Training Log Archive: Bash

CCC (Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix) at Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc

France, Switzerland and Italy

101 km trail run with 6100+ meters (20,000') of elevation gain

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CCC was more than just another race for me. My journey to this finish line started eight years ago when a few of us became interested in Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). I loved the idea of running a spectacular, mountainous loop on trails around the highest peak in the Alps starting in Chamonix, France and passing through Italy and Switzerland on the way back to Chamonix.



This is the UTMB race route with the start/finish at Chamonix in the bottom centre. Runners go counterclockwise. It's about 170 km and 10,040 m of elevation gain. Winning times are typically around 21 hours (men) and 24 hours (women). You can click on any photo to see a larger version.





UTMB is the world’s largest trail running event, attracting almost 10,000 runners to 7 races that take place over a week, ranging from a youth race to a 300 km unmarked route for experienced teams. Most racers travel to Chamonix with family or friends so the town is crowded and buzzing with excitement. Dozens of shops sell specialized trail running gear and offer discounts to racers. People wear compression calf sleeves around town, load their groceries into running packs and pose for photos under the finish arch.





It's a great area to visit if you like cheese, chocolate, duck confit, gelato or wine - just to name a few.





Thousands of spectators line the race courses, ringing cowbells and yelling "Allez Allez!" for runners from 100 countries. This festival week is known as the World Summit of Trail Running, and there's nothing else like it in our sport.



The UTMB races are so popular that entries are awarded through a lottery. To be eligible, runners need to finish tough qualifier races and must keep racing regularly to remain qualified for the lottery. It can take a few years to get a place on the starting line.

When this all began, I had done one 50 km trail race as a spinoff from my adventure racing, and I had no plan to become an ultrarunner. But with UTMB as my goal, I ran long qualifier races in beautiful places and went on trips with friends that were the best part of this adventure.



In 2013 and 2014, I attempted the 170 km UTMB race – the full loop around the Mont Blanc massif. In my better attempt, I made it 123 km, three quarters of the way around Mont Blanc. I stopped in Champex-Lac, Switzerland after struggling to stay awake on narrow cliffside trails during the second night of the race. One third of UTMB runners fail to reach the finish line and I was among them. Twice.



I've now completed about 20 ultras including several long mountain races in the Alps and Dolomites but I don't think a UTMB finish under the time limit is within my grasp at this stage. I decided that CCC would be a good way to complete my loop around Mont Blanc and cross the elusive finish line in Chamonix. At 101 km with 6,100 meters of climbing, this challenging race from Italy to Switzerland to France starts with a huge climb then joins the UTMB route and follows it 88 km to the end. There would be some overlap with my previous races but I would get to run the last 46 km of trail that I hadn't seen.





It took three years to get into CCC through the lottery. I’d planned six months of focused training before the race but life went in a different direction when Mom fell ill and passed away. With all the emotions and sad tasks, I felt unmotivated for months and didn't train properly. I became more of a weekend warrior, fitting in some long runs but skipping most of the weekday running, biking, strength training and yoga that had prepared me for other races. I showed up in Chamonix with low expectations and a weird pain in my knee.



Richard finished CCC in 2013 and dropped out of UTMB with stomach issues in 2014. This year he ran the 56 km OCC race from Orsières, Switzerland to Chamonix. It roughly followed the last part of the UTMB/CCC course and gave him a chance to see the scenery in daylight. Our friends Pete Cameron, Leanne Mueller and their children Mari and Ewen arrived in town in time to help me cheer him across the finish line.











He made a great video of his race.

OCC 2019 from Richard Ehrlich on Vimeo.

Early the next morning, I walked through the dark streets of Chamonix to catch my bus to the CCC starting line in Courmayeur, Italy. More than 2,100 runners milled around the centre of Courmayeur until it was time to enter our assigned corrals for the opening ceremony.



To reduce congestion, racers are split into three waves 15 minutes apart according to our ITRA (International Trail Running Association) performance ratings. I was assigned to the second wave, which started at 9:15 a.m.





The atmosphere was electric. We ran 2 km through narrow streets with spectators lining the route and standing on hotel balconies, clapping and yelling encouragement. For a tough mountain race where only the top 10% of the field would finish under 17 hours, most runners started surprisingly fast.







By the second kilometre, the road started to tilt upward. We ran out of town on a narrow road, gaining 100 meters per kilometre until we turned onto a trail.



This was the beginning of the steep 1,000 m, 4.3 km climb to Tête de la Tronche at 2584 m - the highest point in the race.

I was excited to do this climb on fresh legs but we came to a complete stop a few minutes later. There was major congestion where the trail narrowed into single track. No wonder some people had gone so fast out of the gate! It took 15 minutes to get moving again. Everyone remained calm but no one needed a break after only 5 km.





Finally it was my turn to join the conga line snaking up the mountain.







Check out all the runners below!



We rose above the treeline. This ridge was our destination.



The views of the Aosta Valley were stunning and I risked spraining an ankle while I tried to watch both my footing and the scenery.





While walking uphill in the days before the race, I'd felt inner right knee pain that sometimes became excruciating. I had wondered whether that might end my race - maybe even before it started. Whatever it was (MCL and meniscus is the best guess), it didn't flare up during the race and I haven't felt it since. Maybe my knee just needed 101 km of pounding on steep trails to fix itself!

We reached Tête de la Tronche at 2584 m after climbing 1429 m in the first 9 km of the race. Now *that's* a warm-up.

I only realized it later but the man who scanned my race bib there was Richard Turgeon, a talented Québecois runner we'd met through Benoit Letourneau. (He's the one with the beard and cap on the far left.) He volunteered at CCC as part of his preparation for the 330 km Tor des Géants trail race the following week, where he finished in the top 10%. Benoit and their other friends also finished near the top. We had lunch with them two days after this.



The woman at the right side of the photo is Gabriela Pocsa. We met 22 hours later when we ran together for 5 km during the final hour of the race. In a race with 2,132 participants, it was amazing to discover that I had taken a photograph of her.

We had reached a long green ridge with stunning views of Mont Blanc and the Aosta Valley on either side. After almost 3 hours of slogging uphill, I was tempted to skip around like Julie Andrews singing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." Alas, we couldn't relax because this was an ideal place to make up time - 4.3 km of good trails with 600 m of descent and lots of room to pass. Even though it was my fastest section of the race, 80 people passed me here - yikes!









The first aid station, Rifugio Bertone, was very familiar from my two UTMB attempts. I topped up my hydration bladder and soft flask, drank some Coke (from the cup I had to carry as mandatory gear) and grabbed a few snacks. UTMB aid stations are different from most North American ones. They feature sausage chunks, cheese cubes, baguette slices, honey cake and European packaged sports nutrition products. There are also more familiar aid station foods - bananas, oranges, cookies and drinks. I wasn't picky at this point although I carried my own packaged snacks to make sure I always had food with me that I liked.



The trail to Rifugio Bonatti parallels the Mont Blanc massif across the Val Ferret valley, staying close to 2,000 m in altitude. It's one of the most spectacular trails in the world and is relatively flat for the Alps with 303 m (1,000') of climb in 7.5 km. When I ran this section in UTMB, I'd already been racing for more than 20 hours so it was a treat today to feel relatively energetic. Even with my dubious training, I took half an hour off my time from UTMB.









The results say that I passed a few dozen people on the 5K stretch between Rifugio Bonatti and Arnuva but that didn't happen on the trail, where I just held my own. I must have passed people at the Rifugio. In adventure racing, we try to minimize stops, including at transition/aid areas - a habit that has been helpful in ultrarunning. Before I arrive at each aid station, I make a mental list of planned tasks in sequence. For example: throw out empty food wrappers, get food and eat it while refilling a water flask, get more food and reapply sunscreen, take snacks and go. I walk back onto the race course while still eating and drinking. It's easy to get comfortable at aid stations. Friendly volunteers and racers are chatting, there is free food and drink, and if it's raining out, it's dry and warm inside. I saw some racers resting in the sunshine at Rifugio Bonatti but I knew our part of the pack would be close to the cut-offs later so I couldn't risk joining them.



The trail to Arnuva starts with a climb followed by a long downhill to the bottom of the valley.



During the descent, I got caught behind a mule (donkey?) carrying luggage for hikers. I didn't dare pass him on the narrow trail but eventually the group leader kindly pulled him off to one side so I could pass.

I took a longer 11-minute stop in Arnuva to visit the porta-potties, eat, drink and load up on food and water before a remote 14 km section with no aid and a lot of climbing.



When I left Arnuva in UTMB 2014 on a cooler day after 95 km of racing, I felt surprisingly strong on the next section, which included the steep climb to Grand Col Ferret on the Italian-Swiss border at 2537 m.



Well, that sure didn't happen today! As I started the uphill march, I began to feel strange - a bit lightheaded with no energy reserves. I slowed down to lower my heart rate, worried that my body might have reached its limit for the amount of training I'd done. I was only 27 km into a 101 km event and if I felt this bad already, there seemed to be little hope of finishing. I was discouraged and a bit concerned.



My one consolation was that some runners clearly felt even worse so I might not be dying after all. A few people moved off the trail to vomit while others stopped to rest. I kept moving uphill slowly and stopped for a few seconds whenever I felt unsteady. A few people passed me but it wasn't a stampede.

I've heard other runners say that the climb to Grand Col Ferret was the most difficult part of the race for them so I guess it's not unusual. In hindsight, I wonder if the hours of effort above 2,000 meters altitude finally got to me. It had been a sunny day and I'd been working hard with less oxygen to fuel my legs and brain. Even though I'd been drinking, maybe I was mildly dehydrated too.

I'd promised myself a short break at the top to regroup but the skies darkened and there were a few rolls of thunder. I've been caught in thunderstorms in two other ultras and did not want to be on a high mountain pass in lightning. The volunteer scanned my bib and I took two quick photos before heading down at an easy pace.



Hat is backwards because it was really windy on the climb.



On the Swiss side of Grand Col Ferret, we descended 1,000 m to La Fouly on 10 km of good, runnable single and double track. Some runners flew past me on the way down.



After the first couple of kilometres, my mind and body felt normal again as my blood oxygen levels improved. (At least, that's my best guess on why I felt better.)



This was the start of a 20 km (mostly) downhill section where we could gain some time after the slow climb. However, too much pounding along this stretch can end the race for runners who damage their quads, knees or hips with more than half the race course still lying ahead of them. About 15% of the CCC field withdrew from the race during or shortly after this section.

I reached La Fouly aid station, the halfway point of the 20 km descent, an hour before sunset and an hour ahead of the cut-off. It had been 3.5 hours since the last aid station but I didn't want to waste daylight so I only stopped for 4 minutes to refill water and get a snack before the 14 km stretch to Champex-Lac. We dropped another 500 m over the next 10 km with a few short climbs to keep us on our toes. We ran paved roads and rooty trails, and followed narrow streets through the village of Praz-de-Fort. As darkness fell, I got out my headlamp.





In the last few kilometres to Champex-Lac, the trail climbs 500 m and travels beside some steep drop-offs. In UTMB 2014, this was where the wheels came off for me during the second night of the race. I kept falling asleep on my feet and stopped at Champex-Lac. This year was a happy contrast. I moved up 161 places between La Fouly and Champex-Lac, partly because I was passing people and partly because because racers ahead of me dropped out.



At the 54 km mark, Champex-Lac is the major "halfway" aid station for CCC - the only one that serves a hot meal. In a race that can take more than 24 hours, many runners plan to take some time to recharge here. It's also the first of three places where runners can meet their support crews. I walked into the large tent and was discouraged to see most of the seats taken, some of them by support crew members.

I prefer not to use a support crew but it would have saved time here. With a crew, I could have rested while they brought me everything I needed. Instead, I waited in line to refill my hydration pack then dug out a camping bowl and spoon from the bottom of my pack. (Which my crew could have brought. Organizers don't provide dishes or cutlery so those of us without crews have to carry them for the entire race if we want the hot meal. Yes, I have an opinion on this!) After finding a chair and scarfing down yummy pasta, I rinsed my dishes and drank my first coffee of the night. I spent 20 minutes there and left at 10:24 p.m. - a longer stop than I'd hoped but probably shorter than most racers in my part of the pack.

Note: For anyone who thinks there have been too many photos so far, I have great news. I took almost no photos in the second half of the race! It was dark for 10 hours so there wasn't a lot to see anyway.

Lac de Champex glimmered with reflections from streetlamps and cozy chalet windows. Sarah Elliott from the U.K. caught up and introduced herself. She's a stronger runner than I am but became sick on the climb to Grand Col Ferret. We stuck together for the next 5 hours and had a great time chatting and passing tired boys. :)

We climbed almost 1300 m to La Giète and had some nervous moments because the only people we saw at Plan de l'Au didn't look like official volunteers so we wondered if we'd gone off course. We hadn't. Plan de l'Au was a cut-off location but not an aid station or timing point so maybe the officials weren't set up when we passed by.

When Sarah and I reached the high alpine meadow, we had lots of bovine spectators ringing cowbells for us. The farm yard smell of urine and poop started to get to me. As the granddaughter of a dairy farmer, I normally wouldn't be bothered by that but ultrarunning does weird things to your body. The pasta began to feel heavy in my stomach. I wondered whether I might break my perfect record of never throwing up in a race. The aid station at the top was inside a small cattle barn where we had to duck to get through the door. The smells definitely didn't improve in there but volunteers were serving hot, salty soup, which tasted amazing and somehow solved the problem. I didn't have much appetite for the rest of the night but that's typical for me. There is plenty of fat available to fuel my body!

Sarah and I descended 5 km on rocky trails to the aid station at Trient. We started the next 700 m climb to Les Tseppes together. I'd connected my Ambit GPS watch to a portable battery and tucked it into my pack to recharge while continuing to record our route. When I stepped off the trail to put it back on, I fell behind Sarah and the steady stream of racers marching uphill on the narrow trail. Without our conversation to keep me mentally engaged at 4 a.m., the rhythm of climbing lulled my brain into sleepiness. It was cold higher on the mountain but I purposely didn't add layers, hoping it would jolt me awake. That didn't work so I stopped on the windy pass after Les Tseppes to eat a caffeinated gel and put on arm warmers and a light jacket.



Heading downhill on the steep, rocky trail, I was just barely holding it together in my foggy state so I stopped again to take a 100 mg caffeine pill (equivalent to a cup of coffee). Between that and the brightening sky, I was wide awake by the time I reached the valley and the last major aid station at Vallorcine. Somewhere on that descent, we passed from Switzerland into France - the third and final country in the race!

Sarah was just leaving and we wished each other luck. I stayed 5 minutes and started walking while eating. I was also tapping away at my phone, trying to get the Live Trail app to estimate my arrival times at upcoming checkpoints to confirm I was on track to meet the cut-offs. Cell coverage was poor so I texted Richard and asked him to do it. (Lucky guy - it was still before sunrise!) Although I was currently more than an hour ahead of the cut-off, the final two cut-offs were tighter than the earlier ones so I didn't feel safe yet. I packed away my headlamp and warm layers and started the tough 900 m climb to La Tête aux Vents - the sting in the tail of the race.

Many of our climbs were steep but this was the only one that involved some rocky scrambling. I pushed as hard as I could; it would be heartbreaking to get cut off at the final aid station with 8 km to go. (This happened to the only other Canadian woman in my age group.) The sun rose, the sky was clear, the views were gorgeous and I had good energy.

Yup, that's the trail.



I passed through the last high checkpoint at La Tête aux Vents and saw the panorama of peaks and glaciers across the Chamonix Valley.



I expected an easy downhill run to the valley floor but the 3 km trail to La Flegère ski station was slow and rocky and finished with a short climb. I hurried while trying to watch my footing and my watch simultaneously. I got to La Flegère an hour before its cut-off and finally knew I would finish the race. Apparently, my sense of urgency was swept away on a wave of emotion because it somehow took me 10 minutes to complete a few simple tasks - apply sunscreen, text Richard, grab a snack and refill a water flask.

The next 5.5 km was a downhill run on forest trails with occasional glimpses of our destination in the valley. I caught up with Gabriela Pocsa of Romania (who appeared in my earlier photo) and chatted with her until the final 2 km stretch through Chamonix.

Running through town felt like a dream. I've cheered on hundreds of runners in Chamonix but now people were cheering for me - spectators lining the barricades and random people walking down the street. Our names were printed on our race bibs so it wasn't unusual to hear, "Bravo, Barb! Go Canada!" anywhere along the race course. So when a man started running along and calling out encouragement to me, I didn't look closely until he identified himself as Peder Jensen, a runner I'd met during UTMB 2013 who is a friend on Facebook. I thought he was away supporting UTMB runners but they had withdrawn and he kindly came out to help cheer me in!

Two blocks from the finish, I looked for young Mari and Ewen. There they were with arms outstretched, waiting for their high fives. :)



Pete cheered, Leanne took photos, strangers applauded, and Richard chased me with a GoPro.



Fittingly, the final 100 meters of the road sloped uphill so we had to work hard to look good for all the cameras. :) After 25 hours 52 minutes - plus 8 years - I crossed the famous finish line in Chamonix.





So many feelings flooded my fatigued, overwhelmed mind - happiness, relief and pride along with sadness that Mom and Dad, who enjoyed following our races online, never got to see me finish here. It was a moment I'll never forget.







I’m grateful for my UTMB experience, which provided so many adventures over the years while it turned me into an ultrarunner and helped me grow as an athlete and a person. All our outdoor racing and wilderness trips gave me the knowledge, skills and endurance to finish CCC in spite of a sketchy training season. Now that I've finally made it around Mont Blanc, I'm excited to move on to whatever comes next. Any ideas? :)

GPS track for CCC at Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc

I spoke too soon about how well I’ve been sleeping. I was awake from 2:30 to 6:30, then managed to get another hour of sleep.

Mostly, it was a great day: Phatty, Leanimal, Weeanimal and Ewen came to see us in Chamonix, and ‘Bent ran the 56 km OCC. (Yes, he threw up.)

Photos to come - but not of the puke. I need some sleep!

One good thing is that I’m sleeping a lot better this week than I usually do before a European race!

‘Bent is racing tomorrow so we did a short trip up to Glacier des Bossons on the side of Mont Blanc. Thanks to climate change, the glacier is now well above the Chalet du Glacier des Bossons at the top of the lift. The views up to the glacier and along the Chamonix Valley are still nice.





Unexpectedly, the “nature walk” from the chalet included a little information about how the glacier has changed and a lot of information about planes that have crashed on Mont Blanc over the years. There were various pieces of different planes on display; they had emerged from the glacier in this area years after the crashes.

We had a nice lunch there including my first vin chaud in a long time - yum.



Then it was time for the long race checkin process. Considering there are about 10,000 runners racing this week, the process went very smoothly - more efficient than the last time we did it. It still took the better part of an hour by the time we went through our passport check and mandatory gear check, got our non-removable bracelet put on, and had our timing chip zip-tied to our pack.

‘Bent races OCC tomorrow!

‘Bent went over to the North Face Store this morning for a 1-hour “shake out” run with Zach Miller, a couple other elite runners, and several dozen others. He ran with his friend Alan Li, whom he met at Ultra Tour Monte Rosa.

I had a headache overnight so I skipped the run. My knee pain is still off and on so we’ll see what happens. I plan to start the race for sure.

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.

I visited my sports chiro, Thumbs-of-Death, this afternoon following up on a strange injury from a trail running face plant at Pretty River nine days ago. I did a Superman dive and landed hard with my right arm extended in front.

It didn't seem like a big deal at the time; I was just glad I didn't fall on a rock or hit my head. I felt a little sore along my right side a few hours later, and it took a minute to remember why. I have a rough-and-tumble life so the occasional fall isn't unusual. It was fine for a few days, then the pain flared up 4-5 days later. It was pretty sore over the weekend. Now it only hurts when I breathe!

ToD says I strained my pec and some intercostals (inter-rib muscles). Awesome! He thinks the muscles spasmed for a few days to protect me but they're fatigued now, and that's why I'm feeling the pain. The funny thing is, I was concentrating really hard on that stretch of trail to avoid twisting my ankle before my race. I succeeded.

Around Palgrave West on a warm, humid day. It's dry and crispy out there; I hope we get the rainstorm in tonight's forecast. On the bright side, ticks prefer wet weather and we haven't seen any of them for a long time.

I tried thicker socks in my new Speedcross 5 shoes, which are wider and better padded with a larger toe box than earlier Speedcross. I think I'll love them eventually but I haven't got them figured out well enough to risk using them in the Alps. I'll stick with my older Speedcross even though the wider toe box of the new model could prevent blisters.

Even though I can't be at Wilderness Traverse this year, I'm still the assistant RD, and there is a ton of work to do to prepare this year's HQ staff to manage the race. We've got some very talented people on the operations side but over the past week, we lost the two social media people who were going to be at HQ. (They're not totally gone but they'll be working remotely.) If anyone would like a front seat for the action this weekend as a race reporter on social media, please get in touch!

'Bent joined me for a birthday run around the Hockley Provincial Park Loop - the extra hilly version. It was a beautiful day in the woods - not too hot or humid. It's clear that I'm getting old because I still feel pain in some muscles that I pulled a while ago. It's two weeks until race day so I don't have time for my muscles to mess around! Other than that, I felt OK running but I certainly didn't set any records.

Then we had a lovely dinner at the Bluebird Cafe in Orangeville with our old friends Jan and Neil. It's my first birthday without my parents, which was tough, so it was nice to have a "family" meal. You know it's a nice group when everyone fights so hard for the cheque that they actually break a full water glass!

Wonderful life celebration for Pops (Goose's Dad) today.

Yahooo!!! After 4.5 months of not being able to drive with a front seat passenger, my Subaru Outback has a new type of air bag that apparently won't spray shrapnel into the passenger compartment if there is a collision.

'Bent and I met Mrs. Gally and Dee at Georgian Peaks for some ski hill repeats. Each of us was on a different schedule today but the ladies went up and down together a couple of times. Early on my 2nd repeat, I started to feel super fatigued and a little lightheaded. I toughed it out for a while since I was aiming for 1,000 m of vertical but eventually I decided that would probably do more harm than good.

Not sure what was wrong. Toward the end of yesterday's long run, I was congratulating myself on how good I felt. My legs haven't felt 100% recovered this week after carrying very heavy loads on our canoe trip so maybe the last two days of running piled on more load than I could handle. Or maybe I was dehydrated or overheated. Or maybe it's the two drinks I had yesterday - not much but more than I usually have. Or the poor sleep before yesterday's early long run. Hmm. It took hours until I felt sort of normal.

(Elapsed time was considerably more!) 'Bent and I went for an easy paddle around Collingwood Harbour to check out the action at the Harbour Festival, aka Sidelaunch Days. The highlight was the kite festival, which we also saw from our kayaks last year.







These things are huge!





Mrs. Gally was hosting Jerrick's fishing birthday party there, and Dee and kids were in attendance. Mrs. Gally sure knows how to throw an impressive party! :)

Early run starting with the Tarnos at Pretty River. I ran the first hour with Jackie, who pushed me by running a lot of uphill to the high point of the Bruce Trail. I would normally wimp out and start hiking briskly a lot sooner than she did.

Jackie headed home so I had an hour on my own before 'Bent and Tarno were done. I went back up to the Bruce Trail high point and came back down to the road.

Then 'Bent joined me for 2.5 hours to stretch it into a long run. There was plenty of climb and technical running so we didn't cover a big distance but it was hard work. I had two hard falls, one of which made the meniscus in my right knee click - ugh. I was able to keep running without pain though. A few hours post-run, my right Achilles - the healthy one, - was pretty sore. Not sure what that's about. Fingers crossed that I'll wake up pain-free tomorrow. Race day is less than 3 weeks away.

'Bent and I had an ambitious plan for a long run in the Kolapore area today but a poisoning scare with BazingaDog took over our morning. 'Bent walked the dogs behind the neighbouring condo development (not a great idea since they don't really like it) and saw BazingaDog scarf down a few pieces of sliced hot dog in a place where there was no explanation for finding hot dogs. It's a rare occurrence but when evil nutbars decide to poison dogs, they have sometimes used hot dogs. Ugh. To make things more suspicious, B-Dog threw up within a minute - but possibly not all of it.

After a few phone conversations with 'Bent's sister (a vet), calls from her to vet clinics around Collingwood, and a call to a U.S. Pet Poison Control Center that almost cost us $75 US, 'Bent noticed a sign about a lost dog posted in a car window. He phoned the number and learned that the owner had put out hot dogs in hopes of attracting her lost dog. Phew! It would have been nice if she had placed a small sign but we felt sad for her so we didn't say anything.

After all this, we only had time for a short run up, down, up, down and around Blue Mountain before a 4 p.m. meeting. It was a beautiful day - cooler than it has been.

Easy, chatty ride with our Collingwood neighbours on the Georgian Trail to Georgian Peaks and back.

5-day Algonquin Park canoe trip with Timato, Mrs. Tiny, Teeny Tiny, Mick, Laura, John, Paul, 'Bent and AdventureDog. Details and photos to come. Great trip - the kids (aged 4, 7 and 7) were rock stars! :)

When I have time, I'll try to separate the portage time from the paddling and deduct our lunch stops. Our pace was relaxed but the portages were legitimate strength training since our group had 6 adults and 3 children. We all carried super heavy loads and often ran back on the trail to take another load.