Imagine the most tired you've ever been. Think of a time when you were stiff and sore,
your feet swollen. A time when you were hungry but you didn't want to eat. Your vision is blurry, your eyes half shut you're loaded with caffeine but struggle
with every ounce of your being just to keep from falling asleep on your feet. That's how it feels after days of continual motion and I swore to myself that I would never
try to do it again I had arrived in Geneva the week before
and spent some time in Chamonix with my family and my girlfriend Audrée
who had just raced TDS. Now it was time for my own adventure. The SwissPeaks 360 is a race
that travels more than 360 kilometers or 224 miles
across the Swiss Alps from Oberwald to Le Bouveret on the shores of Lake Geneva
climbing over 26,000 meters or 87,000 feet
the equivalent of 3 Mt Everests. So we're about 3 hours into the race
feeling good, the body's moving well the pack is fitting as it should.
It feels very humid. I think we're about to get our first showers actually
potentially some thundershowers. We'll have to see. So far the views are absolutely incredible the trails are amazing having a great time so far. After leaving Oberwald, we had traversed
along the edge of the valley on some fairly runnable trails
stopping at 2 minor aid stations. We were now about to begin our first
big climb before descending to Fiesch The first major lifebase. SwissPeaks was a relatively new event
now in its third year. - Wow! It had attracted some 250 runners
from around the world but mostly from Europe, many of whom like me
had run Tor Des Geants in the nearby Italian Alps. - It just keeps going. Runners have up to
160 hours to complete the race refueling at the 31 minor aid stations
with the option to sleep at any of the six
major lifebases along the way. My goal would be to finish in between
roughly 100 to 120 hours sleeping around 6 to 7 hours over
the 5-day period. At TOR, I had run in a field of
more than 850 so this event felt quite small
by comparison. But while I'd expected the volunteer support and aid stations
to be sparser and less frequent this time, I'd have the benefit of my own
support crew to provide me with extra food and moral support
at some of the lifebases. Alright, so we are about 8 hours in
I've covered 55k and about 3,300 meters of climbing
roughly the same amount of descent. I'm feeling pretty good
I just left the first of the major lifebases I'll be seeing those every 50k or so I had a nice meal, had some pasta
and some rice and some caffeine some coffee and I think
I feel pretty good I think I'm ready for the night ahead.
There are some thundershowers in the forecast though so we'll have to see how
how this goes, it could be a wet one But that's okay, I've been there before
I've been alone for a while here since the aid station. I suspect that
at this stage in the race this will pretty much be how
it is for most of the rest of the race I think. I'll likely
yo-yo with a few people but with a field of this size
over this distance I'll be running a lot of this alone. I now faced a long stretch with
several large climbs taking me through my first night which
I would mostly spend alone. September is shoulder season in the Alps
so fortunately the mountains were snow-free as we began to reach
altitudes above 2,600 meters. We passed three more small aid stations
before finally arriving at Eisten at the 109 km mark where I'd
planned to take my first short nap. So it's day 2. I just left the 2nd major lifebase in Eisten at the 109 km mark about 7,300 meters of elevation gain plus descent. I've been on feet for exactly 24 hours and I'm feeling pretty good.
A little tired. I tried to have a nap back there at the lifebase but after about 10 minutes I just wasn't falling asleep so I gave up. I think I was maybe a little over-caffeinated from the caffeine pill I had late last night. So I guess my
first nap will have to wait until Zinal 50 km's from now so that'll be
around the 160k mark. Hopefully just after dinner time,
kind of early evening. I'll lay down for 25-45 minutes maybe depending on how I feel.
So yeah, I've got some work to do here. The clouds finally parted and it is hot. It's humid, I'm trying to drink as much water as I can. It feels like the heat's just kind of
coming out of the valley. While there were some very runnable
sections on the course there was also a lot of very technical terrain. In fact this race may have had some of
the most technical terrain and certainly more of it than
any race I've run. We would go on to cross huge fields
of massive jagged boulders some requiring short scrambles. - That's where we're going. I would have one particularly close call that would almost end my race. Having covered another 50 km
while climbing through several mountain passes
I arrived at Zinal the 3rd major lifebase, now close to
38 hours into the race and it was definitely time for my first nap. So it's early on day 3. Now that the sun's coming up
I'm actually starting to wake up a little bit. The last few hours I've just been
zombie-marching. I'm pretty sure I was actually sleepwalking. In fact, I think I slept through
most of the last climb. It was quite cold. I had to put on pretty much everything
I had, including my tights but looks like it's gonna be
a beautiful day. We never climbed much higher than 2,900
meters during the race but we did spend a fair bit of time
above 2,000 meters in-between cols. Coming from sea level I found it got
noticeably more difficult around 2,500 meters and we got there at least 10 times during the race. So I just left La Sage station which
is exactly at the halfway point, 180km. So I just have to do
it all one more time. I had reached the halfway point of the
race in a valley after descending from Col de Torrent, the 2nd highest point
in the race. I'd now climb to Col de la Meina on the
other side where I would get my first look at Grande Dixence
the tallest gravity dam in the world and the tallest dam in Europe. With up to 20 km between aid stations
we'd often go hours at a time without support.
I carried plenty of food but I had to start using a water filter pretty
early on to avoid having to carry more than
a litre of water at a time. - Man, it is so hot and we are totally exposed out here. A lot of the water was coming
right off the glaciers and probably
didn't need to be filtered but you'd be surprised at just how high
the livestock here can graze. - You're doing awesome! Let's go eat.
Got lots of food for you. Hope you're hungry. Oh, we're running, okay. I'm out of breath. - Okay, we're jogging.
- More of a 'yog'. - Let's go.
- Let's go. - I already have your bag
on the right here. - Did you have a good nap? - It was okay. - Okay just keep those eyes open!
Enjoy babe, it's beautiful up there! I'll see you later. - So I spent a little bit longer than I had hoped at that aid station but
I ate almost a whole pizza ate some watermelon.
Yogurt. Got some coffee. I slept for an hour and I had
a massage. So I think I'm set up
for success for the back, uh.. What do I got like 2/5 of this thing. So we'll see. I've still got a lot of work to do. Leaving Grande Dixence, I climbed into
the night towards the Grand Desert. We would reach the highest point of
the race here at 2,985 meters. This area would have been incredible
to see in daylight but as luck would have it I'd be
forced to scramble my way through it in the cover of night. Having finally reached the valley and
begun the climb on the other side I was now really struggling to not
fall asleep on my feet as I waited for the sun to rise again. My next stop was Champex
our 5th major lifebase which was set up in a series of
large tents left from UTMB the week before. I had an hour-long nap here followed by another quick massage
and a good meal. - Last night I was so tired
while I was climbing. I couldn't focus on anything.
Everything was blurry. People often comment on how fresh I typically
look in my films. how they expected me to act more tired,
for the experience to appear much worse. The thing is, it's only in the
relative high points that I in fact pull out my camera. In the lowest of the lows filming is the last thing on my mind. I was still feeling pretty good as
I climbed from Champex up and over to Finhaut. I'd hope to have a short nap here but
the aid station was way too noisy so I decided to press on instead. The first 50k of the race had
taken me less than 8 hours. But not long after leaving Finhaut
I encountered a section of trail so steep and technical that it took me
close to 10 hours to complete just 18 km, in total darkness
and without aid. When i finally arrived at the remote aid station
located on a huge dam I was totally exhausted.
After taking an hour-long nap I knew I was still in no state to continue
over the next big climb in the dark. So I slept another hour in order to wait
for sunrise. I woke up worried that I'd have lost
quite a few positions but it turned out that no one had
passed me while I slept. The couple of runners who had
arrived were still fast asleep themselves. - Well, I slept a little bit longer than
I probably should have. I slept 2 hours. I woke up after an hour and still felt
quite tired. So I went back to bed and now
the sun's coming up I just feel a lot better so even though
I probably wasted an hour, I just - I don't know. I don't think I regret it. I might regret it later but for now
I'm happy I did. While it can get lonely at times
after a few days I like spending time alone on the trails.
That kind of solitude is hard to find and it's something that's unique about
a race of this distance. When i was near other runners, I took
every chance I could to practice my french, but at times
we'd simply move along together suffering in complete silence. I'd made it to the 6th and final major
lifebase at Champery where I had a good nap
and ate some sushi that Audrée had brought me. It was there I met a runner
whose feet had swelled up so much that he could no longer put on
his running shoes. So instead, he put on a pair of sandals
which he wore for the remaining 90 km of the race. With the biggest climbs behind us
the course would now climb from 1000 meters up to just 2,100 meters in elevation
before dropping back down to Morgins at 1,334. Then would climb one last time
to Pointe de Bellevue at just over 2,000 meters. From there I would catch my first glimpse
of the finish on the shores of the lake below. There comes a time in a race like this
when it feels like the end may never come and there were many times
when the end could not come soon enough. But despite the discomfort after days of
continual motion with little sleep I kept reminding myself to soak it
all in because soon it would indeed all be behind me. All that was left now was to follow the
ridge along the french border some 30 km to the finish
at the marina in Le Bouveret. - 362 kilometers. - You made it. I finished the race after 113 hours
in 19th place overall. My recovery would take much longer than that. We spent a week in Paris where I managed to put back on 10
of the pounds that I'd lost but it was a few more weeks before
I was back to running. So, will I do another 200 mile race?
Probably... But not for a couple of years. In the meantime I plan on turning my attention
back to races of a more reasonable distance like 100 miles. - That was a long run.
