2021-08-24
The "Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie", understandably usually referred to as "TDS", is one of the series of trail races leading up to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). It is a little shorter than the main UTMB race, at 145 km with about 9000 m of climbing, but is on more technical trails.
Running was my birthday present. I'd registered as a backup for VDA; that had gone well and I hadn't really been expecting to be able to take time away from the family, but luckily the family was very generous!
I didn't end up finishing the race, as the course was closed in the aftermath of a fatal accident for one of the runners. It was a sad day for the ultra/trail running community. Read more on iRunFar or in UTMB's press release .
I had planned for this race to be different than usual. It was very much like the VDA, which I'd just run, but a little less extreme in every way: a little less distance, a little less technical, a little less elevation change, and an almost-full moon instead of new moon. It was slightly more difficult in having more widely-spaced and less well-stocked aid stations.
UTMB is a giant circus, so the race didn't have a flavor of the unknown, adventure, or wilderness. It's hard to think of yourself as in nature with so many people, cameras, helicopters, Instagram bros, etcetera. You can find as much information about the route as you care to. So, I thought that I'd try to run this one "fast" if possible, mainly by trying to eliminate some small time sinks, such as taking photos, getting anything out of my drop bag (assuming ideal conditions), or napping (totally doable as I was shooting to run through "only" one night).
I wasn't feeling great leading up to the race, though. I felt tired and bleary as I took the train to France and checked into my hostel (thankfully my gamble on a cheap single room paid off). I had enjoyed running the short, 7.4 km Forchlauf race in Zurich a few days before the race, thinking that this would be a fun tune-up, but this was probably a mistake. I run fast so rarely that even though it took just over half an hour, it left me feeling less than fully recovered before the TDS.
The race started in waves, as a COVID-related precaution. There was a delay in starting, so the waves were only 7 minutes apart, instead of the planned 15. Nonetheless, the combination of this and a few kilometers before any single-file trails meant that conga lines weren't as bad as you'd think in such a big race.
I started close to the front of the second wave of five. I kept up with the crowd, which was a mistake. This was too fast relative to my fitness. I didn't enjoy the crowds - a couple of people pushed by on downhills to save 5 seconds, and there were too many cameras, and one horrible drone, in my face.
I reached Lac Combal after about 2 hours, 30 minutes ahead of my goal for a 30 hour finish. I kept pushing pretty hard to try and make the Col Chavannes, the high point of the course at 2603 m, before the weather did. We'd been informed at the start to expect rain and possibly a storm, and we got it. I started fast (for me) on the descent from the col, an endless 10% descent on a fire road during which I felt myself slowing and started getting passed. It started raining near the bottom. I was very lucky to be next to a farm building with an overhanging roof and a concrete step to sit on, so I managed to put on my jacket, rain pants, and headlamp in comfort.
At this point, I heard someone say "No way!" and there was Francesco! I was shocked by this because Francesco is fast (he finished in the top 100 out of over 1500). This tells you something about how I overextended on the first section. Francesco said we'd see each other later, but unfortunately this wasn't to be.
There were a few lightning flashes - the shortest delay to the thunder was about 7 seconds, meaning 2-3 km away. Fortunately these subsided before we approached the next col.
I was feeling gross by the time I reached the bottom of the descent and started back up to the Col du Petit St. Bernard. I had an upset stomach and it was wet and miserable. My glasses fogged up and my rain gear just seemed to be another damp layer. It rained and rained and got dark. I felt smug as I passed many people who had waited until total darkness to put on their headlamps and were now scrambling in their packs in the rain. Near the aid station was a very steep section which had become quite muddy - I slipped a couple of times as I pushed as hard as I could do not slow down the crowd behind me.
The aid station began with a hop across a giant puddle. I dearly wished for the delicious tortilla they'd had at the VDA, but settled for a cup of broth and some bread.
The descent to Bourg Saint Maurice was long and tiring, but not as muddy as I'd feared. I had wondered about the need for the drinks-only aid station at Seez, but now I saw why it was there, as the ensuing easy 2.9 km crossing the city to the main aid station seemed interminable. I felt unhappy when I got to the main aid station a bit after 11 pm, but was actually very close to my target time, thanks to my speedy start. I then made a another mistake - I hadn't expected any "real" food here (no "warm meal" promised), and so had already loaded up my plate with suboptimal stuff (cheese and crackers, cake) when I saw that they did in fact have rice and pasta, which were exactly what I needed. I was too ashamed to throw away the food I had just gotten, and took only a cup of broth instead. I got some bread and crackers down, but it wasn't the big recharge I knew I needed.
I felt very tired starting out of the aid station, which discouraged me further as I knew that I was beginning the hardest segment of the course: 2000 m of climbing to a pass, the Passeur de Pralognan, over 2500m. The first few kilometers of this were very steep, over 25% grade, and I crawled, being passed by many people. Things improved after the Fort de la Platte, stunning under the full moon in the now-clear skies. I was still moving slowly and getting passed, but at least wasn't quite as miserable.
I felt myself coming back into my own a little bit on the more-technical descent and ascent before the pass. As before, the more interesting trail gave me something to think about besides being tired. The descent on the other side of the pass is considered the technical crux of the route, involving carefully descending a steep trail with chains. The start time of the TDS has changed several times; this time, the technical crux was at night. This makes that section more difficult but avoids having the biggest climb (from the low point on the course) during the heat of the day.
I was maybe beginning to actually enjoy myself, a first on the route, as I came around the corner and was momentarily thrilled to see I'd reached the pass. I realized something was amiss. A large crowd of people lined up below the crest of the ridge and several more huddled around a fire, most of them wrapped in space blankets. I heard that there had been an accident on the other side of the pass, which had caused the backup. I had begun to doubt my chances of achieving my 30 hour goal, so I wasn't too heartbroken at the thought that at the current rate I'd have to add another 2-3 hours to my time by sitting here. The staff at the head of the line/crowd would slowly but steadily scan people's bibs to register them at the check point, and send them down the pass. However, the inflow rate was much higher than the outflow, and very soon the trail backed up out of sight with runners in their space blankets.
I was happy to be near the fire, as my wet feet were very cold. I didn't have a thermometer but it was apparently just above freezing, though fortunately clear and not windy.
I had arrived somewhere around 3 am, and after a little longer than an hour of waiting, the crowd ahead had thinned enough that I decided to leave the group huddled near the fire and join the main queue, which hadn't gotten shorter but was now more of a line than a crowd. I handed out some Haribo gummie bears. I then had a confusing encounter. As I was trying to re-wrap my space blanket around myself, a woman asked me, "Are you using that? Can I use it?". I had thought it was obvious I was using the blanket but gave it to her assuming she was having a hard time in the cold, and I was feeling OK.
I guessed about an hour of waiting in the line would do it. Only a few minutes later, at 4:20 or so, though, my hopes were dashed as the checkpoint staff told us that the race was cancelled and that we should return to Bourg St. Maurice. I wasn't deeply disappointed in the moment - it had been one of the more miserable races and this point in the night is usually the worst in terms of morale. An honorable discharge, for reasons completely out of my control, seemed fine.
Relieved of the demands of trying to finish the race, there followed a period of relative levity. We didn't know yet that the accident had been fatal. We were now at the back of the long line of people going down, and I figured we'd now leisurely wander back to the aid station, take the bus back to Chamonix, and get croissants and coffee. The woman who had taken my space blanket had disappeared, and I didn't remember anything about her. I called out asking for my blanket, to no response, but figured it didn't really matter as I had another one at home. Wrong.
It soon became clear that the reversed line was moving very, very slowly. We didn't get information about why, which became increasingly frustrating as we got colder. We could see the headlamps below making their way back to the Col de la Forclaz, but they got more and more thinly spaced, suggesting a bottleneck out of sight. So we sat. I was definitely missing my space blanket now.
We sat and sat, every few minutes moving a bit down the trail. The sun rose. Finally we reached the bottleneck at the likely place - a short, class 2 scrambling section of a few steps down had three mountain guides who had fixed a rope (at three points, one of which was the middle guide) and were instructing people to go across, spaced out. This section had required hands but was easy to ascend - it was a little trickier going down, especially with all the mud from several hundred runners' feet.
I was a little less grumpy once I saw this, because even though we'd sat around for hours without much idea of what was happening, people had been working to get everyone down safely, if slowly. I am very thankful that the weather was not worse - that may have forced a decision to allow people to descend more quickly. I've done enough scrambling in less-than-ideal situations to be confident in doing it, but I doubt that was true in general for the runners, especially after covering quite a lot of the course and being wet and cold.
I very leisurely descended and was one of the last ones back to Bourg St. Maurice. It was nice to have the place mostly to myself. I saw some nice views, some cows, some lakes, and the fort from above.
From talking to some Americans on the way down, I learned that the accident had been a fall and that the runner had died from his injuries. In the initial reporting, it was somehow implied that we had been turned around because of the severity of the accident. That's not quite true, or it would not have taken almost 4 hours to make the decision, long after the helicopter had evacuated the victim. Rather, we were turned around because the pass is a major bottleneck in the route (and there is a typically a line there, even under normal circumstances), and the rescue operation blocked the course for long enough to create a backup of hundreds of people that couldn't be resolved. Medical emergencies and helicopter evacuations are not uncommon in this part of the world. I'd already seen ambulances more than once during the race, and there was another helicopter evacuation later during the race, on the Col du Tricot.
I think the correct decisions were made, but I detected a bit of ass-covering to avoid people asking too many questions about how one safely runs a race on course with such a bottleneck at 2500m, with 1500 people, with another bottleneck on the retreat route from the first one. I should point out that in previous years, due to bad weather, the course has been rerouted to a boring road to avoid this col, and I am sure they would have done so this year if conditions had been worse. While things were wet, we had clear skies, no wind, and non-threatening, if uncomfortable, temperatures. The people making the calls seem to have correctly assessed the relative risks, but I think that this depended on accurate weather forecasts, which I don't think can always be assumed to exist in the mountains.
As trivial as it ultimately is, I was happy that our original "Did Not Finish" (DNF) designations were later converted to finisher status of a new, shorter variant of the route, dubbed "TDS - Bourg-Saint-Marie". This was nice for our egos (DNF typically signifies that you abandoned or didn't finish in time) and let us collect our finisher's shirts (though I'd already left Chamonix). It was also of practical benefit; to enter ultras, one often has to have finished other ultras, and this new variant could be used for those purposes (though not as a Western States qualifier).
[Update, 2022-01-07: I've been impressed with how organized things have been in the wake of the cancellation. We were given entry into the 2022 race, if desired, and I'm happy that the start time is now midnight. That's tough, as far as sleep deprivation goes (in my experience), but it fits the course - everyone will do the crux section in the daylight, and most will be able to do the big climb before it gets too hot. Of course, risks remain with a large number of runners, but given that the organization has demonstrated that they will reroute when conditions dictate, I think these would be acceptable to most entrants.]
So, what to say? It was certainly the least fun (including type 2 fun) race I've ever run. But that isn't the only measure of an experience. I'm very impressed and proud that everyone involved here acted with humanity and rationality - runners, organizers, even the media (bullshit SEO websites, which just copy-paste press releases, excluded). No one panicked, people were kind to one another, and I think we'll (eventually) be stronger, afterwards. We all give our condolences to the friends and family of the runner we lost.
