UTMB 2011 race report

After a 5 hour delay we headed down to Chamonix.  There were thousands of runners there and even more thousands of people.  The announcer was working the crowd up, and finally we were off.  The rain continued throughout most of the night but daylight arose fairly quickly.  Maybe 11.30 pm race starts aren't such a bad thing.

The 2nd climb of the day up Croix de Bonhomme was quite nice.  It had snowed the night before and the trail was crowded and in poor condition.  The video here from about 5:00 to 5:40 gives a very small look at the way trails are around the Mont Blanc area:  braided 5 wide all on the fall line and centerline gullyed to knee deep.  Even still passing was a chore.  On the downhills some people had their poles pointed up and backwards, ie at eye level, and others seemed to hold the out very wide.  The very crowded races in Europe (like this one) create a particular vibe between runners.  It's the same feeling as sitting in a monday morning traffic jam.  The groups of foreigners were talkative, groups of Spaniards, Japanese, Italians, American and English, but the French men, who comprise 70+ % of the race field (2300 runners in the UTMB, 80% overall French runners, 90% male!) were so quiet.  Le Chapieux aid station tent was so crowded it I was surprised it wasn't shut down by the fire department.  Runners were stacked 3 deep trying to get to the Aid station tables.

We finally left Le Chapieux after controle checked us for phones.  Initially it seemed so strange to carry phones during a mountain event but the mountains in Europe as just so different from the States.  Here, they are totally developed, restaurants, hotels, alpage fromageries, sheep, cows, cell phone towers, and villages.  The Col de la Seigne was an incredibly beautiful and foggy pass but the other side was completely sunny.  As the media helicopters were taking full advantage to film the runners up and down the valley everyones cell phones simultaneoulsy rang out with details of a 2nd course change.  It was very nice that the race organization let us know of this quite efficiently.

On the climb up and over the shoulder of Arete du Mont Favre it started to warm up and bit and the brutal descent into Courmayer left us right at the cutoff.  Regardless April wanted to continue and we climbed up onto the ridge of the Val Ferret.  As the sun began to go down on a 2nd night up I got so sleepy.  At the 1st refuge I laid down to sleep for a bit, then got up and my temporarily low energy level meant I could only really walk to the 2nd refuge.  At the 2nd refuge we were told that we had only 25 minutes to do the 3 miles into the control at Arnuva and mentally I checked out.

Upon getting home it became apparent that the race organizers had extended the cutoff at Arnuva and at many other aid stations along the way.  Why we weren't told of this while leaving Refuge Bonati is beyond me.  We were THE target audience for this information.  Another half hour would have meant the difference between a slow walk to a cutoff we'd missed and a brisk jog to make the cutoff and get up on the Col de Ferret.  Perhaps its a moot point.  We still had 40+ miles to go after Arnuva, but I paid my money to run as much of the course as I could and I should have the proper information to do so, or at least as much as others on the course.  We did not.  If race organization can schedule helicopters all over the course and update my facebook status for me in real time why couldn't they notify the previous aid station that the next time cutoff had been extended?