Training Log Archive: Bash

Today ‘Bent and I took the bus through Mont Blanc to Courmayeur, where we could see the other side of Monte Bianco, as one calls it in Italy. When I attempted UTMB, I passed through this town twice. It’s a major aid station at 80 km, approximately halfway around the loop. It took me about 18 hours to get this far so I appreciated this beautiful area - but maybe not as much as I could have.

This year Courmayeur will be the starting line for my 101 km race, CCC. I’ll take an early morning bus to get here. We’ll be sorted into waves at the last minute. I’m guessing I’ll be seeded in the last wave so if anyone is watching my checkpoint times, they’ll be even further back than one might expect.



We took lifts up to Col Checrouit, which is the last UTMB aid station before the 5 km, 800 m, quad pounding descent into Courmayeur. I remember Browner phoning me on the trail near here in 2013 to tell me to run faster, lol! That year I was close to the cut-off in Courmayeur so I did my transition activities after checking out. In 2014, I had more time.



‘Bent and I hiked up to Lago Checrouit, which I didn’t notice during my races and didn’t photograph this time either. It looked more like a storm water management pond for the ski area.

There is an interesting art project in this area where they’ve installed mirrors to let visitors take selfies with the mountain range behind them. They’re distorted like in a hall of mirrors.



Other than the “lake”, there was plenty to photograph! Here’s the view west toward Col de la Seigne, the spectacular pass where I crossed from France into Italy at first light in UTMB.



And this is looking east toward Grand Col Ferret, the high point of the race course where we entered Switzerland. If all goes well, I’ll be repeating that part of the race course in the first part of CCC.



Of course we needed proof that we were at Monte Bianco!





After enjoying the views much more than we ever did in our races, we ran down to the lift (no knee pain going downhill) and headed back to Courmayeur for a nice Italian lunch at the same place where ‘Bent ate dinner with Mrs. Gally and Meg-eh before his CCC in 2013. Then we wandered the narrow streets in the pedestrian area until we found the best gelato place.





We found proof that a famous runner has been in town - as if all those videos hadn’t proven it already!

‘Bent and I took the lifts up to Brevent in search of different views and a few more red cells in our blood. We’ve been up there before. It’s a mountain playground for hikers, mountain bikers, trail runners, rock climbers, wing suit pilots and paragliders. And that’s just the summer!

Although it’s the view out our bedroom window, I somehow don’t have a good photo of Brevent from below. It’s on that green ridge across the Chamonix valley from Mont Blanc but I promise it’s much more impressive than it looks from the Aiguille du Midi!



This ridge has views of Chamonix and the Mont Blanc massif.



And on the other side, you can see different terrain with many kilometres of trails.



This being the Alps, of course there is a place to buy espresso and a snack at the summit.



Other than photography, our ambitions were modest. We planned to hike down this trail to the mid-station between the two lifts, where we would have a choice of restaurants for lunch. (!)



I don’t like to hike/run downhill too much close to a race since I’d rather save all the resilience in my legs. But this route isn’t too long, and I wanted to turn around and do a few short, steep uphill sections to see how my knee would feel.

It’s a weird injury. No pain on downhills, occasionally excruciating on uphills but usually mild or even non-existent. If I touch my inner knee while sitting around, it’s painful under the skin in a 10 cm x 5 cm area from the medial knee hinge going below and forward. It was a little sore walking around town after this hike. CCC is a pretty extreme thing to do to a knee (101 km with 6170 m climb and similar descent). I’m writing this two days later and thinking it’s worth trying. If the pain stays in excruciating mode for too long,
I’ll have my answer but it feels like it might be improving. Wish I knew for sure what caused it so I’d have an idea of the trajectory of the injury.

Anyway... On the way down and as we looked along the ridge, there were rock climbers on every cliff and pinnacle.



It’s an easy trail with a high risk of ankle sprains since it’s hard to watch your footing when the views are so nice. We met a few people running uphill. Good for them!



After lunch - a shared “trio des fromages” - we watched the parapentes take off. (That’s a word I only say in French for some reason. I had to look up “paraglider” to make sure I used it correctly earlier in this entry!)



Then back to town where we had a classic bad French customer service/bureaucracy experience at the train station followed by an equally classic good experience at a wine shop. I know who will be getting my business from now on! :)

Event: Wilderness Traverse 2019
 

I wanted to see the GPS track for our first adventure in Chamonix this year - a trip up to the Aiguille du Midi and across to Rifugio Torino in Italy, which consisted mostly of gondolas (three different rides) with some walking through long tunnels and up a bunch of stairs at high altitude. So I don’t get any credit for the 13.5 km distance and 3083 m of climb that we did.

I can’t think of many more spectacular places I’ve been in my life than the glacier between the Aiguille du Midi and the Italian border. And lunch at the Rifugio was pretty yummy too!

For perspective, the Aiguille du Midi is the small peak about a quarter of the way from the left of this photo taken from across the valley on Sunday’s hike.



Views around the Aiguille du Midi - see the mountaineer on the pinnacle in the first photo?







A few mountaineers in this one too



Views from the gondola to Italy (which I wasn’t supposed to take because I didn’t have my passport)







Rifugio Torino a few hundred meters across the Italian border. Naturally, even at this high altitude, they had excellent lasagne and cappuccino. The clouds rolled in so we only caught a few glimpses of Courmayeur below. It brought back memories of UTMBs past.

On the way down, we got off at the mid-station, Plan de l’Aiguille, and did a short hike to Lac Bleu. Very rocky, very scenic.





I’ve been having knee pain - an MCL strain, I think - either from our canoe trip or my fall at Pretty River that caused my pec and rib pain last week. It is possibly bad enough that I might not start my race. It will be a game time decision.

Chamonix never gets old - although today part of my heart is with our friends at Wilderness Traverse. ‘Bent and I are exhausted tonight but we’ll enjoy our balcony views after we get some sleep.

So yesterday I finally read the fine print for CCC, the 101 km race at UTMB. 'Bent kept the drop bag they gave him for several years so I knew there was a drop bag. What I didn't know was that I have to hand it in at the start of the race. After that, it's probably 26-ish hours without access to any of my stuff. I'd been planning on replenishing things halfway through - loading up on food, changing to a different GPS watch so the battery won't run out, charging my phone a little, getting more sunscreen, etc.

In some ways, this isn't the worst thing. Packing a drop bag takes time and thought, and now I don't have to do it. However, it also means that I have to carry some things for 26 hours that other runners don't. Most races allow drop bags to help racers who are self-supported. UTMB doesn't care - and they don't have to care since so many of us enter their lottery each year. Other runners can see their support crews in three different places on the race course, which means they can change their shoes, switch out wet layers, load up on their favourite food or whatever they like. This is a race that has bowls of salami and tough cheese cubes at their aid stations. I'll definitely want to carry some of my own food.

One change since my last trip partway around Mont Blanc is that they are asking us to provide our own bowl and cutlery in addition to the cups we already had to carry if we wanted drinks at aid stations. If I want pasta at the halfway point, I'll have to carry a bowl and spoon for the entire race. A runner with a support crew doesn't have to do that. Given that this new rule is to help the environment, it's sad that my first thought was to bring something disposable so I could throw it out after eating the pasta, which is only served once in 101 km. I'm not going to do that but I empathize with other unsupported runners who do. If we could access drop bags there, it would be easy for us to bring reusable dishes.

Anyway, my next step is to try to stuff everything into my pack. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to squeeze everything into the nice new running pack I bought for the race but I'm about to give it a shot!

Today would have been Mom's 87th birthday so she was on my mind.



I'm almost finished my part of the Wilderness Traverse preparations; there have been a few late nights as I flooded the poor volunteers with emails explaining how to take over my role.

We have a great HQ staff this year: Amber, Pat Chan, Super and Rockstara onsite and Wilberto, Ashleigh and Leesh reporting remotely. I hope I can watch the race a bit from France. I'm so sad to miss several American friends who are making the trip since I don't see them very often.