I should have known ahead of time that a nagging achilles strain would not let me finish this race, but I went out anyways and hoped for the best. After 10 50k's, 3 50m, 1 100km and 1 100m I finally notched my first DNF. It's actually quite a relief. Not quite the same as finally losing a 100m after 10 consecutive wins, but I'd like to think I can commisserate. It was the mountains that did it. The Alps are crazy steep and from Lausanne I just dont have the weekday hills to be able to tackle them effectively. I think it would take a bit of time to build up the required muscles. I've heard from experienced ultrarunners that it takes years to build up the quads necessary to tackle a mountain 100m, so it stands to reason that even steeper slopes would require other muscles as well. Glutes and quads for the ascents in particular. I dropped at Grand St Bernard Pass (yes the famous one where the dogs are from) at 38 mi after 14000 ft of climbing (and slightly less of descent). It was the 2nd most amount of vertical I've ever done, 2nd only to the 20,000 ft effort at Western States 100 miler last year. The thing about it was the grade. My achilles is and was simply not ready to handle the grades that exist in the Alps. Looking through internets on Achilles injuries, I'm guessing that it will heal well in a few weeks, and I'll get back out there, but thruthfully I think these hills take a while to build up to, at least if I want to tackle then strongly.
I have no regret about the drop, I should have done so earlier in the race based on how my right Achilles feels today, but I cant shake the lackluster feel of this year's training. Lausanne is a city on the Swiss plateau. The trails here are not great. Weekends I'm in the Alps, but they are not really convenient without a car. So the combination of terrible midweek trail runs and super steep (and long, who want to take a 1.5 hr train ride each way for a 3 hr run?) weekend runs have left me injured and spiritually bereft. It's not a good look. The one major change I intended to make in my training this year was to shorten my long weekend runs in favor of midweek quality, but it just hasn't made sense given my weekday and weekend running options. Ultimately it's incumbent upon every person to decide their priorities based upon where they want to live. At the moment I really feel the need for a nice weekday summit in my diet. I need purpose beyond just Saturday morning in the mountains, and its got to be accessible on a weekday.
The course itself is beautiful. Very typical Swiss Alps. Lots of cows and bisses (traditional irrigation canals, http://www.les-bisses-du-valais.ch/). The aid stations were very light and seemed mostly staffed by non-runners. Raisains, chocolate, crackers and Rivella (which is sort like a pepsi with milk). For those of you not familar with continental races, bring your own food and expect a maximum of 100 cal-ish from each A/S. Considering the vertical, some of the A/S are very far apart. You'll want to pack enough at the start to get to La Fouly and your drop bag. From La Fouly the ascent of Col de Fenetre to the next A/S at Grand St Bernard takes middle of the packers 4-5 hrs. Consider packing an extra bottle water in your drop bag at La Fouly, or just drink from the streams like myself and many other miscalculating runners. I can't say anything about the 2nd half of the course since I dropped at Grand St Bernard. I will say that the 1st part was quite nice. The climb past the Lac de Fenetre is jaw droppingly beautiful, and the views of glaciers from La Fouly and the upper Val Ferret stopped me in the tracks multiple times. Other highlights include meeting some other ultrarunners from Lausanne, practising a lot of French (sorry if your ears still hurt) and meeting a couple of other American transplants/vacationers (Omar and Daniel). Conversation makes the run so much nicer. The runners here are so quiet, and the races strangely dominated by men. I guess that only about 10% of the starters were female. The other highlight was the course marshals in Sembrancher. There was a mom with two daughters, maybe 10 and 12, directing runners towards the checkpoint. One of the daughters had brought the family cat out to help course marshal. Classic.
My quads feel really fine after the 14,000 ft of vertical, which is not expected since I've been getting 7-8k each Saturday or Sunday for the last few months, but if I had know the cumulative effect of the days effort I would have walked a whole lot more in the beginning of the race. The cutoffs are generous, but lots of people, including myself, just ran themselves into the ground. The completion rate of the Boucle is 60% or so. The hike up Col de Fenetre might be the crux. It's beautiful and brutal. I'm pretty sure that some of this valley is not grazed by cows. The altitude, the heat and the cumulative effort got to me on the way up and over the Col. I felt like a Gummi bear trying to run through a neck deep pool of honey while huffing paint thinner. I wonder what exercise induced asthma feels like. Maybe I have it. Maybe it's all the 2nd hand smoke I'm incessantly exposed to here in Switzerland, or maybe it was just the lack of quality weekday training options and resulting poor fitness level. Either way, I got my ass handed to me on Saturday. This course ate my lunch. If I can heal this Achilles injury I will have to rethink my UTMB training. The mountains won today. I have no problem with that.
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