UTMB 2023: chasing a dream

A few lights ahead of me are moving rhythmically up and down. It’s hard to tell how far they are. Sometimes they disappear behind trees. I watch for a second, and try to count them, but then I focus again on the floor. My own headlight points a few metres ahead of my feet. Tree roots, stones, sometimes so large that I need to propel myself with my running poles to step up on them, and keep climbing.

Click, clack, the poles are hitting the stones. Muffled breathing, some moans come from someone behind me. Muscles hurt. Focus Andrea. It’s pitch dark. You wouldn’t move two steps without lights.

No one talks any more. We’ve been on the trails around Mont Blanc for more than 30 hours now. A little train forms behind a slightly more tired runner. I dim my light. It takes too much effort to pass during this climb. Let’s use these few minutes to recover a bit, so I can push more when the trail opens wider.

By now the field of runners is spread out, and the people around you have similar speed and ambition, but they don’t necessarily feel the same. Some have been cautious and still have plenty of energy left, some have given everything and are struggling to keep up. Digestion, fatigue, pain, strength of mind, will keep moving people up and down the rank, in the middle of the pack. The cut off times are looming, and they can be just one stomach problem or one little slip away.

To be a good ultra runner you need to be a good runner first, and you also need to be strong in both upper and lower body, determined and able to manage pain, because you will face a lot of pain, with a digestion that works under high effort for days on end, because you’ll need to process tens of thousands of calories in a single race.

You will need good agility, mobility and flexibility, and have good navigation skills. When races are in high mountains, you also need to be able to travel across hard terrain like boulder fields, stream crossings, insane steepness, very uneven trails, exposed and narrow trails, and some easy climbing. You can’t be afraid of heights and your body must be able to adapt to the hard terrain.

You also need to be able to manage all sorts of weather, with rapid changes, days and nights. You need to have good planning skills — the amount of kit required for these races is insane — eating and drinking, combined with estimated timings at checkpoints, means that nutrition plans can be very complicated. Choosing what to wear to tackle cold and hot parts of the course. Using aid stations to replenish, you have to be efficient but not rush, or you could regret it over the following hours.

But that’s a good ultra runner.

At my level of performance, things are quite diverse indeed, and you can get away without excelling at a few of those fundamental skills. Less fit, less strong, cannot digest cheese while going up the hill? You’ll probably have to deal with more pain than others. But it’s still doable. All your skill deficiencies can be compensated with some increasing level of pain management. Sometimes you look at someone, and you think “he must be able to take a lot of pain — respect”. Judgement doesn’t exist, the trails are incredible equalisers.

The stereotype middle of the pack ultra runner is a middle-aged, white man. But the UTMB this year was the first World Finals, so things were a bit more diverse, with many people travelling from Asia-Pacific and South American countries, where many qualifying events were run over the past year.

The second night of UTMB is a bitch. Punishment for the slower runners. You need to finish in under 26 hours to avoid the second night, which only the top 50 or so can do, and if you run for more than 36 hours (that is, over two thirds of the finishers) you will be out all of that second night, and see the mythical second sunrise on the trails.

Every inch of your body wants to sleep. Caffeine in all its incarnations starts to be ineffective. Your focus is necessary because every step is a hazard, but focus costs more and more. Your brain takes long trips to dreamland, follows your peripheral vision towards objects that don’t really matter, and often do not even exist. Your movements start to be less accurate. Medically, the effect of ultra running has been compared to drinking alcohol — you lose a bit of balance, a bit of precision, things move around even when they are still. A misstep will hit hard on your toes or your ankles, and then your focus is summoned again, along with some muffled moans.

We had left the aid station of Champex Lac about one hour before. This is quite a large “life” station, with warm food and drinks, but it’s also a trap for those not feeling at their best: full of beds to sleep and medics to listen to your issues — both open and inviting gates to the drop-out desk. The station looks like a hospital, with so many people in pain, and trying to fix different parts of their bodies. The floor is full of dirty socks, dusty shoes, medical tapes, strips of bandage, plasters. Some let their head fall on the table, some are laying on the floor, feet up, and improvised masseurs cause more pain than relief.

Luckily I had my son Bruno, acting support crew, waiting for me with a big smile, and being a bit emotional to see me appear past midnight, with just over 1 hour from cut-off time. Bruno reminded me of how many major climbs were still in front of me and gave me the predicted time for the next timing station. La Giete in this case.

He replaced my bottles with spare ones with water and energy concoction, then helped me get my food and change my top to something dry. We swapped some food that I hadn’t had, with some that I wanted to take with me for the next section.

He reassured me that I looked much, much better than most people arriving at that checkpoint. We left the station and walked along the lake for about 1 km, chatting about what friends and family were saying about my run, and then he went back to catch the bus to the next support point, several hours ahead, while I took it to the woods and started to climb into darkness once more.

The woods were making space for a more open and rocky terrain. It seemed to me a week since we started, back in Chamonix, on Friday evening. At the start I wanted to write “Don’t give up” or “Keep going” on the back of my left hand, or inside my left forearm, so I could see it when (a million times) I checked my GPS. But I couldn’t find a pen, so I only had an imaginary writing, which I could still read. Great.

The start in Chamonix! It’s worth the price of the ticket, even if you drop out after km 2, when the road turns into a trail, just outside town. An hour of music, motivational speeches, elite athlete roll calls, clapping hands, wild public.

It was quite hot, the sun bearing down on all of us, when the UTMB favourite Vangelis Conquest of Paradise dramatic tune started, full volume. People went even wilder, shallow breathing, wet eyes, you couldn’t hear a person shouting from one metre, such was the noise. We couldn’t even hear the countdown, but it was clear when the start was given. A shout from the public and the runners closer to the line, an explosion, and off we went.

It took 3 minutes to snake out Place de l’Amitie and cross the start line. It was a crawl for the first minute or so, as the public were literally invading the course, high fiving, patting on the back the runners, and making a lot of noise. The first two kilometres are insane, people many rows deep, with signs, cow bells, or simply shouting names, encouragement, wildly happy to see the 2800 participants start for this long adventure. I hope to see you here on Sunday!

A gentle undulating trail took us to Les Houches, 8k into the race, enough time to repeat my strategy: go slow, it’s so long, eat and drink regularly from the beginning.

I placed myself towards the end of the group — I didn’t want to risk mis-pacing just to follow some faster guys, but also being stampeded on by people wanting to pass me.

At Les Houche there’s no aid station, just a long row of water taps. I stopped to refill, as the next stage would be quite long, with our first major climb, and a descent to San Gervais.

We already had a reminder that the first night was coming: we were in the shade of the mountain, while climbing to the Col de Voza, and we could only see the sun reflected in the highest part of the Mont Blanc, on the opposite side.

I saw my new friend Giacomo, who I met at the vert.run shake out run. What was he doing there, with his much better timing ambitions? He said he wanted to start slowly, to avoid a mistake he commonly made in the past, but he soon took off at high speed.

I wasn’t feeling great, I was struggling to keep the vertical speed that I usually do in training on this type of terrain, around 600m/hr. It was like I had little energy, I felt hot and with a high heart rate. I told myself that this was a long race and there was time to recover. Don’t panic.

As we started the descent towards Saint Gervais, it was getting quite dark and we had to use our lamps. I was more relaxed on the descent, and in Saint Gervais I changed to my long sleeve top, as now we were going to start the longest ascent, over 1700m, taking us to over 2500m, overnight.

I decided to take the next climb, towards Les Contamines, more easily, as I wasn’t digesting well. Bruno would wait for me there, so I could reassess things in that aid station.

When I got there, at first I couldn’t find him. We had to message back and forth. The main station was runners-only, and there was a separate space, away from the food desks, to meet support people. This was my first time with a support crew, so I was learning. I got my food, and finally met with Bruno, who replaced my water bottles. We chatted a bit, I told him I didn’t feel great. I stretched a bit, he told me to smile for a photo, and I got started again. Next appointment would be in Courmayeur, a good 12 hours later, if all went well.

I knew that section would be the most difficult for me — it didn’t have large aid stations, it was all in altitude, I had never recced it, and I had no margin for errors or issues, as I was near the back.

During the long stop at Les Contamines I lost a few positions, but what was worrying me was that I only had half an hour or so from the cut-off.

The next food aid station was 4–5 hours away, at Les Chapieux, so I had to take a lot of food with me, and drink well before leaving. “Efficient but not rushed” I was repeating myself, I heard this during the live show of the OCC a couple of days before and it was a good way to think.

Surprisingly, I started to feel better, and climb faster. I picked up a lot of positions while going up to the Col de Bonhomme. The long, long climb led to horrible terrain conditions, first mud, only a thin layer of 1–2 cm, then even melting snow, at the top of the Col, then mud again, going down. But I was moving quite fast, and I realised later that it was probably due to the cooler weather, which helped reduce my exertion, and allowed me to digest my food, as I was going. It was quite cold, I was wearing my gloves and hat, long sleeve top and waterproof jacket, and I asked myself several times if I should wear my long trousers or add a headscarf.

I had a quite efficient stop at Les Chapieux, after less than 1 hour of descending, and restarted with a lot of energy towards the Col de La Seigne, and the boundary with Italy, with 1100m to climb. This part was also no joke.

I was on a roll — I picked up 140 positions, I would see later, in less than 3 hours, and when at the top, where we got our time taken, it was daylight again.

Not that we could see much, it was very windy, we were struggling to stay straight, everyone wrapped into their hoods, only checking the route from a little opening. When the foggy clouds opened to some clean air, the views were majestic. We were at the level of the Mont Blanc glaciers, admiring the new very white snow cover from the snowfall of 5 days before.

I knew it was still long to Courmayeur, probably all morning, but at least the night in the middle of tough and far away mountains was over, and I was feeling really well.

The stretch through Pyramides Calcaireus was very hard to negotiate. All the sharp stones shed by the high pyramid-shaped formations were layered in an unstable way on the floor, so every step was moving a stone out of its balance, and there was no way to learn from the path followed by the person in front. It was slow going, but only for around 2 km.

When we got to Lac Combal, another small checkpoint in the middle of the mountains, near amazing landscapes, I saw the signs of Italian Protezione Civile, and a bit confused about where we were, I asked if this was Italy already. An officer told me that we had been in Italy already for a while, and added some encouragement.

This stop was also quite efficient. I ate some food, checked my kit, and readied myself for another 500m climb that would finally open to the descent to Courmayeur, my target for the end of the morning.

At the Arete du Mont Fabre, the weather was clearing and the views were incredible. I was feeling strong. Over the past 2 checkpoints I had gained another 100 positions or so. The marshalls gave me the position and the distance from the next checkpoint, where I could get water and food: Checrouit. A technical descent which I did fairly well, and again I tried to move quickly through the checkpoint. Cup of coke, solid food, a couple of orange and lemon slices, a piece of banana and away I was, with a steep descent towards Courmayeur. It was just 5 km, but so steep, especially towards the end, with an infinite number of switchbacks along the path of a ski cabin.

Civilization again! As I entered the village we started to be cheered by the people along the streets. The road took us to the sports centre, where our drop bags were very efficiently provided by the organisation. Mine was so heavy! I was waiting for this moment because I could finally get a full change of clothes and shoes, wash myself a bit, and eat something warm.

Bruno was waiting for me there. Quite happy he embraced me. We got on to business straight away, with change of bottles, change of socks and shoes, shorts and top. I left my long sleeve in favour of a t-shirt. It was quite warm. I changed the beanie to a cap and put my sunglasses on. We swapped food items. I had a nice bowl of pasta, an energy drink, cheese and fruit. I went to wash my face and arms and brush my teeth. I felt refreshed and ready to go again.

You couldn’t tell the same for many people who were in the aid station. Some laying on the floor, receiving some sort of massage, others collapsed on the tables, often didn’t even take their warm clothes off.

It was a long stop, about 48 minutes, but it did add to my strength. From now I kind of knew the course, having done the CCC twice. Only differences were the starting climb to Refuge Bertone, and the final climb to La Flegere, changed due to a large landslide.

I knew the course, and I knew it was hard. I still had more than 92 km and 5300m elevation to tackle. Now that it was hot again, I felt the sluggishness of the evening before.

I went through the Courmayeur centre, with a few people cheering the runners, and I started the first climb slowly. I still had worries about the cut off times, as I left Courmayeur with only 40 minutes to spare. But I was even more worried about bonking in one of the following steep climbs and being unable to proceed. I chose a sustainable pace, which hopefully was enough to keep me away from the maximum time.

When I got to Refuge Bertone, I only got some water and grabbed some food for the next section, and restarted. I had 4 hours to get to Arnouvaz and have a proper meal there, because it would then get dark soon after.

While going to Refuge Bonatti, in a marvellous spot of the Val Ferret, I saw Giacomo again. He was aiming for 32 hours, a different level altogether, so something was wrong. I asked him what happened and he said that he hurt his knee in the crazy descent to Courmayer, and it was now hurting badly when going uphill. He wanted to drop out. He said he might have been able to continue, but going through the second night was a concern, and he might have missed the cut offs anyway.

We discussed a bit, and I told him to try and get to Arnouvaz at least, as there was, if necessary, the UTMB bus to go back to Chamonix. He could have talked to a medic there, and then decided what to do. He agreed to jog with me for a bit. We briefly stopped at Bonatti for some water and water on my head and neck.

The road was undulating, but in some of the small humps Giacomo was really suffering, so at some point he asked me to leave, and he would have carried on slowly to then drop out. He promised to follow me, and meet me at the finish. One more reason to get there!

I finally arrived at Arnouvaz, quite tired, depleted by the scorching sun, and with just over 1 hour to spare on the cut off. I tried to eat and drink well, and refresh with cold water. A very tough climb was waiting for me, and I wanted to clear it before night. The Grand Col Ferret, with its steep, technical ascent, surrounded by amazing views, was just in front of me.

I took the climb with good energy, and started to make positions. A lot of very, very tired people around me, and a lot of withdrawals from Arnouvaz. During my climb, I heard a person from the race security, near the top, talk to the sweepers, who were closing the checkpoint at Arnouvaz, behind me. Someone was deciding whether to proceed or not, and someone was coming down from Col Ferret to go back to the aid station and withdraw.

In no way you should withdraw in the middle of the mountain, with night just closing in. You will force a rescue team to come and take you from an area where you struggle to even walk. You can imagine how they would get you on a stretcher. So if possible at all, walk to the closest aid station.

When I was close to the top I put my jacket on, as it was quite windy, I folded my poles, as I was preparing for a long runnable descent, and when I saw the checkpoint camera, I smiled and sent a kiss to the many people I knew were following me from home.

At the top of Grand Col Ferret, as usual some Swiss police people were guarding. We were now descending into the Confederation.

A couple of milestones were passed then: I had been running for more than 24 hours, my longest ever race. And I passed the 100 km mark, with nearly 7000 m elevation. Not a bad one so far, but still so much ahead of me.

A long, long, not too technical descent was waiting for me. I wanted to use the remaining hour or so of daylight to make some good progress, and so I did, passing many people on my way to La Fouly.

Here I was expecting to see Dylan, from Dulwich Runners, who was in the area for his Tour de Mont Blanc, and indeed, just before the checkpoint I heard his voice and he came to chat. We walked a bit together, he was quite clued in on my time, the cut off time looming (I had 1:30 left) and cheered me on, before I entered the aid station. It was a welcome chat, to start the second night. By telling Dylan that I was ok, I felt even better. I was happy with the progress made, and I was positive about the night that was coming.

It was a good break in La Fouly, I had quite a bit to eat and drink. I changed clothes again for the night, this time opting for an underlayer with t-shirt on top. The jacket wasn’t required yet, and I hoped I wouldn’t need it overnight.

I continued with good pace for the rest of the descent, to Praz de Fort, making up many positions, to then start the ascent to Champex Lac, another key aid station, where finally I would have seen Bruno again, a good 12 hours after I saw him in Courmayeur.

This ascent wasn’t too long, but it was tricky, with some steep segments. I was feeling good, and I started to pick up more people on the ascent. It was pitch dark, and many people were starting to flag, stopping regularly on the side of the trail. I started to see people who decided to take a nap just beside the trail. I tried not to focus too much on them. Just taking energy from the fact that I could carry on with good pace.

Four years before, on this section I had a major crisis, during my first CCC. It was a hot afternoon, perhaps dehydration of low energy, but I was lightheaded, my heart rate was high even while sitting, and I couldn’t see how to continue. Then I asked for help, some water, to a Portuguese runner, and he offered that, which made me feel better almost instantly. Funnily enough just 100m later, on a left turn, there was a water fountain, with a massive basin underneath. We both drank from there, but soon after he felt sick and had to drop out.

I texted Bruno that I would be in Champex after midnight, and so it was. When I finished the steep ascent and I entered the checkpoint, I was very happy.

I could chat with Bruno, get my energy drink, have solid food, soup, and swap some unused food. It was a relatively long break, 30 minutes, but nothing compared to so many other people. Champex is notoriously a place for dropouts: for middle of the pack runners like me, you’ve already gone for 30+ hours, you are still at least another 12 hours away from the finish line, and if you are low in energy and need to sleep, the margin is very low.

I changed my shoes again, back to La Sportiva ones. The reason is that the Hoka were letting some dust in, and this was pooling somewhere under my feet, creating hot spots, which felt like they were about to become blisters. Fresh socks and the La Sportiva with gaiters did the trick and the problem seemed to disappear.

I left the station with nearly 2 hours on the cut off time, happy that I had a bit of buffer to play for the rest of the night. I was feeling strong. Bruno reminded me that I had 3 more major climbs, and one was starting there, destination La Giete.

I kept passing people, and adding the ones I passed at the aid station, I saw later that I gained over 200 positions.

After the timing checkpoints I was normally getting a message from my friend Alessandro, giving me a vocal update on the position and the gap from my predicted time. This was so useful. It’s impossible to remember all the times, and it’s useful to see how I’m doing, even though I wasn’t really interested in my position. I just wanted to finish.

The climb to La Giete was quite efficient. My stomach was working well. La Giete is just a cow shed, which comes after we summit the Col. And they only have water, so it was a very brief stop to check the time. This time I wasn’t disappointed about this stop, unlike my previous CCC experiences, where I was mad that they didn’t even have coke or tea. Just be prepared.

From there it was a long, steep and technical descent to Trient, the last aid station in Switzerland.

I had memories of the last part of this descent, quite vertical, with switchbacks, and quite slippy. And so it was again. The difference was that this time my quads were not hurting too much, so I went down slowly, but pain free. Only my toes were hitting the front of my shoes a bit too hard, and were a bit painful.

Bruno was waiting for me at the aid station. Now I had over 3 hours of margin on the cut off. Things seemed safer, and I thought it was best to make sure nutrition and hydration continued to go well, so I took a good break. I again walked a bit with Bruno on the path leading to the next ascent, a very tough one, towards Les Tseppes.

Gower had left me a message saying that this was a bitch of a climb. He did it the day before in his race. I had memories from 2019 and 2022 of it being tough for a couple of very steep kilometres. And it was exactly like that: the first part was relatively easy, which could be hiked at good speed. Then it was a wall… 2 km at 30% average ascent, with stretches which surely must have been over 50%. It was hard to make any progress, but close to the top it became easier again, and most importantly…. It was day again. I had been watching the mountains around me for a while, for signs of twilight. I started to see a small line of clearer sky coming up at the horizon, enough to see sky from the mountains, and finally behind us the line became orange, and slowly yellowish to show that the sun was up, even though it was still hidden behind the mountains. I was ecstatic.

I tried to communicate to people around me that this was worth a picture, but everyone was too tired to respond, and people carried on.

I couldn’t believe that now I only had one major aid station to visit, Vallorcine, and then there were the final climbs and the final descent to Chamonix.

Bruno texted me that Gower and Christina would come and see me there, catching an early train. That was also a good motivation. I took the descent with good pace, making up many positions on the way, and running also the flat part before Vallorcine.

After a twisty way around the station, I greeted Bruno and my friends. I was so happy. It was just after 8am and I had over 8 hours to complete the remaining 20 kilometres.

There was only one worry for me — it was soon going to be hot again, and the climbs expecting me were very exposed to the sun, especially the one leading to La Flegere, a long part on a never ending ski slope.

I asked Bruno to give me my Dulwich Runners vest, so I could finish the race wearing it. A just tribute to my running club and many friends there who were following me.

The stop was fairly quick — a breakfast with some cake, tea, coke, and a banana. I summarily pushed my sweaty clothes into my backpack. It was quite lumpy — I could have made an effort to pack things better, or even to drop some of the unused food and non mandatory kit.

My mind was now projecting to the final part. I was out towards Col de Montets, with a big smile on my face, to see the two new climbs on this year’s course. The first one was quite easy and short, but the following descent was horrible. Basically we had to jump down from tree roots, which were like massive steps in a natural staircase. I just didn’t want to injure myself, so I took it easily.

I lost a few positions to people who wanted to take more risks, but made some from others even more cautious than me. With the daylight, and the smell of the finish line, things were reviving again, and many runners who had been quiet overnight, were now getting excited and pushing more. Fair game. I was uninterested.

We got to the last stretch before La Flegere in open sun, on the stony ground of a ski slope, quite steep. It took forever to get to the top, a cabin station. I felt so dry that I was worried I wouldn’t make it to the top and I would get a heatstroke.

At the water station I drank a lot, loaded some water in my bottles, and got some water on my head and neck.

I was sure my friends and Bruno would see my timing here and would expect me within an hour or little more. I took it fairly easy. I jogged the first part, a steep but wide stony road, and basically walked the tricky technical forest road, with its many switchbacks. Here many people got crazy and started to push their pace to gain some positions. It takes nothing to go down, and I didn’t care about 10–20 positions or a few more minutes. I started to chat with many people who were walking up the hill and cheering the runners. Many recognized the Dulwich Runners vest. Quite a few Brits were going for a hike. Once the forest road was over, at La Flora, I started jogging again. I texted Bruno that in around 15 minutes I would be near the Arctic Cafe, at the top of the Chamonix main road, so we could run together for the last part.

It took me a few more minutes than expected, I forgot the road bridge, and frankly I was quite tired. So I found Bruno closer to me, by the expo area. He was so happy to see me, and so I was.

More than happy, ecstatic. This was my dream. Getting to this final stretch on Sunday, in the middle of the day, when full of people. Two days before it still seemed so, so hard.

Six months ago, I couldn’t even walk. I injured my knee after a cross country race in February. An MCL sprain, the MRI scan report said. It was a long recovery period and I was desperate. With only 1 month of training I went to run the Istria 100 69k race, which gave me a bit of faith. I was in bad shape, but I finished it with limited knee pain. A month later I had to DNF at the Ultra Trail Snowdonia 100k. I injured myself falling into a sharp stone, and carried on until over 40k, but honestly I don’t think I had the energy to finish that race. I had pain in my knee, in my cut shin, and I was scarred in my mind. 3 months to UTMB and nothing was working. When at the end of May I found the vert.run App and their training and coaching service, I was revitalised. Could I make this miracle and get in good shape to survive and finish the UTMB? The first two weeks of training were still “recovery” from the UTS injury. Then I started to push a bit more and do the sessions I should.

At the end of June I went for 9 days to the Dolomites to see if I could do some specific training, and push myself on those difficult but beautiful trails. This did the magic. I loved the experience. I felt like an athlete, running, resting, eating, looking after myself.

Between mid July and end of August I trained on trails in Tuscany, and again for a couple of days in Slovenia and a couple of days in the Dolomites. I had all my hard ascents, hard descents, difficult terrain, high mountains. It gave me a lot of confidence.

I was jogging, Bruno was filming me. Now I would use all my energy to run all the way to the finish. I was still under 43 hours, a good result for me. Many people were cheering from their cafe or restaurant tables, some were asking for a high five, playing cowbells and shouting my name. The finish stretch was packed. The finishers were coming fast one after the other. I saw Giacomo before the last turn, then Christina and also Gower. Bruno stopped to film from the end of that final stretch. Such a nice feeling.

A dream finally came true — it took over 7 years, from my first Ultra, a rather flat 50k around the Isle of White. But the dream of UTMB was already on. It wasn’t quite a linear path, but I did it. With a lot of help from many friends, runners, even a coach at vert.run and elite runner, Francesco Puppi. I did it. I did it.