Tour du Mont Blanc – Day 3

by Max on July 18, 2010

Day 3 – Ok, last day, felt good. Started out the day in a beautiful spot, amazing Swiss Breakfast, and sunrise over the mountains. Does it get any better than this? I felt for Erin this morning. Today is a logistical challenge with portering everyone around to different locations. First Topher and I had to get an early start to avoid getting in at 7pm again like the last two days. Scott needed to get photos on the first leg and 3rd leg today. We had a nice 3 mile flat section to start out on so Erin dropped Scott off at the start of the climb then shuttle him from the end of section 1 to section 3 while going back to pick up the others so they could do sections 2 an 3, then go around to the finish to meet us at the top of the last climb just because it’s one of the most beautiful spots on the course. Each section has one big climb of 2500-3000ft. All of them steep. Both Topher and I were fatigued and knew that it would be a tough one. Today we had a deadline of sorts, so no dilly dallying at stops. He had a meeting in Chamonix at 4pm with a retailer. Always “on”, always committed. So that’s the day in a nutshell.

Section of the Bovine trail

Our first climb was the Bovine, a tough technical climb that involves big steps and lots of boulders. The photography on this section should look pretty cool, in your face, gritty. We climbed up and over, nothing remarkable…except every corner, every mile, every step of this trail is paradise. There isn’t a section of this course that isn’t just incredibly spectacular from the high mountain passes with immense panoramas over multiple countries, wooded tracks winding through deep alpine forests, luminescent rivers of glacial silt flowing through valleys, backdrops of larger than life glaciers that are begging you to reach out and touch, quaint villages that belong only in fairy tales of youth or another time altogether, scenes of mountain huts that can only exist in an artist’s mind and created on canvas, brutal climbs and even harsher downhills. I hope the experience from the past few days is starting to come across or at least peaking your interest as a trail running must do.
The second climb of the day up the Catogne was the toughest. A non-technical grunt of a climb it was the steepest sustained climb we’ve had. Hiking all the way and steep. The others had left about 10-15min prior to Topher and I arriving at the bottom in the town of Trient. We were pushing to catch Brian, Lisa and Leslie before the top and we just caught them. They were moving pretty well too. Then it was down the other side to Vallorcine and the final climb up to Tete aux Vents.

Erin and Scott on the trail

Unfortunately, coming down to Vallorcine Topher’s quad tightened up and began to give him problems. He decided to forgo a 3mile flat section to take some time to work it out but to no avail. We began the climb up to Tete aux Vents but he realized that his quad would slow him down. One thing I’ve learned about Topher over the last three days is that he doesn’t take the easy way out. The motto for the trip became “the hard way”. If there was a fork in the trail, we took the hard way. Topher and I share some of the same ideals such as this. I’ve always been enamored by the hard way even if sometimes I feel like I don’t live up to my own expectations. It’s the romantic in me again. You can learn a lot about a person by which path they choose, you can learn a lot about yourself if you test your limits. It causes you to look inside and see if you’re really as strong as your mind thinks you are. It tests your tenacity when it’s tough to press on. The only way to train yourself, to get tougher is to take the hard way and push and test your limits. Spending a few days with Topher putting our bodies through physical duress I learned a lot about him and he learned a lot about me. I appreciate what came out of our relationship on the trail and that his choice in life is “the hard way”.

With the photographers Scott and Seb waiting at the top already, I went ahead with a push to the top. Final climb of the day, of the trip, might as well blow it out if I could. So I pushed hard, ran as much as I could and thought of how I might feel racing the distance I had covered in the last three days. Questions arose. I felt good on this climb after 30 miles a day for the past three days, but I’d had two nights sleep with full meals during that time as well and as you know it’s amazing what a night of sleep can do for recovery. Could I do it? Could I run the UTMB? Covering over 100 miles, 9500m of accent in 20 hours. I don’t know if I could. Obviously it would be prudent to try an easier 100 miler first or the CCC (Courmayeur – Champex- Chamonix) 98km race first. But I don’t know, it’s just something I’ll have to find out. I ran most of the climb and was spent by the top, we shot some video for about 30-45min then Scott and I wandered down the trail to look for a few good shots. Two hours later we finished up. The blazing high alpine sun had wiped me out, I felt just baked, dehydration was setting in, I was glad the day was about over. Just one little 3000ft decent to go and I would be back in Chamonix. Down I went. Glad to be about finished but at the same time wishing it didn’t have to end. Glad I was shaded again by the alpine conifers, but sad that I was decending to civilization and a van that would take us out of this spectacular setting.