Race Report of the UTMB for Lyceum Fit Personal Trainer
I had forgotten how hard it was and having done the Tor Des Geants (350km, 31,000m altitude gain) last year I thought the UTMB would have been a ‘walk in the park’ (mountain). However…ultras never are, which I should probably have learnt by now!
This year I wanted to beat my previous time of 40hours. The goal was to do it between 35-40hrs, which I did, completing the race in 37hours. I am happy with the result, but if I’m honest I would like to have come in closer to 35hours. My training didn't go smoothly and I didn’t do as much as I had planned because of a number of unforeseen issues. All that said, the training the week before went very smoothly (I will write another post regarding my thoughts on training and preparation soon).
🏃🏼♂️THE RACE: I started fast on the Friday and was on course for hitting around 30hours, however, I soon slowed down and really started to feel it coming into the day on Saturday. Although the temperature wasn't super hot, the sun was very intense and made some of the long climbs even longer 😅.
During the second night
, I actually fell asleep twice, on the move, during two of the climbs. Luckily each time my sleepwalking was woken by another runner…not so luckily for them, they then had to try and stay awake listening to my chat! 🤦♂️😴
After sleepwalking through half the night I decided to have a coffee at the next checkpoint and managed to finish very strong. As you can see from the third and fourth pictures, getting a better time than the previous year meant coming in early in the morning and there were, therefore, fewer people to greeting and cheering at the finish line (not everyone likes the 4am starts apparently…!) Still an utterly incredible experience and feeling none the less.
It's funny, whenever you are running an ultra you always think ‘never again’ but as soon as it's finished you are planning your next one! I think next year I will do a few shorter races and then in a few year's time, I will come back and conquer some of the big ones again! That may change though… 🏔
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