From our special correspondent in Chamonix,
We knew there was a personal story behind each of the 2,684 participants in a race as insane as the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB). This is why on the occasion of this 20th UTMB, 20 minutes has chosen to follow four amateur trail runners, from the preparation for this “race of a lifetime” to an apotheosis in their new finisher costume in Chamonix this Sunday (or not). To do this, they had to complete the 170 km and 10,000 m of elevation gain all around Mont-Blanc in less than 46h30, after two full nights of scrambling on the alpine trails. At 42, Gaëtan Honoré did not think he would one day hear the essential Conquest of Paradise de Vangelis, behind the starting arch of the colossal race. He had however completed a marathon from the age of 25, when he was a student in Lyon, before finishing the SaintéLyon (78 km) in 2008 and 2009.
“La SaintéLyon was my Grail at the time,” he explains. For me, the UTMB was too big, too far from my development zone. But this thinking completely changed just after the tragedy of November 13, 2015. Gaëtan Honoré indeed attended the Eagles of Death Metal concert that evening at the Bataclan, the central location of the attacks in Paris. Three weeks after this night of horror, he insisted on honoring his registration for the SaintExpress (44 km in Saint-Etienne) which he finished. “I had a realization: I had to do the things that I had in mind, but that I didn’t dare to do for a whole host of reasons. It may sound cliché but I wanted to stop being a spectator, and really become an actor in my life. From there, the UTMB became a goal. There are plenty of other great races, but the UTMB is still something special, a crazy atmosphere. »
“We have other projects but we can’t get into them”
But also three times more registration requests than amateur runners selected via a draw. Gaëtan Honoré, who lives in Nièvre, therefore takes his troubles patiently with five consecutive refusals from the organizers. And then came this January 20, 2023, when he opened an email on the train that he no longer hoped for. “I was extremely moved. It remains an incredible chance to be drawn. I could hardly believe it when I received this message titled “2023 will be a special year for you”. Just like for Virginie Chevriot (40 years old) and Adrien Rota (29 years old), who did not know each other before… the 2021 edition of the UTMB. Former vice-champion of France junior pole vault, Adrien ensures that weekend the assistance of his father Pascal, registered for the event (and finisher in 41 hours).
He finally finds himself accompanied by Virginie, a trail lover wishing to discover the atmosphere of the ultra world summit in Chamonix, and thus say hello to Pascal Rota, manager of the running shop where she regularly goes to Seine-et -Marl. “The UTMB has always made me dream, this race was in my sights, explains Virginie. Finally, Pascal’s two days of assistance turned into a somewhat special date. It was a magical weekend. “As a couple for two years, they could not have hoped for better than to participate themselves in this legendary ultra-trail, alongside friends and Pascal, also part of Chamonix for his “trailer jubilee” at 60 years old. . While looping together large chunks such as the Grand Trail des Templiers (81 km), that of Nice included in the UTMB circuit (115 km) and the Maxi-Race of Annecy (90 km), Virginie and Adrien have long been completely turned towards this UTMB Mont-Blanc with immense symbolism for them.
By accompanying my father in 2021, I realized the same evening that it had become the goal of my life, Adrien confided to us on Friday morning. I studied all the rules of the race the next day. I had to be once in my life at all costs. As we had the same ambitions with Virginie, that motivated us to launch the project together. We talk about the UTMB every day. We have other projects but we can’t get into it as we have our minds set on this race. From September 4, we will move on to more down to earth things. »
Our Ile-de-France residents spend every other weekend in the mountains
Based in Lésigny (Seine-et-Marne), these two amateur trail runners run a hundred kilometers (and 5,000 m of D +) per week. Every other weekend before their ultimate meeting in the Alps, they go to the mountains. In July, they even carried out a reconnaissance of the UTMB in four days. “When you have to plan between 10 and 15 hours of training per week, it’s a great advantage to share this passion. We understand each other, we help each other to take a step back, ”appreciates this mother of two children aged 12 and 15, who works in communication just like her companion.
This professional life has not been on the program for a very long time for Christian Bourbon. And for good reason, this Isérois is the French dean of the UTMB 2023, at 72 years old. Finishing in 2019 of the CCC (100 km race part of the UTMB Mont-Blanc) in 26 hours, but also of the 133 km of the Santa Claus race (it can not be invented) at Les Herbiers (Vendée) in 2022, he began to push his limits once retired.
“Running heals me”, slips Christian Bourbon, 72
“I had a busy family and professional life,” he says. I have time now to train five times a week, for 100 km on average. This is why I have admiration for young people aged 30-40 who are on the UTMB. There is no doubt that the reverse is (at least) as true, as it seems crazy to see him attempt to finish such a long ultra-trail for the first time in his life. His only precedent was the Ultra 01 (169 km) in Ain, which he had abandoned after 58 km, at the end of the first night.
There are some who barely have white hair and who say to themselves that I am a little freakish to be on such races at my age. But as long as you can move, you have to go. My wife makes it clear to me that I am 72 years old and that I should perhaps slow down. But I almost never have a big physical problem. And that’ll make you smile, running heals me. I sometimes have back pain, and it goes away. »
However, he did not hide a certain excitement, a few minutes before the start at 6 p.m. on Friday: “My only objective is to finish by Sunday at 4:30 p.m. It’s going to be really hard to leave for two nights…”, he confided. The first will unfortunately be fatal to Christian Bourbon, forced to give up at La Balme (km 40), where he could not pass the intermediate time barrier, set at 2 am. “He needs to digest his race,” one of her friends, in charge of her assistance, has since simply whispered to us.
“I like to be alone against the elements, the course, the climbs”
At the same time, in a difficult first night, Gaëtan Honoré is plagued by multiple vomiting. But the director of the Higher Institute of Catholic Education in Dijon, father of Adonis (16 years old) and Mazarine (11 years old), is as if inhabited by this event, and it takes much more to see it consider quitting. “The surpassing of oneself is at the end of the garden, he slipped Friday morning. Personally, only trail running transports me like that. The adventure of running is very low and very high, intense, that’s what I want to experience. It helps me both to distance myself from November 13 and to live with it. I like to be alone against the elements, the course, the climbs. »
Loneliness was only really on the program from Saturday, when the race began to really stretch, at the same time as the large number of abandonments swelled (931 in total). Against all expectations, Adrien Rota was one of them from Saturday at 9:40 a.m., when he arrived at Lake Combal (km 68, Italy), after 2:39 p.m. of Calvary. “I had stiff legs from the start and I especially quickly found myself shattered by fatigue, and I chained nap after nap in vain, regrets the young Parisian, who hoped to complete his first UTMB in 32 hours. I probably mismanaged my Friday before departure. I was, however, ready. I dreamed so much of finishing this race that I think I will come back one day to finish it. In the meantime, he has turned into an unexpected assistant to his partner and his father, who have completed most of this 20th UTMB together.
The “chopped body” of Gaëtan Honoré on arrival
The big odds were there, since Pascal Rota suffered from sciatica, and Virginie Chevriot, who was aiming for the 40 hours of racing, was injured two weeks before D-Day. “We had done a great preparation, with 1,500 km and 60,000 m of D + in four months, And there, bim, the first muscle injury of my life, with a tear of three centimeters. » 45 hours and 41 minutes after her departure, big strap on the left thigh and protection on the right knee, she returned triumphant, in 1,611th finisher, alongside her father-in-law under the arch of Chamonix, after sacred suffering in three different countries.
Two hours earlier, Gaëtan Honoré (1,227th in 43:14) had experienced such a discharge of contagious happiness, able to make him forget hallucinating blisters and “a minced body”, with two ten-minute naps on the counter since Friday morning. “There is a form of culmination in all this, he confides, radiant before spinning off to devour a Savoyard hamburger and fries on the terrace (and in flip-flops). I learned a lot about myself. I experienced moments of very low intensity like never before, but there was never any question of not finishing this race. And for me, who became insomniac eight years ago, I realized how vital sleep was. “It would no longer be missing that he performs this Sunday his first night of more than five hours since November 13, 2015.