Not Looking Good

Well the weather is turning out to be extremely bad. I have had two text message warnings over the past 12 hours advising to wear extra clothing and that the weather is going to be bitterly cold and snowing. It is pouring in Chamonix right now.

I reckon the start will go ahead but I can see it being cancelled a few hours into the race. I dont reckon they would cancel before the start as that would mean refunds and a logistical nightmare of transfering people over to next years race but if they start it and have to cancel then no refunds and all thats needed is to cart everyone back to Cham in buses. I am almost certain that this will happen. Saturday and Sunday weather is looking not as bad but doubt they will hold off a day. The only other option is to slightly alter the route to skip the two high points early on where the weather will be horrendous , this is a good option but who knows.

If however it all goes ahead then it is going to be a tough one and pretty horrible , and also I am not feeling very well! Coming down with a cold I think which is not good , hopefully get rid of it today.

Anyway at the moment it is all still on.

It All Comes Down To This

Well the big day is almost here. I ended up doing a little 40 minute run on Sat morning before work and then an hour and a half on Sunday lunchtime along from the Mid Station to Montenvers and back down to Chamonix. Today I went and ran the final 5km of the race from Flegere down to Chamonix just to stretch the legs.

I have pretty much just been sorting out my kit bag that my support team will be carrying for me with all my spare clothes and food. I have also been working out the food I need to carry for the first 54km until I re stock at Champex. Coconut Power Bars , Energy Gels , Mars Bars , Tuna Sandwiches , Dried Mango and of course Fizzy Cola Bottles look like my fuel. Along with some Banana Chocolate Cake I found in a tub that has a whopping 72% Carbs in it , perfect for the morning of the race and also to nibble on at halfway. Its called Gatosport and is well worth trying ,comes in a ton of flavours as well. My hydration bladder will be just plain and simple water but I will also carry a 500ml bottle with Electrolyte drink in it and carry some extra sachets to mix en route.

 

It aint cheap to be a runner

My team is assembled and Laurent being the only one off work(in fact he has been off work all summer) is going to meet me at Champex with my change of clothes and trainers , then at Trient will be Laurent and Dorian and possibly Ally if he is not doing a transfer and then to Vallorcine where Laurent again is kindly going to support along with Dorian. I am super happy and appreciate every bit of help I can get , its a long long time for people to hang around and wait for me but it will make a massive difference mentally for me to see people from 54km hopefully to the end. I have informed everyone that helps though that they will be rewarded with copious amounts of alcohol when I recover and go for a beer.

I really have no idea when I may finish , it could be 4am it could be 11am on Saturday , I just don’t know how it is going to turn out. Finishing early would be great but I would kind of like to finish a bit later on when there are people in the street to greet me back to Chamonix at around 7am onwards. Coming in at 4am would be a great time but everyone will be in bed , that is only a minor thing though. Getting over that finish line is what matters to me.

Right you can follow me on the UTMB website http://utmb.livetrail.net/coureurentete.php and stick in my number 7083 and this will update as I pass checkpoints. I have also set up a Twitter account , to be honest I have no idea how it works but I know I can text messages to it during the race which will be fun as I can take my mind off the pain. Go on Twitter and follow me. Funnily enough my name on it is Colin Thornton (colinthornton1). Some people have had problems finding me on it for some reason but I am there , I guess just search for 'colin thornton' and I will be there somewhere.

So that’s me just collected my Number and had my bag checked (there was some extremely small packs that I have no idea how they have all the kit and on the other side there were some huge bags I would take climbing) , pretty excited now although the latest forecast for Friday Day and Night is not looking good. Rain and Snow above 2000m , up to 6cm and 60km/h winds in places , temperature up high between -5 / -10. Not good at all , I wouldn’t be surprised if it got cancelled or delayed were it to get any worse! Saturday is looking a good day but I should be finished early that morning. I overheard one organiser speaking to a concerned runner about the conditions ahead and she said “if you have walked in Scotland then you will be fine” I am hoping she is right as the forecast is terrible , rain doesn’t bother me but the strong winds and bitter cold could be a nightmare. Booked on the 8am bus to Italy on Friday morning , we set off at 10am.

 

Long queue but surprisingly fast.

Brilliantly organised bag check and number collect.

All Set

So here goes , 100km , 6000m positive height gain in under 26 hours.

Training Over

Well that’s training over now and it is going to be a few easy shorts runs now over the next week just to keep my legs ticking over.

Sunday evening after work I hiked up to the top of Planpraz at 2000m then it was head torch on and a run to flegere and down to Le Praz and back to Chamonix. Was a good workout and was running for two and a half hours and felt great. The only bad point was my head torch almost running out of battery on the descent and I had to run down 800m with it on the lowest level and with my eyesight it wasn’t much fun.

 

Top of Planpraz

Monday evening I went through to Courmayeur in Italy after work with Dorian and Ally to do the first 14km of the CCC. Again it was head torch time and after much laughter as we managed to miss the start of the trail and ended up bushwhacking to find it just as a thunderstorm hit the area. The storm didn’t last long and we found the trail. The first 10km of the race ain’t going to be pretty , its a constant climb all the way up from Courmayeur to Tete De La Tronche at 2584m! The race starts by climbing 1401m , like hiking up Ben Nevis then going for another 90km. I am glad I went and done it before so I know what is ahead at the start. From that peak its a brilliant ridge run for 4.4km to the Bertone hut from there we headed back down to the car. We were out for just about 3 hours and covered 21km.

Bushwhacking with Ally

After Ally beasted the uphill I thought I had better redeem myself by a lesson on running downhill.
I had to stop to let them catch up at some points though ,  just to be nice.

It was great to get out those two evening to try running with the head torch as I will be running for around 10 hours with one. It feels like your running in your own little bubble and really easy to switch off but then again running for 10 hours in that bubble will mess with my head big time as I am staying constantly focused on where that beam of light is.

I was off on Tuesday so drove to Champex and ran another section of the race. Champex is at the 54km stage of the race and in my opinion Champex is the key to success or failure. I ran from Champex up to Bovine (10km , 800m ascent) then I just reversed the route back to the car. So overall another 20km with 800m up and 800m down in a cruising two and a half hours. It was roasting(35 degrees!) but I felt not too bad again. I reckon if I can get to Champex and not feel that bad then I have a good chance of finishing. I am under no illusion though that I will get to Champex and feel good! Yes Champex is only really halfway as after there I still have a marathon(plus 4km) to do and 3000m more ascent but I now have done the whole race in stages from Champex to Chamonix so I know the trail. This could however be a bad thing as I know that its a difficult 3 climbs from there and 46km more but checkpoints are closer from then on and from Champex I will have friends at checkpoints to help boost me a little bit as I go. Until Champex though , I am on my own for 54km.

From here it's just a Marathon and 3 Munros to Chamonix
Thank goodness this section will be dark. It was endless.
Reminded me of the Scottish Ultra near the end when I nearly packed it in.

Near top of Bovine looking back to Champex Valley.

35 degrees!

Cooling off back at car

I have started to get a bit excited about it all now after going through a period of worrying but at the end of the day its only a run and if I don’t finish then I don’t finish but I will be back next year to try it again if that’s the case. However if I manage to get round it then I have no further running plans as of yet. I want to relax and start running again for fun. The running this summer hasn’t felt like a chore but I have sacrificed a lot of climbing and biking just to make sure I am in shape for this and it will be nice to not have to train as much for a few months.

The finish archway is now up in Chamonix Centre and this evening I avoided walking under it(bad luck) until I hopefully cross that line on Sept 1st. The flags and banners are up around town and runners will be arriving any day now to prepare.

I will stick up a wee blog a few a days before the race after I collect my number and let you all know how you can follow me on the course via the UTMB website.

2 Weeks To Go

Another 3 eventful days off have just passed. Between days off I have still be out running on lunch breaks and some evenings. On Tuesday my original plan was to go do a CCC recce in Italy but I changed my plans that morning and decided to drive up to Buet and do a quick ascent / Descent of Mt Buet. Mt Buet is the highest peak in the Aiguille Rouges range at 3100m , its an awesome ski tour in winter but I had never been up in summer so thought I might as well go for it.

6 hours! Yeah right!

Going up Berard Valley

Leaving the car park I noticed the sign saying 6hrs to the summit. These signs are a little generous with times but that seemed long. It start with a great trail up the Berard valley then up to a little refuge. After the refuge the trail is rubbish for about 200m and then in becomes great again all the way to the summit. I made a swift 2hr 24mins ascent of the 1750m climb and was back at the car with a total time of 3hrs 50mins up and down. I was pretty tired at the bottom but was overall happy with how it went.

Great trail to the Summit on the right

On the top

Last time I went down here was on Skis!

Wednesday was a climbing day and myself and Dorian drove to Switzerland and parked up at the Emosson damn and done the Traverse of the Grand Perrons. Its an absolutely awesome ridge traverse that involves a 1hr 45min walk in which means it quiet as there is no lift access up or down. The climbing is never hard with only a few moves near the end that go at about UK Vdiff , other than that its just Moderate to Diff scrambling on some sections. The one thing it does have however is exposure , and lots of it. Way more exposure than any ridge I have done in Scotland and that includes the Cuillin in Skye. One section to get to an abseil line is proper knife edge straddling the rock type of stuff. We took 7 hours from car to car and we were never rushing. Super chilled day and route to ourselves. The only minor hiccup being when Dorian decided to not read a section of the route topo and as he read out to me “traverse the ridge easily until you meet a grassy ledge” I was perched in top of a rock with sheer drops on either side of me and no grass to be seen , only some abseil bolts. We obviously done the abseils and about 15 mins later realised the mistake as the grassy ledge soon appeared before us. Brilliant route , I will defo be going back to do this in the off season.

A tad narrow

Dorian setting up abseil number 2 of 5

Looking back at the first peak of the 3 on the Traverse.

Lunch Spot

On the 3rd and final peak , looking back where we started.

On Thursday I went with Dorian and a few others on a photo shoot for next summers catalogue. We were going to go climbing on our own but being told we would be paid 100 euro each to go pose for pics then we opted for that. We headed down the valley to do some Via Ferrata. I had never done one before and was well looking forward to it. For those that don’t know , its basically steps and ladders that have been bolted to a cliff face with a metal wire running along side and you pretty much climb using ladders , steps and rock and to stay safe you have special lanyard things to clip to the wire with as you go. Its not quite as safe and easy as you may think. I mean the climbing is not hard but you really do not want to slip or fall when on ladders , it would be a horrible way to snap your leg through a rung. It was a brilliant day with some super steep sections which were just excellent. I will be going back again with some friends I reckon.

Dont slip



Pretty steep

Traverse near the end

Running is going well and I am easing off it now with only 2 weeks until the big day. I will be going to Italy tomorrow after work to do the first 25km of the CCC and after that I will be just doing easy little short runs until about 5 days before the race when I will stop all together. I am still in the process of sorting out estimate times so I can tell friends so they can help me out over the course of the 100km as there are only certain stages I can get help. As I will be on the go for 20hrs or more I cant ask just one person to do it all so I will need to hope they can just do what they can and make sure I have someone with my supplies at 54km , 70km , 80km and hopefully someone to carry me home at 100km. I am pretty sure my support team will consist of Ally , Dorian and Jo so even if at any stage I feel like packing it in then I am sure one of their comments or stupid banter will make me push on , well that’s what I hope.

Knackered

My past few days have been jam packed with stuff but zero running.
On Tuesday myself and Laurent went up to the Aiguille Rouge to do a rock route on the Grande Floria , upon arriving at the bottom of the climb and as I was unpacking the kit and sorting the ropes Laurent let a very strong French verbal assault and then it clicked. He had forgotten his rock climbing shoes , now Laurent is an idiot and he knows it but to all he needed to remember was his Rock Shoes , Harness and Helmet and I had the rest. We were left with one option and as Laurent had never climbed the Index we headed over there. It was a fun morning and Laurent done a good job in his Adidas running shoes , it was super busy on top of the Index but we managed to get to the abseil point before anyone so made a swift descent.

Laurent on the Index

Me near the top

Sleeping with his Axe , Just in case.



At end of Cosmiques

We were down by early afternoon and so began my non stop days off. We got the lift up to the mid station at the midi to Bivi for the night and then we woke at 5am on Wednesday to get the first lift up to the top and managed to get in a quick early morning lap of the Cosmiques Arete with not another sole on it , very surprising given its the most popular route up there for holiday Alpinists. We were back down in Cham at 10.30am and then it was time to go and pack again as we were heading over to the town of Contamines that afternoon to walk up to the Conscrits Refuge and stay there that evening then traverse the Domes Du Miage the next day.

We were meant to be going in a group of 4 to do the Traverse but Laurent was complaining of a sore foot after Cosmiques and Jess pulled out as well but myself and Dorian decided to go anyway. We left Chamonix at 1pm on Wednesday and started the long walk up to the Conscrits hut at 2pm. Its a 1600m climb up to the hut from the car and starts in a forest , then onto Alpine Meadows , then a glacier , then some steep ladders then another trail to the hut. Its a fair old plod with great scenery and we managed it in a pretty decent time of 2hr 45mins , I think guidebook time is 5-6hrs. I must say I was pretty damn tired by the time we were at the hut as I was up at 5am that morning and had already lapped the Cosmiques so after some pasta I just went to bed and got the worst nights sleep yet. The refuge is great and beds were great but the noise was ridiculous in it with some Spanish dudes making noise for what seemed like hours. I reckon I got about 2 hours proper kip before getting up at 4am on Thursday morn.

Dorian on the way to the Conscrits

Conscrits Hut

Cracking Evening

Our plan was to do the Traverse of the Domes Du Miage. Its a classic Alpine ridge walk along a very narrow snowy crest with awesome views of Mont Blanc and the lower Alpine Peaks. Its graded at PD meaning its not very hard at all and has no real technical sections but it is exposed and narrow so one must be super comfortable with crampons. The normal route leaves the hut and you walk up the glacier for a couple hours before heading up to the Col Du Dome then join the ridge and traverse it back along the top and at the end make a descent straight back down to the hut. We had read in books and I had heard from friends that sometimes the start of the descent can be very icy and tricky to negotiate so we asked a guide at the refuge what conditions were like and he basically told us to do it in the opposite direction as we would be safer ascending the icy section early morning as it was currently rock solid black ice and full of loose rocks and was becoming very dangerous late in the day as the sun melts the ice and more rocks fall so doing the normal route was out the question as that means you would descend that slope late in the day.


The horrible Ascent , if you click on picture I have drawn a fine red line of our ascent route hugging the rocks on the right

Finally above that damn slope. On the top about to start traverse.

Starting the Traverse

End of Ridge


So we got up at 4am and made a quick brew and set off from the hut to the summit of the Aiguille de la Berangere , its pretty much a direct 725m ascent up rocks and a very small glacier. We made great time going up and as we reached the top the sun was just coming up and the sky was a wonderful sunrise red. We then got a glimpse of the famous icy slope that runs from the Col de la Berengere to the highest point of the day at 3670m. True enough the slope looked horrendous and as soon as I seen it I knew we had made the correct decision to do the route in reverse as coming down that slope would have been utterly horrible. So we got to the Col and stuck on crampons and got the rope out and up we went.

The Two main peaks of the Traverse behind.

It was not to bad at first with a few open crevasses to get over but the snow bridges were pretty bomber , then we hit the ice , we chose to stick by the rocks on the right as best we could as the centre of the slope was a no go area. It was not difficult climbing by any means but my god it was a touch scary as the black ice was covered with loose rubble and every single rock you held onto came straight off of the ridge and flew down the slope. There was not one spot we could belay from so we had to move together on this horrible slope and couldn’t even put an Ice Screw in as crampons barely work on black ice , I remember hearing Dorian shout up “Colin DO NOT fall as I have no belay at all here” not the best thing to hear when your crampons are barely in any ice and you have nothing for your hands. For about 15 mins it was pretty horrible stuff just hoping too many rocks didn’t come out of place and take us out but once past that 60m section we hit good snow and ploughed on up to the high point passing a surprising number of big crevasses that everyone we went over made a large thudding sound. Anyway once we got to the Pointe 3670m it was glorious , we had an amazing view of Blanc ahead and the sun was up and we walked along the splendid crest that in some places was pretty narrow but had great foot placements. Easily one of the finest ridges I have ever walked over here. We were over the main ridge in no time and it was just 8am so we sat down and took some photos and just enjoyed being up there in perfect weather. The descent was trouble free down from the Col Du Dome and back to the Refuge. There were people walking up to the Col as we were walking down and they left the hut the same time as us. We had completed the route and they were not even on it. I did think good luck to them as little did they know their descent was going to be interesting. We did stop and advise a few teams to not do the descent and just reverse the ridge. We were back at the refuge in no time so got the shorts and t shirts back on and fuelled up for the long descent. Again the descent from the refuge was trouble free and we were back at the car by 1pm. A pretty decent time of 8hrs from Hut , Traverse Route back to the Hut and descend to Car and that was with two 30 min stops , one at end of route and one at the Hut. It was a long day with 1100m of ascent and a whopping 2600m of descent but awesome training for my legs for the CCC.

Back down the ladders

Almost halfway down

I totally recommend this route to everyone as the situation on the ridge is amazing. It also proves though that even with a very low technical grade if a section is not in good condition then it can become quite tricky and it is a good idea to get as much up to date info as possible on the route. With a PD grade this kind of route appeals to beginners but there is no way a beginner group without a guide would have made it down that slope at the end and lived , no way at all. Even the guide that advised us to do it the opposite way said he will not be going back on it with any clients in that condition.

Arriving back home early afternoon I was knackered at not having had much sleep in the past couple days and be doing stuff non stop so it was nap time. Running will begin again tomorrow. The CCC is really not that far away.

Non-Stop

The past week has been again jam packed and this time I got on some rock.

On Tuesday myself and Gary had a proper relaxed morning drinking coffee and eating croissants before getting the lift up to the Midi mid station at 12pm. We had all our Bivi gear with us and stashed it not far from the lift station then at 2pm set off to the start of our climb. Yes 2pm is a very late start but our route was only 5 pitches and an easy 4 abseils back down to the bottom and a short walk back to the Bivi stuff.

Gary about to head up to me on a very long First Pitch

Gary on pitch 2 , Awesome crack climbing

No Idea what he was pointing at

We went a done a climb on the North Side of the Aiguille Du Peigne called Lepidopteres being on the North Side means it doesn’t get the sun until late in the day so our late start was great as we had the entire climb with the sun hitting us. This was the first time I have really been out proper climbing this season and although it was super easy at French 5a Max (about UK Hard Severe for 2 pitches then easy Vdiff) it was just brilliant to be back rock climbing and strange placing gear again as the Belays were bolted but the route needed a few cams and nuts along the way , there were also a few rusty pegs we clipped but they did shake a little. It was as always super chilled out climbing with Gary and we just had a great time cruising up the route knowing we were in no rush back to get back down for the lift. We got back down to the Bivi gear at around 7.30pm and as Gary cracked open a bottle of Red (I only had one glass , still in training remember) I yet again had a healthy meal of Chinese noodles.

Heading Down

We had no plans for the next day so we woke up quite early and chilled out at the bivi for ages until deciding to head up and summit the Peigne by the normal route. Again we were in no rush as we could have Bivied again if need be that night. The normal route takes you up a long Couloir scrambling and walking until you reach the same place our route topped out on the day before but this time on the south side , from there its again scrambling and walking to near the summit where rock shoes go back on and there are some pitches to the summit. I think its a French Alpine grade of AD so again not really that hard but spicy enough given the exposure. However , once we arrived at the little Breche where we topped out the day before for some reason we were both a little unsure of heading further up , I have no idea why but Gary said to me he wasn’t feeling that up for it and I must admit I didn’t either by that point. No idea why though. It was about 2pm at this point and we knew to continue it was another 3hrs to summit then about 3 to get back down , coming down would have been fine once we got back to the Breche as we had already descended that way the day before. We both decided though to turn around and head back down the south side couloir. We got back to the lift around 4pm and back down to a scorching hot Chamonix. Our decision to turn around ended up being a good idea as that evening about 9pm Cham got hit with an almighty thunderstorm right about the time we would have been descending and the thought of having to spend the night up there hiding under the station does not appeal to me. So good call to turn around but we will be back again to complete the route.

Back at the Bivi , Gary with his Vin Rouge

It was time to get out running again and on Thursday I ran the Chamonix Cross(23km) in the opposite direction from Planpraz – Le Tour – Chamonix its not a huge amount of ascent probably only 500m but a descent of 1500m and that gets the legs nice and strong. Again it was roasting but I felt good and was running for 2hrs 45mins. The only problem being the last 5km as I had ran most of the way without a top on and my backpack had by that point decided to rub so much it had peeled some of my skin off my back , the shower afterwards was not pleasant.

Running topless = Excellent , with a backpack = Horrible

Friday evening after work I managed a little hours run and felt terrible but plodded through it. I don’t know what it was and it sometimes happens to me but sometimes I go out and my legs just don’t want to work , I just hope that doesn’t happen on the 31^st in Courmayeur.

Saturday was a rest day and on Sunday I finished at 4.30pm and managed to grab the lift to Planpraz and then I hiked up to top of Brevent and then ran all the way back down to my house which is an awesome 1500m descent. Going up to the top of Brevent I was in glorious evening sunshine and on reaching the top I was greeted with a big black cloud heading Chamonix way so I began an ultra fast descent but about 500m down I heard the rumble and I that was it , downpour and thunderstorm for the last 1000m to my house.

Lovely going up

Trying to outrun the storm on the descent

Wasnt fast enough

So all in all I am pretty happy with the way training is going at the moment. Its only 4 weeks until the race but it has been good to mix it up a little and get out on the mountain climbing. I’m obviously a little worried as the more I think about the CCC the more it frightens me , for some it is not a massive challenge but for me just to get around this course would be a massive achievement and I am looking forward to chilling out in September whatever the outcome of the race is.