One Giant ultra… (Part 1)

One Giant ultra…

Disclaimer: this report is based on facts and events that either happened in reality or in my sleep-deprived and confused mind.

The name “Tor des Geants” means tour of the giants and it refers to some of the highest mountains in the Alps including Gran Paradiso, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc that climb from 13,000ft to almost 16000ft. Luckily on our tour we only pass by them and not actually climb these monsters. Our highest point was 3300m or 11,000ft. Being the inaugural running of TDG I didn’t know what I was getting into. I’d only seen the course DVD, a 30-minute video of a test run completed last year to check the route and see if it was possible. Tour des Geants looked epic and amazing. It had a seemingly generous cut-off of 150 hours, or six days, six hours to cover the 332km (206 miles). It sounded fairly easy - that’s just walking at 1.5mph. Of course there would be a few breaks and a little sleep. Luckily I don’t need much sleep so I thought I had a big advantage.

On arriving to Courmayeur, the start and finish of TDG, I looked up at the steep mountains and felt a little concerned. I would have to wait till race day to find out if my limited training was enough.

Before the race I contacted other runners from Canada, the US and UK. There were almost 20 of us. We quickly became friends and looked forward to upcoming adventure. Beat and Chris were good trial running friends from the Bay area. Both Beat and I had talked each other into signing up for TDG and were planning to start the race together. Our North America group included Beat, Chris (now living in his home country of Switzerland again), Tamara, Michael, Bruce, Daniel, Angela, Doone, Glenn, Jen, Leslie, Nicki, Julia, Mark and a few more.

It had been an interesting past few days. Erin, who was to be my crew, got sick and I quickly made some backup plans in case she didn’t make it. I was most concerned about nutrition - I don’t eat meat so my crew would have extra vegetarian food for me so I wouldn’t go hungry. Gabi (who was living in Switzerland) kindly offered to help crew me for the first few days before she headed off on vacation, so I knew I would have some support for at the least the beginning.

Eventually I was ready. Erin recovered and was able to make it. Both Erin and Gabi arrived late the night before the race. The following morning I had breakfast and we headed to drop my bag off. We were each given a 40-litre duffle bag for our supplies. These bags would be transported between the seven life stations. All my essentials were in that bag and my crew had a backpack with more gear and a few bags of extra food. Food wise I was doing no sports nutrition - only real food along with instant mash potato, cereal bars, candy, salty snacks and stuff like that. I knew the life stations would have pasta and the refreshment stations would have bread and cheese. There were also meat options, but that wouldn’t help me. I also planned for Erin and Gabi to bring pizza for me.