Day 8

Max: 15.7 miles, 27km event

Sarah: 14km race, 9.1 miles

Marmottes: hiding from trail runners

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We were up at 5.15 to get ready for our race, have breakfast, meet up with our friend Becks who is also in Chamonix, and drive along the valley to Argentière.

Having checked in and picked up our numbers, we found an excellent boulangerie which amazingly was both open and had a good coffee, and enabled us to sit and catch up before the race start formalities.

After kit checks and briefing, we were off.  Sarah had opted for the ‘Trail des Grands Montets’ version of 14k while Max and Becks had opted for the classic ‘Argentrail’ of 27k which starts the same, returning to the start/ finish/ halfway point in Argentière and then includes a second major climb.

 

It was a great experience.  Sarah made a wise choice of the shorter route as her legs were quite tired from all the Zermatt running and managed to take a couple of photos on the first climb and summit before the descent.

 

Becks had a fantastic run apart from a dramatic fall on the last downhill, and came in as 4th woman, very impressive as there are plenty of people around training for the big UTMB races at the end of August.

Max got caught up in the excitement and went off far too hard unusually, ran a fast first half, and then, as per recent lingo of the TdF commentary (David Millar specifically), ‘detonated’ at the bottom of the descent!  The second climb was a dehydrated stagger, and after 5 mins rest at the checkpoint at the top and about a litre of fluid, the final descent was back to being more enjoyable.  We are looking forward to the results to see the plummeting placing at each checkpoint which could be quite comic!!

There was great ‘ravito’ (ravitaillememt = refreshments) at the end, and we spent a bit of time recuperating and enjoying our efforts and the atmosphere.

Later in the evening we were able to celebrate our first mountain trail race in suitable fashion with our obligatory race kit ‘goblets’ at the Big Mounting Brewing Company!