U.S.--there are 10 massive climbs t
hat make even the world's best trail runners resort to hands-on-knees power hiking while gasping for breath. Overall, runners will endure a 62,000-foot elevation gain and loss if they're fortunate enough to make it all the way back to Chamonix. (Most don't, though, as the race's attrition rate is typically more than 50 percent.)
Runners are required to carry a pack loaded with safety gear, extra clothes, and food and water, and many use lightweight collapsible trekking poles to ease the strain on their legs during the steep climbs. The pack and poles are a visible cue to how European mountain running is more closely linked to its mountaineering and adventure racing roots than it is to marathon running.
At 6:14 a.m., as a magnificent sunrise starts to lighten the eastern skies, Wolfe, Jornet, Heras, Karrera, Chaigneau and Csaba complete a 6-mile, 3,300-foot ascent to the top of the 8,255-foot Col de la Seigne and cross over into Italy. The next 11 miles will be one of the harshest sections on the course, with a combined 5,800 feet of steep downhill running into the posh Italian ski town of Courmayeur. The 90-minute descent beats up a number of runners, though it doesn't appear to have much effect on Jornet, Heras, Karrera or Chaigneau, who look like they're in cruise control when they enter the aid station at a Courmayeur recreation center 48.5 miles into the race.
Once inside, runners quickly change out of jackets, tights and hats for warmer weather gear while their support crews scurry to refill hydration bladders and reload backpacks with gel packets, salt tablets and energy bars. Heras quickly chugs a Red Bull, Karrera inhales a banana and Chaigneau spastically shimmies out of his white arm warmers. Jornet, however, who's been listening to an iPod the entire race, seems unfazed, calmly alternating sips of water and Coca-Cola while waiting for the others. Within moments, they're out the door to begin attacking the second half of the race.
When Wolfe arrives at Courmayeur 4 minutes later in sixth, he looks fatigued but not defeated. After having problems with gels at the Western States 100 in June, he changed his primary on-course nutrition sources to bananas, gummy blocks and carbohydrate drinks. Having fallen off the lead again in this race, he starts to wonder if he's properly refueling.
"When I got to Courmayeur, I felt OK but I kind of knew I had to eat more," Wolfe later says. "I didn't feel like I was getting enough calories in and my legs were feeling a little bit sluggish. You have to force yourself to cram down a bunch more calories than you want to eat and get your legs going again. I wasn't worried about it at the time, but then I just kept getting slower and couldn't get my legs going again."
Jornet, having grown up in the Catalan Pyrenees of northern Spain, appears to understand as well as anyone in the race the spirit of mountain running the Polettis had in mind when they started the UTMB. The son of a mountain guide and a ski instructor, he developed a kinship with the natural world long before he developed into a world-beating endurance athlete. Aside from being one of the world's top mountain runners, he's also a world ski mountaineering champion. His connection to nature is genuine and obvious.
At one point on the first night, Jornet surged ahead of the other runners, turned off his headlight and stared at the stars above until the others in the lead group caught up. On the long ascent out of Italy and on the ensuing climbs in Switzerland, he repeatedly powers to the top ahead of Karrera, Heras and Chaigneau, doing so with a relative ease and outward joy. It's not gamesmanship, nor is he trying to break his fellow runners. He's just doing it because he likes to charge up steep mountain trails. He patiently waits and regroups at the top of each climb--often looking for mushrooms or talking to young kids--before rejoining his fellow runners in the back of the group in a supportive role, much the way a cyclist might rotate through a peloton.
There's talk about trying to get the three Spanish runners to finish together in Chamonix, but when Heras comes up lame with a bad knee and eventually drops out at the small Swiss village of Trient, Jornet refocuses, pushes the pace and goes it alone.
By the time he crosses back into France, he's built a 2-minute lead over Karrera with only 11 miles and two moderate climbs remaining before the finish line in Chamonix. With a chorus of cow bells ringing in the distance--not from fans, but from a farmer walking two dozen dairy cattle back from an alpine meadow for the evening--he says he'd like to wait for Karrera at the aid station in the small village of Vallorcine, but his Salomon handlers suggest he should go on alone and win the race.
Resigned to running by himself, Jornet buzzes through the final section in 90 minutes--by far the fastest split on that section all night--and gets back to Chamonix at twilight. Removing his headphones for the first time, he runs through a hero's welcome provided by an estimated 10,000 screaming people lining the streets, high-fiving dozens as he goes. With Vangelis' triumphant ballad "Conquest of Paradise" filling the air from loudspeakers spaced throughout the village, Jornet reaches the finish line in 20 hours, 36 minutes.
Top Americans Scott Jurek, Roes and Dakota Jones all dropped out before the halfway point of the race, and the surprise first American is Wolfe's training partner Foote, who put in a consistent and gritty effort to finish 11th in 24:25. Only Gaylord, who previously lived and trained in Courmayeur for several years, has finished as high or higher among American men with his second-(2003), sixth-(2005) and 11th-place (2008) efforts. Foote, 27, not a sponsored athlete, sold T-shirts to help fund his trip.
Two more unsung Americans arrive in the next 3 hours--Colorado's Nick Pedatella and Vermont's Jack Pilla--but still there's no sign of Wolfe, who's rumored to be walking the final 6 miles back to Chamonix. As the morning hours drag by, Foote sticks around to wait for his friend and training partner to finish, much the way Wolfe did when Foote had a rotten day at Western States.
Finally, at 3:30 a.m., long after the crowds have dispersed for the night, the camera flashes have stopped and the music is turned off--and more than 7 hours behind Jornet--Wolfe walks down the empty street and greets his mom and his girlfriend at the finish after 28 hours of relentless forward motion. Though far from his goal, he's still 26th overall out of what will eventually be 1,133 finishers.
"I've never been in a situation where my body wouldn't go until this race," Wolfe says. "I think I'll just have to chalk it up to one of those days that you can't explain. You have to just accept it for what it is, try to learn from it and move on.
Could an event like the UTMB--a large-scale, championship-caliber ultradistance trail race that's also open to thousands of runners and creates a festival-like spectacle--be staged in North America? Dozens of challenging and well-organized ultradistance mountain races now exist in the U.S. and Canada. Among them, the Hardrock 100-miler in Silverton, Colo., seems to match up the best to the UTMB, but those who've raced both say the differences are more cultural than physical.
"They're both great, very hard courses," says American Darcy Africa, 36, who finished third among women in 28:30, just six weeks after placing second at Hardrock in 29:46. "The biggest difference is the level of interaction you have with all of the people here. I felt that energy all through the race."
Race directors and runners are quick to point out that it would be next to impossible to get permits for an event of such magnitude. Yet, in September, the inaugural Ultra Race of Champions successfully brought together some of the UTMB-esque qualities in the rolling Appalachian Mountains near Charlottesville, Va.: a competitive field, a challenging course, multiple race distances, a festival atmosphere and a built-in media machine that includes live results, real-time splits and live finish line video coverage. Plus, it added a $10,000 cash purse. Still, no amount of money or press will likely result in the outpouring of local residents onto the streets and countryside and the festival atmosphere that pervade such open-air events in Europe.
Prize money seems to be necessary to draw elite athletes in the U.S., but that's not what convinced more than a dozen top American ultrarunners to travel to France--the UTMB doesn't award any.
"We run not for money or to be famous, but just for the enjoyment of the journey," Jornet says later. "Running to finish first and win a trophy, that's just material and that's not why we run. We run because we are in the mountains, and when you're in the mountains, you feel that the mountain is strong, that the mountain is moving and that the mountain has a spirit. We push our bodies for introspection to know better who we are and feel that spirit. That's why we run."
In Europe, the espirit d'aventures includes the collective understanding that what you experience while you're moving along the trail is the point, regardless of how fast you traverse the mountains. In other words, no matter if you're an elite runner who finishes on the podium or someone who's doing everything possible just to finish, if you're a sponsored runner or an amateur scratching out a living while pursuing your passion, what' s important is accepting the monumental challenge and developing a lasting connection with the mountain. Sure, the goal is to move fast, but while only a limited few have the talent, skill and training to finish near the front, everyone can have a special experience and forge a connection with the mountain.
"The UTMB is different than other races because of the atmosphere between all of the runners and the volunteers and all the supporters in all of the villages and everybody who is out on the trail," says 31-year-old British runner Lizzy Hawker, who won the women's race for the third time this year in 25:02. "What's important is the journey within. You get to know yourself in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. It's really about looking for your edge and really about enjoying the journey."
While the "just-finish-it" motivation can be a polarizing subject in road running, where we put a premium on running as fast as possible, there's great honor and great reward in finishing the UTMB or the 61-mile Courmayeur Champex Chamonix race that covers the back half of the course. The terrain, the distance and the weather combine to create a challenge big enough to require training, mental toughness and persistence simply to attempt the course, and the immersion in both nature and the joie de vivre of the towns along the route produces indelible, inimitable memories.
Watching a seemingly endless string of exhausted but elated trail runners return to Chamonix late on Sunday evening, the majority of them bursting into tears at the finish line in the elation of what they had just experienced, it becomes clear the UTMB is so much more than a race. Or maybe not even a race at all.
How to Run Tangents in a Race runningtimes.com.
