Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc – An odyssey between Mercury and Pluto, an inner journey

First of all, a word of appreciation for my family: without them, none of this would be possible.

Then, another word of appreciation for everyone who supported me and followed me throughout these fantastic hours: believe me, I carry you with me in my soul.

With this, I complete my third 100-mile race. All different, all magnificent.

This time, for the first time, I set a time goal. I wanted to finish the race in less than 32 hours. I made a plan, created my little Excel sheet with the necessary passing times at each checkpoint (basically, I took the information from the organization regarding the expected times for the first checkpoint and added 55%).

And during the first 125 km, I followed my plan to the letter. I was slightly delayed on the climb to La Giete at km 136, when it started to get dark, but it was still achievable.

The problem was that from then on, I couldn’t run the downhills. I could only manage a slow trot, which became slower as the subsequent descents continued, until I was barely dragging myself down the last descent: the 11 km of Tête aux Vents took a whopping 240 minutes, whereas according to the plan, it should have taken only 90 minutes.

The most important thing of all is that I reached the finish line exhausted but healthy, and that gives me immense satisfaction. The ones that taste the best are the ones that hurt the most, and I don’t regret for a single minute being ambitious.

Since I can’t set goals to win anything, I can stay in the race even when the time goal is already out of reach.

An elite athlete cannot afford such luxury.

Lessons for the future: train for very long descents and do specific muscle strengthening.

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who fills my life with good things!

Videos from UTMB (moments of rare beauty)