Of scandalous beauty and scandalous bad luck…

Ultra Trail Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur – 100M race report

For a good few hours on Friday night, I though it was on. I felt invincible, blinded by adrenaline, pushing myself back up through the field.

It’d been a rotten start. I felt fatigued and under the weather from the get go. I decided to start near the back and take things easy, knowing I should be able to make up places later on.

The first section is a short climb on a fire road followed by a trail with switchbacks to get you down into Saint-Étienne-de-Tinée, where local school children formed a scream tunnel of outstretched arms that echoed, “allez, allez, allez”.

From there it’s straight into a 1400m climb up to Refuge de Rabuons. The early afternoon heat was oppressive and the climb seemed to go on for days. I took a good long stop at the aid station to drink and fuel.

The team at the refuge was exceptional and so helpful, they’d also written, “vous êtes des machines” in chalk on the door. If I was a machine, I was rusty, fatigued and lacking belief.

The descent that followed was awful, with narrow paths of jagged rocks making for hard work in the sun. My foot placement didn’t seem right and I had concerns about why that was. I stopped at about 20k to dress a blister, way too early in the race to be dealing with them, and then tried to push on.

A narrow ledge, a loose rock. Next thing you know I’m off the edge and sliding. My right calf instantly contracted into a rock solid ball of rage under the knee. It was like one of those experiments to prove if things fall at an even pace regardless of weight – I’m falling, my poles are falling, my sunglasses are falling. I instinctively reach to try and relieve the calf pain before the feeling of rocks cutting my shin reminds me I’ve not stopped yet and I steady myself. 

I didn’t fall far. But it was enough to seriously shake me up and I was concerned I’d done nasty damage to the calf. I clambered around the rocks collecting my stuff and rejoined the trail barely able to walk. People started to pass. It seemed beyond question that my day was over.

I struggled on towards the next aid station, hurting but half relieved I had a better reason for quitting than merely being fatigued. I was sure there was no way back and questioned if I’d even be able to descend to the road to retire.

The medic approached me before I made it to Pas de Colle Longue. She sat me down and I explained what had happened, with hand actions for added emphasis. They tried to get me to eat and set to work stretching out my calf and releasing some of the tension, but it wasn’t until they treated me for shock that things started to improve. Somehow they pulled me round enough that I stood up and prepared to walk down to the road.

The sun set and, as I started the short climb from the aid station, I realised my calf was moving a lot better. I’d not technically tapped out yet because I had to make it to Isola to retire safely. I looked at my watch. Two hours to cut off. Two hours to tackle a small climb then a 1900m descent, with long sections on loose ground, often at 35%, in the dark.

Impossible, I told myself.

My struggles with technical descents are well documented. And yet, perhaps…

The poet inside me loved it. I couldn’t have made up a less favourable situation. The odds felt so heavily against me that adrenaline kicked in and I started to fly. I slid on my backside twice down loose ground and bounced back up. One of the other runners later described his surprise, having seen me limping to a DNF, to be passed by me “screaming downhill like a demon”.

I arrived in Isola feeling like I’d won the whole damn race. I’d found a miracle. Not only had I beat the cut off but the confidence boost had made me believe. If falling off a mountain couldn’t stop me, what could? It was on.

I set on up the next section and started to pass people more frequently. The trail through the woods to Pont de Paule was treacherous at times, but by a mixture of hiking poles and clinging to trees I got through having made up 44 places. 

A few kilometres before the aid station we hit a beautiful road winding through the mountains. The pine covered slopes framed the harvest moon, bright enough to turn the headtorches off, and I felt truly infinite as I strode through the still night air.

Navigating the terrain in the dark had taken longer than expected but I was still riding the runner’s high. I passed another 21 runners on the way to Saint-Sauveur-sur-Tinée, but it took longer than planned. I’d hoped for a two hour rest stop but rolled in with only an hour before I had to leave again.

I demolished some vermicelli soup and pasta, confirmed the cut off with a volunteer, then lay resting for half an hour. I’d decided to maximise rest and leave bang on time. The worst of the race was done and I knew time wasn’t a problem. I made to leave at 5:25am and was stopped. A man pointed to a sign that said 5:15am. I argued. He phoned race control and they said I was timed out.

I argued more. The race had started ten mins late and a volunteer had confirmed the cut offs had been adjusted. They couldn’t time me out. As varying people translated, a choice was made – I ran out of the aid station to a roar of clapping and cheers and they were left to tell race control I’d already gone and was on the course.

The next half hour felt like a dream. I was fresh from food and rest and moving quick and easily. And then it hit me. The fatigue was back with a vengeance. A solid wall of it. I forced down a gel and had an anti-spasmodic to help my stomach. I’d joined a group but slowly fell off the pace and started to walk.

I feared I was done. I sent texts to a running friend who troubleshooted things. I had salt tablets, some energy bar, water. I tried and tried but everything now was pain. My shoulder was in agony from the pack and my pace on a gentle downhill was glacial.

A few of the people I’d passed came by as I struggled and finally entered the aid station at Valdeblore. The whole place was wildly cheering every arrival and departure. I smiled, raised my poles, then dropped down onto a crash mat.

The lady running the show was an actual saint. She came over and asked how I was, reassured me that I had time to rest and didn’t need to make a decision yet, and tried to find things I’d eat or drink. Seeing the state I was in, one of the elite 100k runners crews, came over and offered help too. I desperately tried to figure a way to continue.

As time ticked away I managed to struggle back into my pack and to my feet. I had some coke, and a kind staff member explained that the next aid station was 15km, if I could make it.

I started to do the maths. I had 5.5 hours to get there. Twenty minutes per kilometre. It was a 1000m climb, followed by a 500m descent. Ridiculously easy on any other day, I could’ve walked and made cut off. Unfortunately, walking wasn’t proving possible.

And then I realised. 5.5 hours in the burning sun with only the water I could carry. My stomach had finally decided to rebel so tailwind would be my main fuel and my shoulder pain was bad. There was no way I could carry enough in the heat.

I said I was quitting, the aid station leader confirmed verbally, and we both stood staring at my watch finger. It was a weird stand off where I wanted her to pull me out and she wouldn’t until I clicked end. We both knew I was done, but she did everything to try and keep me in. I clicked the button and the adventure was over.

I remember, when I was seven or eight, we went to a thing at the local church where they played games based on the tv show Gladiators. I can only assume health and safety hadn’t been invented yet. The first game was three men wielding large sofa cushions. You had to try and get past them and they fended you off.

Seven year old Pete leapt at the chance. I ran straight at them and bounced off the wall of cushions, my knees thudding off the floor. I didn’t know another strategy so I stood up, took a few steps back and tried to launch myself at a crack in their defences. Again they blocked and again I landed on the floor with a loud crack.

At some point, the adults should probably have thought, “we’ll let the seven year old through so he stops hurting himself,” but they didn’t. For a good few minutes I flung myself again and again at them, lacking the body weight to push through I bounced off and hit the floor hard every time.

Sometimes this year, that’s what running has felt like. Factor in repeated attempts to do hard things in spite of injury, illness, etc, and it’s been like throwing myself at an immovable object.

After TDS, I decided to try one more race for the season. I thought about something more in my wheel house, 60-100k knowing I’ve done them before, but ultimately the thirst for a grand day out won. I didn’t want to do something I knew I could do, I wanted to push still. 

I wanted a big adventure and that’s what I got. From falling hard, to a huge descent in the dark, to pushing through the night and pulling myself back into it. There were moments of scandalous beauty and breathless delight, and then it humbled me and brought me to my knees as races like this do.

The feeling of pulling myself back from the brink – of leaving aid stations when it seemed I was done, of being wildly cheered while refusing to quit – was magic.

But now I need to rest. No more racing for a wee while, and certainly no more long races this year. My body is exhausted from three years of almost constant training volume. If I’m going to race really long distances it needs to be sustainable and healthy and it needs to bring me joy.

So I’ll rest a while, run only for fun, and give the love of the trails time to captivate me again. I might get on a gravel bike. Or walk out into the hills and draw pictures.

The wild still calls, but the answer isn’t always throwing yourself repeatedly at something. When I come back to the starting line of an alpine hundred, I’m coming to finish not to end up on my knees.