Saturday, 4 June 2022

HIKE&FLY


taking off from the top of the Grand Serre, 2141m
THE GRAND SERRE HIKE&FLY PROJECT

WHY : Running and paragliding make for a perfect combo! Gliding down saves smashing your legs and it provides you some time and a seat from which you can really savour the views.

WHAT : The concept was to see how much vertical gain I could accumulate in a 24-hour period, hiking up and flying down.

WHERE : I chose the race route of the Grand Serre vertical kilometer. It's very steep and it has nice take off and landing opportunities. The only downer is the shape of the valley can often make for some strong winds. This was the case on Sunday morning.

WHEN : The flying regulations sensibly dictate that to fly through the night you need to be within a couple of days of a full moon. It also made sense to go for a relatively long day, and ideally one which shouldn't be to complicated weather-wise. So I aimed to find a slot close to the full super moon of mid-May 2022.

one of the early climbs - this was the flat bit

Mini résumé:


What an experience! As the final days and hours counted down, the idea of running and flying right through the night did become a little daunting, as does embarking on anything physical for a full non-stop 24-hour period. But the excitement of the whole concept totally counterbalanced any tendency for pessimism to creep in! As with a long running race, the beginning was easy - the legs were good, and the fatigue towards the end was also relatively easy to deal with - as the finish line was in sight. It's always the middle bit of these long, silly challenges which are hard, mainly mentally, as the muscular wear and tear starts to creep in, yet you're aware that there's still an awful long way to go. I listened to a bit of music for a couple of lonely climbs in the night, and observed the insect life taking over the forest floor, but mainly just the thrill of knowing where I was going and what I was doing, and the whole uniqueness of it all, made the adventure quite a pleasant one!

I was extremely lucky to have so many factors align for the weekend. I'd got the permit, but it wasn't flexible. The full moon wasn't going to hang around for the following weekend either. The forecast on Sunday was touch and go, so last minute I pulled the start forward by 6 hours, to start midday Saturday. The wind was ever present and it moved in direction, meaning a number of different take-off points were used throughout, but it was always quite a gentle wind, meaning the take-offs were simple (bar one, for which a tail-wind picked up:-). Down at the landing zone there was often quite a bit of wind, but that made for some relatively straightforward near-vertical landings. In the between time I had about ten minutes, to sit, to eat, to enjoy the views,.. I'd usually do a few 360s and sometimes fold the tips of the wings in, to gain a couple of minutes on the downhill, but often it was nice to use this phase to soak in the views and recover.

Packing my glider into the bag after the very first landing I noticed that one of the middle lines had snapped - it turns out I'd caught it on a rock on the very first take-off. I swapped it for a spare I had and fortunately had no further technical incidents!

On Sunday morning, the moon set, the sun rose, and I started working out how many more loops I could get in. Just before 8am I reached the top for the 15th time, and I could feel the wind was strengthening. It was ok though. The flight was fine, I landed and started making my way back up for number 16. I was now confident that 17 loops would be possible. Nearing the top of number 16 though I could feel the breeze really picking up. Matthieu confirmed my fears at the summit, "it's too windy and gusty, it would be dangerous to fly now". A strong southerly had built up, which was interrupted by regular easterly gusts, bubbling off the sun-clad slope of the steep east-facing ridge. I got the glider out nonetheless, waited for a break in the wind. I waited. But it never came. Glider folded, I ran back down, making my 16th descent of the Grand Serre, but my 1st by foot. It was a slightly frustrating way to finish, but all things considered - everything else went perfectly, so no complaints! I guess it just means that the record is beatable, and maybe I'll have to have another go, one day ;-)

Matthieu - who spent the entire night on the top of the hill, advising me on take off directions
and occasionally attempting to hook on for a ride down

checking the gear before take-off

enjoying the ride

As for the stats :
HIKE : 38km | 16976m | 16h14

FLY : 67km | 2h25

TRANSITIONS : 1h54

stats summary

the path

hiking and flying makes you smile

Many thanks:

Scott (kinabaluRC shoes and RC racing T + shorts)

Ozone (XXLite2 16 and F*Lite harness)

Impossible without good quality, confortable and very light kit!


And my friendly crew and helpers :

Matthieu de Quillacq

Martí Pérez

Tayla Strauss

Iris Pessey

Christophe Clerc

Jérémie Marcuccilli

Bruno Aloïs (some of the beautiful pics above)

Yann Audouin (some of the other action pics, and video coming)

Nicolas Rovira



Sunday, 4 October 2020

Trail Saint Didier

Merci aux Mollets Pétillants pour ce trail de Saint Didier ! C'est la 6ème fois que je participe à celui-ci, ça doit me plaire ;-)

Et surtout ces passages dans les jolies combes caillouteuses des Monts de Vaucluse :-)


Sunday, 20 September 2020

VVCC

Le Var Verdon Canyon Challenge
Trail Entre deux rives - 60km

Sans doute l'un des plus beaux parcours que j'ai eu la chance de parcourir !


Nous sommes retournés se balader sur les premiers kilomètres en famille le lendemain, car les trois premières heures de la course se sont déroulées de nuit ! Ce qui avait donné une certaine ambiance ; - des gros crapauds au milieu du sentier à éviter, un chamois en bord de rivière, des échelles et les tunnels du sentier Martel,.. C'était encore plus excitant quand ma lampe s'est vidée 20 minutes avant le lever du jour. Oups !


Quelques minutes avant 7h et le soleil commençait à éclairer les murs du canyon. Et c'était vraiment très beau ! J'aime bien courir une partie de nuit en fait, pour assister à l'éclairage du paysage à mi-course. Et très souvent les belles courses comme celle-ci augmentent mon niveau d'énergie et mon enthousiasme pour évoluer sur le sentier en toute vitesse ;-)


Les six heures et demie sont donc passées très vite. Parfois c'était très roulant et parfois c'était très très lent, caillouteux, raid, technique,.. Une belle dernière grimpette nous attendait au 50ème km, pour sortir des gorges, avant une descente caillouteux jusqu'au village d'Aiguines.


Podium masqué - c'est étrange, mais toujours beaucoup mieux qu'une épreuve annulée.


Voici le parcours :

Et le top 10 :


Le départ ayant eu lieu à 4h du matin, j'ai pu profiter l'après-midi pour inspecter la première partie du trail depuis un autre angle ! Bref, un super weekend dans le Verdon :-) Bravo à l'origanisation et merci à tous pour l'accueil sur Aiguines !







Wednesday, 29 July 2020

MXTREME

Il n'y aura pas beaucoup de courses cette année, c'était donc plus important d'en choisir une bonne, une belle et une costaude pour fin juillet ! Autant se faire bien plaisir et autant se faire bien mal !


Le MXTREME est sans aucune doute l'un des plus beaux des ultra trails auxquels j'aurais eu le plaisir de participer. C'est aussi sans doute l'un des plus durs, physiquement. Dans tous les cas c'est une des courses qui m'a le plus cassé !! Mardi, trois jours plus tard, et les escaliers à la maison ne sont toujours pas évidents à négocier !

Les organisateurs de trails nous disent souvent, "tu vas voir c'est super beau et super technique"... et très souvent c'est vrai pour une partie du parcours, mais souvent il s'agit d'une portion limitée,.. souvent le descriptif est globalement un peu exagéré... Et de toute façon, on a chacun sa vision de ce qui est technique et ce qui est beau ! Il y en a qui trouvent les urbains-trails beaux, par exemple.. haha.. Par conséquence, avant de s'aligner sur une course qu'on ne connaît pas, on ne sait jamais trop à quoi s'attendre. Et cela fait parti de la beauté du sport, l'effet découverte et l'aspect surprise ! "On-sight" trail running on pourrait l'appeler, en empruntant le terme utilisé en escalade ;-)


Il est 4h du matin à Bex, on enlève les masques et c'est parti ! D'abord pour un "échauffement" de 12km avec 2200m de D+ ! Donc environ deux heures de trail-escrime ! On aurait peut-être dû garder les masques en fait, et les lunettes d'ailleurs ! Le principal avantage des bâtons c'est que cela nous force à garder notre distanciation covid...


Le moment qui m'a marqué le plus pendant cette course était la découverte de ce paysage grandiose, à environ 6h du matin. Notre bascule à 2500m coïncidait avec cette transformation de noir en rouge, en bleu, en blanc, en toutes les couleurs. Et wow qu'il est beau ce massif qu'on est en train de traverser ! Rien de mieux pour se motiver !!

Après la longue montée depuis Bex, la descente qui suivait était longue et technique. Le groupe de tête d'une vingtaine d'escrime-coureurs se réduisait très vite à plus que 5 ou 6.


Dans l'ultra le début est toujours très facile. Tout le monde est sous contrôle, on peut même chatter et tenter de pratiquer son espagnol appris sur duolingo pendant le confinement avec les coureurs castillanos ;-)


Mais quand on parle des surprises de l'ultra, on ne parle pas uniquement de la découverte du parcours... Au bout d'un moment t'auras forcément aussi la belle surprise d'une perte soudaine de la maîtrise de ton corps, de ton contrôle dans ce que tu es en train de faire ! Et ça peut aller très vite ! Un moment c'est trop facile, et quelques minutes plus tard tu ne vois pas comment tu vas arriver au bout, et il te reste encore 50km !!

 

Mais les phases de galère peuvent aussi passer, la fluidité et la facilité peut revenir. Il faut en profiter quand tout va bien et penser à autre chose quand tu as mal. Tu peux chanter des chansons de Freddy Mercury par exemple, après tout c'est le thème de l'événement - Queen a enregistré leur dernier album à Montreux.


Je finis donc 2ème, très loin derrière le local de l'étape, inspiré peut-être de courir à la maison le jour de son 38ème anniversaire. Félicitations et happy birthday à toi, tu as été rapide et costaud !


Merci à l'organisation d'avoir réussi à maintenir cette course. Vu le contexte c'était pas du tout évident !

Montreux Trail Festival will rock you !

[running photos courtesy of www.visualps.ch]

Tuesday, 3 March 2020

TCC

Running is perfect for exploring. It's slow enough that you have time to take in the surroundings (especially if it's an ultra you're doing), yet it's fast enough to progress through multiple environments within a single outing, and hence to see lots of different stuff over the course of a few hours, or half a day,.. or so.



So what better way to explore Costa Rica than a six-day stage race down the west coast. Voilà the reasoning behind a February trip to Central America; a race entry to The Coastal Challenge, combined with a family holiday in a wonderful part of the world that we'd not explored before!



Stage 1:
I was told to watch out, "it would be hot". And these were indeed wise words of wisdom! But honestly, who listens to wise words of wisdom, eh? Feeling confident, I went out at "morning run" pace; 3:50/km should be ok, it's flat. We quickly found ourselves together in a group with Mauricio Méndez (Xterra world champ) and César Lizano (Costa Rican Olympic marathon runner, competing in the short distance event at TCC). Perfect. Perfect until,.. BAM!! heat explosion!


10km or so later,... first Mauricio slowed and backed off, in a (sensibly) controlled manner, then a little later, I heat-bonked in a (not so sensibly) uncontrolled manner. The first stage rapidly switched from race-mode to survival-mode!



After the long fire-roads, the jungle section and the river crossings at the end of the stage were more than welcome!




Stage 2:
Today was a chase. 2km into the stage we (leading group of 5) missed a turn. The Costa Rican chap (Eric) a couple of meters behind us didn't miss it, and he subsequently held on throughout the day to most of the 10-minutes he gained at this early junction. Until the last 10km of beach running, where Cody and I reeled a few minutes back. This was to set the pecking order for the majority of the race.



Over the next few days Cody and I would share most of the days' trail-time.



Which included stretches of beach running.



And a few communal baths.



Not forgetting to wash your face.



Is this a run or a walk?



Look up!




We'd run together before with Cody, but on totally different terrain - in Sky races across Norway and Italy!


Stage 3:
Today had an excellent first hour or so. No farting around on footpaths, we ran straight up the riverbed. Nice!


Finishing with a waterfall crossing: Power shower!



This was followed by some less-wet and some less-cool sections on hard, earthy trail. Little respite from the scortchio sun on these sections.



Mauricio was unfortunately having problems with a tendon in his foot, and he subsequently dropped out.



Meanwhile I look the opportunity to wash my hair.



And my face.



There was some more beach running at the end. Again, sharing this section with Cody made it a little easier.







Stage 4:
Quite a lot of fire road today. A big climb, some rolling stuff and then a nice downhill through lush jungle at the end.



Eric refused to walk, pretty much irrespective of the steepness of the trail!




Meanwhile Cody was bulking up his biceps with a kilo of fluid in the palm of each hand. Don't arm-wrestle him next week!



Putting that hand-on-knees fell running technique to good use!



I was feeling pretty good again today. Much much better today than I had done on day 1, with that ridiculous, self-inflicted, early heat explosion. However my ever-dodgy right quadriceps were not having much of a ball at all. Heavy and unresponsive. Which made the more techy stuff on the final downhill tricky. It was globally a very bad week for my right leg, which unfortunately turned out to be the critical factor limiting speed, along with the climatic conditions.



The monkeys were making a right racket on that final decent!



Stage 5:
Today was another long one! And it was to be my off-day. Wiped out and suffering from a dodgy tummy from the start (over-indulging on the delicious pineapple on offer?!), I had to battle alone all day today, whilst Cody made his move on Eric and got the big lead he'd been working up for over the last few days.



To get to the start we all jumped on a barge. Powered by a speed boat, attached with some string and propelled by one very small motor. This barge also transports cars, buses,...


Hold that head together!




Returning from the sea, after the estuary crossing, by rowing boat.




The parrots were good company, as we rounded the final headland into Drakes Bay.





Stage 6:
The last day was nice. A very enjoyable (and short!) loop, with some nice jungle, rivers and beach running (but not too much beach running!).


The podium was made. Cody had a comfortable lead, Eric was a safe second and I was in third. The order wasn't likely to change, so today was to be fully enjoyed!



Is this how you do it, Otter?




We spent longer than usual cooling in the streams we found en-route today and finally we finished together with Eric and Cody, on the beach back in Drakes Bay.




Photo credit : Ian Corless