Gran Paradiso

The past week has been a pretty good one. The weather in Chamonix has again been pretty dire but I have still been getting out on the trails and also on skis!

On Saturday evening Graham came up with the idea of going to Italy on Sunday evening and doing Gran Paradiso overnight , with a great forecast over there for Sunday and Monday myself , Sandy and James all agreed it was a good option. Normally Gran Paradiso is done in 2 days , Day 1 a 800m hike to the Refuge and Day 2 a 1300m hike up to the summit and then all the way back down. I had done it before a few summers ago over 2 days but did think it could easily be done in a day with a good forecast and since we were skinning up and skiing down I knew time would not be a problem.

Setting Off

It is all uphill from here

3am

We left the car at 12am Monday and began hiking up the trail , we hiked with skis on back all the way to the refuge , there was snow most of the way up but it was very icy in places so we thought we were moving quicker on foot than we would have been on skis. From the hut we began skinning. It was a really mellow pace with Sandy and Graham leading on up front and myself and James plodding on at the back. It was a amazing clear evening sky with the Moon lighting up the snow and head torches weren’t needed for much of the way up. At around 3000m we had to come off skis for a very short distance and make a track on foot as the snow was too rock solid to skin on at an awkward angle. Once off the skis however it was pretty horrible plunging through to about knee depth trying to make tracks. Great effort out front from Sandy and James for making the track. At this point I was suffering pretty bad from the cold. As usual my hands and feet were bad but also my entire body was just cold and I was shivering a lot even when moving(-15 we think). I had by this stage stuck on my extra emergency layer but it was not keeping me as warm as I would have liked. Anyway onwards we went and as we started to get a glimpse of the sun and the summit I knew we were not far away from a little bit of warmth. I must admit the final 200-300m were pretty rotten. None of us were acclimatised at all and the whole groups pace slowed right down. My legs felt fairly strong but I just could not seem to get enough air each time I took a breath , and this was only 3800m. I stopped loads on this last section. Graham got to the top first (just before 7am) followed by James then myself and Sandy not far behind. It was an awesome view from the top with the sun now in the sky and slightly warming us but still a little bit of a cold breeze. It was a few photos from the very exposed summit then time to start skiing down.

James on Summit and Sandy just behind

Cold!

Graham looking happy

The ski down was good fun with a mixture of horrible snow , okay snow and some very nice snow. We made a few stops on the descent to just lay in the sun which was now beginning to properly warm us up. Graham managed to ski pretty much all the way back to the car but I opted to walk the last 15 mins down the trail as I was on Dorians skis and did not really want to hand them back to him with some nice new core shots. We were back at the car around 10.30am and treated ourselves to coffee and ice cream. It was a long trip considering I had been working on Sunday until 7pm , to say I was tired would be an understatement. My legs however were in pretty good shape after climbing 2100m and then skiing the same. A truly brilliant evening/morning adventure.

One of the good bits

Nearly Down

9am - Not a bad Breakfast spot

After a very long sleep on Monday night I managed to get out for a 15km run in the afternoon up to the Merlet park. I felt pretty good on the flats and downs but was feeling it a little on the thighs on the up hills and again today I was out for only 12kms which is more than I expected. AT the beginning of my run today I felt awful , I had really bad shakes after just 2km! I was not even going hard but I have no idea what was wrong , my body just did not want to run. I managed to fight on with it and eventually it turned out okay. A turbo trainer session is now on the cards for later this evening.

Heading up to Merlet

Always an awesome Trail after these signs!

Training at the moment is going alright but I do need to start doing some more distance stuff very soon. My heart rate varies from 130-180bpm when out depending on ups and downs etc.. and I can keep it steady around the 140-150bpm range for a fairly long time on flat sections so that is a good sign. Also my resting rate is down to 45 bpm. My biggest concern at the moment is Altitude. I have been worrying a little at just how slow and hard I was going at 3700m the other day. I know Leadville is max 3800m but I really do not want to be breathing that hard in August. On the plus side , I wont have to do a continuous climb of 2000m during the race and I hope I will not be as freezing cold in Colorado either.

Finally a big thank you to everyone in Colorado who replied to my email about pacers and crew for Leadville. I was quite shocked to find so many replies from so many nice people just wanting to help me out. I now have a huge list of pacers and now I just need to decide who will run with me as I only need 4 but do wish I could just have everyone. It looks like I will just pick the first 4 replies but thank you so much to everyone for your interest.


So at the moment it is still raining and snowing here in France. I really really just want summer to arrive!