In 2018, I was on one of the press vehicles for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the 106-mile race around the Mont Blanc massif that is widely regarded as the most prestigious event on the ultra circuit. At around 3 a.m., on September 1, a local guide led some members of the media on a hike up the Grand Col Ferret section of the course–a vaunted mountain pass between Italy and Switzerland. With its views of the Pré-de-Bar glacier and sublime panoramas of granite and sky, the Col Ferret is a highlight for the legions of hikers who travel to the massif every year.
Unfortunately, most of this mountain splendor was lost on me as I was focused on trying to keep up with our guide. We needed to get over the pass before the race leaders came through so that the photographers could get their shots. This meant pushing the pace. Never mind basking in the moonlit glories of a late-summer night in the Alps; I was just trying not to puke.
That is the UTMB in a nutshell: the tantalizing proximity of beauty and pain. According to Strava, the ascent portion of the Col Ferret features 2,540 feet of elevation gain over 2.69 miles, with an average grade of 17.5 percent. It definitely felt that way. I was in decent shape at the time, but this mere amuse-bouche of the UTMB suffer-fest was enough to almost bring me to my knees. At one point, I remember looking back and seeing the bobbing headlamps of the race leaders in the distance and thinking: What kind of person would try to race the whole damn thing?
Many people, it turns out. Last year’s UTMB had 1,758 finishers (and 931 DNFs), but the annual number of applicants always exceeds the number of available spots. Getting to the UTMB start line is an endurance event unto itself; most bibs are allotted via a lottery system where your odds correlate to how many UTMB-branded events you’ve completed in the past two years. (Not everyone is thrilled with the company’s increasingly hegemonic presence on the international trail running scene.) Even in an era where ultras abound, the UTMB experience still holds a particular allure, partly because the race has a reputation for being very hard.
Competitive Entry
Doug Mayer, a Chamonix, France, resident who has run two UTMBs and recently published a book on the history of the race, told me that the daunting entry process can make participating feel like a special privilege and an opportunity one dares not waste. “It’s everybody’s ‘A’ race, and there’s so much drama that there ends up being a lot of self-imposed pressure,” Mayer says. “Everyone who is at that start has worked for several years to get there.”
I heard something similar from Stephanie Case, a human rights lawyer for the United Nations who has contested ultras all over the world, including the UTMB. “Runners might only get one shot at the course, and it can be hard for them not to let it mess with their heads,” Case told me.
As Mayer puts it: “It’s easy to make stupid mistakes when you’re caught up in the drama of the event.”
Massive Climbs and Unique Terrain
Mayer notes that the UTMB course includes roughly “nine or ten really big climbs” and that runners “really need to play their cards right.” This is, of course, true for any race, but the stakes are exponentially higher when the race in question includes roughly 33,000 feet of elevation gain and, for the average UTMB finisher, around 40 hours on the course.
The pros have learned that lesson the hard way, too. When I watched the leaders come through that year on the Col Ferret, the American runner Zach Miller had what looked like an insurmountable cushion on the rest of the field, along with Frenchman Xavier Thévenard. Seeing Miller rip down the mountain into Switzerland, I wondered if he might become the first American man to win the race. However, by the time Miller got to the relatively serene terrain of Champex-Lac, only 15 miles later, his race was done.
In an email, the elite American runner Stephanie Howe, who won the 2014 edition of Western States, told me that many American stars had historically struggled at the UTMB because they were unaccustomed to such steep terrain and tended to go out too fast and blow up. “Even those that come over four to five weeks ahead of time, that’s not enough time to really slow down and get proficient at hiking. I think it takes years to hone this skill,” Howe told me.
She noted that Jim Walmsley, long the undisputed king of Western States, had to live in the French Alps for almost two years before he finally won the race last year in his fifth attempt.
Needless to say, the vast majority of amateur runners can’t move to France for a year of course recon. Nobuyori Takeda is an ultrarunner from New Jersey who has raced the UMTB and several North American ultras, from big-ticket events like Western States to small field races like the Wyoming Range 100-Mile Endurance Run. (Takeda is also a friend of mine and former training partner.) He agreed that the UTMB can be especially challenging for flatlanders and that being familiar with such a technical course definitely provides a mental edge. As Takeda points out, the only flat-ish section of the race comes during the first five miles. After that, you are either climbing or descending–for one hundred miles. Hence, as he puts it, the UTMB is “not for the rhythm runner and more for the grinder who is able to navigate the terrain and the gradient.”
Jet Lag
Takeda also echoed the point that Americans (or, more generally, runners who don’t hail from Central Europe) might have an especially tough time. For one thing, the effects of jet lag are exacerbated when you’re potentially going to be racing through not one but two nights. (The UTMB starts at 6 p.m. local time.)
Unfamiliar Aid Station Food
What’s more, unlike many 100-milers in the U.S., the UTMB does not allow pacers on the course. And the on-course fueling options reflect a local palate heavy on charcuterie. “The unfamiliarity with European aid station foods like cold cuts and cheese doesn’t help individuals coming from places like America or Asia,” Takeda told me.
Amelia Watts, a physical therapist from the UK who ran the UTMB in 2015 and 2018, says she avoided the official race fueling stations altogether and relied exclusively on her pre-made meals; in her case, pureed Bolognese and rice. Her support person would drive ahead and give her food at designated checkpoints.
This speaks to a logistical challenge that might be more prevalent at the UTMB than at comparatively small-scale events. “The UTMB is a big race, so I think if you’re in the main pack, sometimes your support group can get stuck in some pretty bad traffic,” says Watts. “I know people whose support team just hasn’t gotten there on time.”
Variable Weather
Then, there is the extremely variable mountain weather. Watts told me that the first time she ran the race, it was so “phenomenally hot” that there were medics at the top of many of the big climbs to treat runners for heat exhaustion. The second time she ran, athletes were required to pack cold-weather gear. Indeed, that year, thanks to strong winds and rain, the conditions had forced some runners to DNF because of hypothermia.
A Unique Start Time
UTMB’s evening start time is another key factor that sets the race apart from some of the better-known ultras in the U.S. Western States, Leadville, and Hardrock, for instance, all begin in the early morning. For Watts, running through the night knowing that she still had (at least) one more full day to run through constituted a unique psychological challenge.
As she told me, “I have a really distinct memory from my first year of going up this one particular hill quite early on and literally saying to myself: I just need to get to the halfway point of the race, and then I’m going to stop. Because this is horrible. It’s dark. I can’t see where I’m going, and this hill feels like it’s going on forever.’”
She ended up finishing in 33 hours, 28 minutes, and 42 seconds.
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