After my experience at the surprisingly difficult Dents du Midi race last weekend I became a bit too anxious about this weekend's race, Grand Trail du Sancy 60 km at Le Mont-Dore, France. Last year at least 20 percent of the field didn’t finish, presumably having missed cutoffs, and the results looked almost as frighteningly slow as those from the Swiss race. In an attempt to calm myself I got a piece of paper and superimposed the elevation profile of the Sancy race on top of the Dents du Midi using the same scale: the French race had five climbs as opposed to three but they all involved considerably less elevation gain and the finishing descent was half the vertical drop of the Swiss race. This cheered me up somewhat but I still calculated I would have to maintain at least the pace I had run in Switzerland in order to manage the 50 km cutoff; maybe not too hard as the course should be easier, but my legs would be more tired this weekend. I had done two short runs and two short hikes in the week.
On top of this I had foolishly entered the 12 km race on the Saturday as well (there was a full weekend of races), thinking that I usually get a bit bored the day before a race, but that just made me more anxious as the 12 km race started at 2pm so I wouldn’t have a full day of recovery before my main start on Sunday morning.
The 12 km race went fine and I took it as easy as I could within the constraints of it being a race so I wanted to do ok. It was warm being the middle of the day. It was handy to see what the local terrain was like. I won my age group and they made a big thing of the podium so that was fun. Unfortunately for my pre race nerves, though, the person presenting the prizes said that we had been lucky to have good weather for this race (I had not seen a single cloud all week) but we were guaranteed not to have good weather on Sunday. A blow. And then as we stood on the start line on Sunday the race director said that they were expecting storms in the afternoon and would be bringing the cutoffs forward, but he didn’t say by how much. Not good at all.
We started at 5.30am in the dark, running through town and into pitch black forest. The temperature was great: cool, although quite humid. I ended up having a runny nose all day which I seemed to be perpetually wiping. I realised immediately that my head light was useless, giving almost no light, and I relied on runners around me for light. We had a stony but fortunately wide trail, and I was mostly ok when going on the flat or uphill except when a person was right behind me and consequently put me running in my own shadow so I could see nothing ahead. I had a real problem running downhill as I was slower than surrounding runners so I couldn’t latch onto someone else's lighting. Eventually I found a group I could keep up with. First climb done and not too bad. And by the end of that one it was pretty much daylight. We ran through a hamlet I recognised from my hike a few days before.
At the first aid station I had coke and slices of Madeira cake. They had cheese and salami too but I had eaten enough cheese yesterday after the race. I had stood at the food table after the race eating bread and cheese until I couldn’t any more, and then I won a slab of cheese as my age group prize. So I was quite over cheesed.
We came through the edge of La Bourboule where I had stayed a few days
and then started our first big climb. I was determined to walk hard and passed lots of people. It was too steep to run but I could hike fast. We crossed grassy hills and were on a stony/earth trail, braided and narrow, and it was easy to lose balance in the grooves so I stumbled a lot. Near the top were good views of rounded mountains and towns below. We had a long but not too steep descent, but the earth parts were slippery so I ran on the grass edges where possible. Needless to say lots of runners flew past me. But not so good for some of them: their shoes filled up with dirt and they had to stop to empty them out so I easily passed them at the bottom.
At the beginning of the next climb a spectator was telling us all our race position as we went by; I was 546th place. I wasn’t to know this at the time but fewer than 546 runners finished. This was a longer climb and again I was able to pass many runners. I saw some odd rock formations, distant higher craggy mountains, cows and horses. There were several false summits. It was still quite cool with patches of blue sky although I was disheartened to see dark clouds in the distance. The sand on the path was sometimes blowing around in my face. It had been windy yesterday in the 12 km race too; at the aid station I had picked up several slices of cheese and they were all coated with sand so didn’t taste great.
I was feeling quite good and after the 30 km cutoff point I became a lot less worried. At the third and final aid station, after 40 km, we were suddenly joined by masses of runners: this was the 19 km race. As a result there were a couple of big bottlenecks at two stiles. At the first one I slipped around the side, but the second one required a long wait. We were then in a long conga line; the path was generally braided so I was often able to pass, and many runners were saying Bravo soixante. This mass of people was a bit frustrating but I took comfort from the idea that they couldn’t cut this many runners from the race.
Then after climbing for half an hour the 60 km runners were being sent in a different direction. On the one hand this was a huge relief but on the other hand I felt like a straggler as I barely saw anyone as I ran forever downward through the forest. I saw a group of runners clustered around a van in a clearing at the bottom and became alarmed that the van was part of the cutoff system, but then I realised this was a water stop. This was also the final control point according to the website and I sought reassurance that I would now be allowed to finish; I was informed that the cutoff had already been imposed behind me at the point where we split from the 19 km runners.
We began the climb to Puy de Sancy, a solid climb in forest with many big rocks, then out onto more grassy slopes to the highest point of the course. This area was desolate. It was cold and windy and then the forecast rain started. I put on my rain jacket. The surrounding peaks were all in cloud and soon we were in cloud too. The rain turned to sleet and I was very cold, only feeling ok when sheltered by nearby slopes. This final part was tough as not only was I really cold but nor could I see where the path was leading or where the top might be. Luckily I could always see other people hiking ahead and I was still passing some. I had many This will soon pass moments, and was very pleased when I reached the top of several converging chairlifts and decided this must be the summit (or at least as close to the summit as we were going). There were no marshals there which I felt was odd, but 100 metres later I came to a small water aid station where they were checking bibs; they assured me the rest of the way was downhill. Of course it wasn’t, this was a bare faced lie, but there was only a tiny bit more climbing.
The six km downhill that followed was on a wide stony trail, at first clearly a ski trail. The rain had damped it down so the earth was not so slippery, but soon the trail had a river running down the middle on the most runnable part and it became impossible not to get my feet soaked. At least I knew it was not long to the finish. It was great to emerge from the cloud and the brightness of the light startled me but it was still raining moderately hard. At first the scenery was mostly ski lifts and cabins. I passed lots of stragglers, mostly looking as I felt - bedraggled. I came into forest and there the entire path was a river.
It seemed a long six km and not made any easier by the way that French hiking signposts seem to like repeating themselves as you move down the trail so we had three km to go for several kilometres. My feet were freezing cold and I couldn’t feel my legs at all or tell if I still had my shorts on, but suddenly there was a window in the forest and I saw that the town was close. I should have recognised the final kilometres as they were the same as yesterday’s finish but I didn’t until the very end and even then I misremembered the final few metres. The last bit was really steep and slippery on loose stones yesterday but was nicely damped down today. I thought I had to run through town but once out of the forest I turned and was immediately running into the finish chute. There was nobody much around because of the rain which was kind of disappointing because the French are usually so enthusiastic on finish lines. I happily waved my arms above my head, poles in each hand, but there was no photographer, because of the rain.
The post race meal was aligot (sausage and mashed potato), definitely the best post race meal ever. I had my beer and then collected my age group prize with my ten hours and nine minutes: another block of cheese and a selection of teas, just like yesterday, but they didn’t have a podium ceremony because of the rain. I had finished 22nd female and in 322nd place overall which meant I had passed a great many people since the man told me I was 546th. About a quarter of the field didn’t finish. I gave my teas to the woman who had checked me into the race and she gave me a big hug. Once I got back to my hotel room I didn’t do much; it rained all evening so I lay on my bed eating chocolate and cheese.
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