Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 202X - S03E01 - Looming on the horizon
“Most
runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want
to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years,
it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a
fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the
fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running,
and a metaphor for life. (…)”
- Haruki Murakami, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional"
- Haruki Murakami, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"
"There is no evidence that people became more intelligent with time. Foragers knew the secrets of nature long before the Agricultural Revolution, since their survival depended on an intimate knowledge of the animals they hunted and the plants they gathered. Rather than heralding a new era of easy living, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying than those of foragers. Hunter-gatherers spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease. The Agricultural Revolution certainly enlarged the sum total of food at the disposal of humankind, but the extra food did not translate into a better diet or more leisure. Rather, it translated into population explosions and pampered elites. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager, and got a worse diet in return."
- Yuval Harari
“What is best about our lives -the moments when we are, as we would put it, at our happiest- is both pleasant and deeply unpleasant. Happiness is not a feeling; it is a way of being. If we focus on the feelings, we will miss the point.”
― Mark Rowlands, The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness
"Eight days with a fever! I could have written another book ..."
- Honoré de Balzac, just before he felt into a coma.
“If you see me collapse, pause my Garmin.”
– Unknown
Alice: “How Long is Forever?”
White Rabbit: “Sometimes, just one second”.
- Lewis Carrol
I believe that the purpose of life is not happiness: it is meaning.
horizon definition:
an imaginary line that recedes as we approach
This longing for completing en Extreme Endurance Experience such as the 349 km with 30.900 mD+ of Tor Des Géants, has been following me for some years now.
It all started in 2015 after completing the 170 km of UTMB, and has gone through several metamorphosis, until I was selected for the 2021 edition.
Unfortunately by the summer of 2021 I was far from being in good health conditions to undertake such an enormous task, and so I was forced to delay the dream to a more auspicious time.
Here is a compilation of all my Posts related to Tor Des Géants. As you can see, I really obsess over this race.
350 km / 30.000 mD+
Six
friends raced in 2015. The weather was extreme and the race had to be
interrupted. Only 6 runners reached the final line. The winner was
Patrick Bohard, a 51 year old athlete:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2015 - Relato de uma prova seguida à distância
In 2015, after completing the 170 kms of Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc,
I set my sights on Tor des Géants. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2016
I did not feel prepared to run such a challenging race:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E00 - Próximo objetivo
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E01 - Pré-Inscrição
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E02 - Sorteio
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E03 - Adiamento
In 2020, I attempted once more to get a starting line ticket and the draw was favorable once again.
Unfortunately the Covid-19 Pandemic burst into existence in late Winter 2020, and the race was postponed to 2021:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E01 - Próximo objetivo
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E02 - 10ª Edição
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E03/E04
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E05
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E06
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E07
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - S01E08 - Sorteio
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2020 - Farewell, see you in 2021
On November 2020, I started my preparation to race in 2021:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2021 - S02E00 - Rei Morto Rei Posto
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2021 - S02E01 - Teaser
Unfortunately by the summer of 2021 I was far from being in good health
conditions to undertake such an enormous task, and so I was forced to
delay the dream to a more auspicious time.
But the begining is a good point to start. Here it is:
In September 2015, after completing the UTMB 170K in August, with great suffering, I was already starting to forget the pain and longing to face an even bigger challenge:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E00 - Próximo objetivo
Nothing
short of completing the challenging and mythical 24,000 mD+ 330K of the
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail in the Valle d'Aosta in northern Italy
in less than 150 hours!
The trail is a tour of Aosta Valley following the two "High Routes" of the region, the Italian: Alta Via n.2 or French: Haute route n°2[3] for the first half of the race, and the Italian: Alta Via n.1 or French: Haute route n°1[4] for
the second half of the race. During the tour, the runners cross 34
municipalities, 25 mountain passes over 2000 metres, 30 alpine lakes and
2 natural parks. The minimum altitude is 300 m (985ft) and the highest
is 3,300 m (10800ft). The total elevation gain is about 24,000 m
(78700ft).[5]
- Wikipedia
I followed the race closely in 2015:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2015 - Relato de uma prova seguida à distância
Then, on February 1, 2016, at 12:00, I pre-registered for the race:
https://dorsal1967.blogspot.com/2016/02/tor-des-geants-2016-pre-inscricao.html
Pre-registrations closed with 2544 candidates
The draw took place on Wednesday 24/02 at 18h00 and I was one of the lucky ones with a place for the 2016 edition:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E02 - Sorteio
https://www.random.org/draws/details/?draw=86822
Unfortunately,
my sports year left a lot to be desired, and in August I decided I was
not in a position to take part in such an extreme adventure:
Tor des Géants Endurance Trail - TDG 2016 - S01E03 - Adiamento
My participation was postponed sine die.
Now that 3 years passed by, and I have already successfully completed a 100-mile adventure after a 3-year desert, it seems to me that the time has come for me to take on this MEGA challenge again:
Novos Desafios
For an adventure of this magnitude, I would like to plan 12 months of training, or roughly 13 4-week mesocycles.
More than the distance covered, the most important thing is to include a lot of climb, positive and negative, in training.
The
ideal would be about 100K with 4,000 mD + and D- per week. But this is
difficult to achieve as about half of the distance and almost all of the
gap will be necessarily completed on the weekends.
One should
also do muscle strengthening and / or cross training. Muscle
strengthening does not necessarily has to be done in the gym, but it is
easier to do it in the gym than at home alone.
As for cross-training, I would especially like to (re) start swimming training, because I am interested in taking part in Swimrun circuit events.
I
consider that the first Mesocycle already includes this year's 100-mile
race, as it was the success in this one that gave me the motivation to
move on to a bigger challenge, as well as 3 weeks of (little) active
rest.
1st Mesocycle
(29, 30, 31 and 32 weeks of 2019 - 15/07 a 11/08)
One of the variables that is always important to control for is weight:
As
usual, after the big challenge of the year, I feel the need to eat and
drink without restrictions, and always increase 6 to 8 lb in a short
time.
It is worth reading the following article on this topic, weight control:
Coaching “Race Weight” Intelligently: A Case Study
Another
important variable is the amount of sleep. It is very important to be
able to rest well: in my case, the ideal would be 8 hours of sleep per
day:
A
telling indicator of whether we are getting enough rest is the resting
heart rate. It is easy to see that I have not yet recovered from my
100-mile race in July:
The March and April values are due to a peak of work and little rest:
In
my strategy for preparing for the 100 miles of Ronda dels Cims, I
focused mainly on completing a lot of volume and ascend at the expense
of training quality.
Now I should start introducing more speed and power workouts:
Weekly Microcycles:
After the very intense week of the race, the most recent 3 weeks have been active rest.
I should have taken the opportunity to do cross training at this time, but I had no strength or motivation to do so.
In
fact, after such an effort of a 100 mile race, you feel like anything
but running. And that's precisely what happened in these latest 3
microcycles: willingness to race: none!
Let's see if it returns now, because other intermediate challenges lie ahead, on the way to the Tor.
A
little note about mesocycle-based training planning: A mesocycle is a
training period consisting of several weekly microcycles. In my case, I
chose to make 4 microcycles for each mesocycle. The theory goes that
from microcycle to microcycle one should increase the load and intensity
of training until after completing the last one it reduces again.
What is expected from the body is overcompensation:
Teoria e Metodologia do Treino
Good
planning of intermediate challenges is very important for the
successful completion of a XXL race, as it is not possible to complete
train runs long enough to allows us to evaluate our condition for such
an effort.
Until December I have nothing extremely challenging.
But by April or June I expect to have something scheduled that will
allow me to perform a test on my physical and mental condition.
My training measure, since I started training regularly in 2008, combines distance with altimetry as follows:
km-effort = distance (km) + 10 x ascent (km).
This is best explained here:
ITRA Performance Index - Tudo o que nunca quis saber nem teve vontade de perguntar
I
resumed training in August last year after a hiatus with 12 very weak
mesocycles (below 200 km-effort per week). For me a good mesocycle is
one that is over 400 km-effort.
As I explain in this post:
III Ehunmilak 2012 - Preparação - 2º Mesociclo
The
biggest difficulty is undoubtedly maintaining the freshness, both
physical and mental, necessary to fulfill a demanding training plan.
Recovery between training and races is not easy and lack of time induces
the tendency to cut back on stretching and flexibility exercises,
essential to avoid injury. You are chronically accompanied by pain: a
poorly healed contracture, butchered knees, lower back pain, pubalgia,
sore feet, etc ...
Much of the time, it is necessary to practice
solo, and many hours on the mountain trails require a contemplative
spirit and some dose of introspection. You must train in any weather
conditions, withstanding the discomfort of rain, cold or heat.
Finally,
constancy and persistence are necessary conditions, and if accompanied
by some study, discernment and hard work, can also become sufficient
conditions to achieve ambitious goals.
To see if I'm sticking to a good plan, I like to compare my training metrics with counterparts from previous years:
The average value of the previous seven years is shown in the black bar.
To make reading easier, I present the same graph but only with the values of my best year 2015, current year and average:
More important than the distance, for me the most significant is the positive climb: 
Just running:
My running philosophy is explained here:
Some useful information:
Regulation:
https://www.tordesgeants.it/en/content/tor-des-g%C3%A9ants%C2%AE/regulations-tor-des-g%C3%A9ants%C2%AE-2019
There are no qualifying races.
The registration costs 750€.
https://www.tordesgeants.it/en/content/downloads
https://www.tordesgeants.it/en/news/useful-information-2-tranports-and-accomodation
https://www.tordesgeants.it/en/media-center
https://www.youtube.com/user/tordegeants
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tordesgeants/
https://www.instagram.com/tordesgeants/?hl=en
DATE
The Tor des Géants® will take place from 8th to 15th September 2019, with the start set for 12.00 on Sunday 8 September from Courmayeur.
Runners must complete the route by 6 pm on Saturday 14th September, and prizes will be awarded on Sunday 15th September. The maximum time allotted for completion of the race is 150 hours.
https://www.100x100trail.com/it/elenco-iscritti/116/all
Tor des Glaciers:
Tor des Géants
Wikipedia
Tor Des Géants® - ITRA
Certified Track - ITRA
tor-des-geants-2019-novedades-y-guia-del-corredor
Tor des Géants - ahotu Marathons
THE MONTANE TOR DES GÉANTS
RUI SEQUEIRA: DA SERRA DE SINTRA AO TOR DES GÉANTS
Running 330 km Through the Alps: Natalie’s Tor des Géants
Facing Giants
TOR DES GEANTS: THE HARDEST ULTRATRAIL
Tor des Geants 2013 – Race Preview
TOR DES GEANTS 2018 RACE REPORT
Some isteresting stats in the following blog:
Tor des Géants: some statistics
Le Saux Christophe 2:01 (2011)
Millet Guillaume 2:06 (2010)
Colle Franco 2:11 (2012)
Karrera Iker 2:11 (2013)
Voeffray Julien 2:25 (2013)
Most people stay a bit less than 20 hours in the basi vita. Like the ranking of long sleepers indicated, the time in the basi vita decreased since 2010. The distribution of 2013 looks interesting. It looks like the people that would normally stay in the basi vita for about 10 hours have been trying to push their time inside further down. I assume that this are competitive runners that have learned from previous editions that sleeping as little as possible is the winning strategy at the Tor.
We see that people like to finish around 130 hours and around 145 hours into the race. They avoid to finish 135-140 hours into the race. In fact what we see is that people don’t like finishing at night. Over time we see that the fraction of finishers on day 6 has increased. This is probably not very surprising. What it means is that the increased number of participants (is has approximately doubled since the first edition in 2010) is mainly added in the back of the pack. That is something you see in any running distance.
The analysis follows in the next posts:
Tor des Géants: leg 1
VIDEOS:
News:
Carlos Sá alcança 4º lugar, com 80h20'24''
461 finishers.
Classificação 2017
Track of Tor des Glaciers 2019 (450K & 32.000 mD+):
Photo compilation:
Fotos:
BLOGS:
"It strikes me that there are several skills necessary in these XXXL races that are unique to them and require deliberate focus and management to get through."
In the Really Long Run
PACKING FOR TOR DES GÉANTS - BY MATT DOVE
Inspiring stories from Tor des Géants and the summits around Aosta Valley
JEZZ BRAG
Facing Giants
Carlos Sá
WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE TO RACE TOR DES GEANTS
AnnaB's Race Reports
Tor des Geants -or how much can you experience in four days?
along a path
«So how did Bosatelli, the 47-year-old fireman from a town outside of Bergamo, Italy, whose longest previous distance run was 180 meters, do? What was his strategy? According to an interview he gave at the halfway stage, he said, “I don’t have a strategy, I’m just following how I feel. And what I feel is good.”»
The Tor Des Geants 2016: Battling the Giants
TOR DES GEANTS 2015
Tor Des Geants, Take 3 – Getting the Monkey Off My Back
Tor des Geants 2017: the Race I Couldn’t Quit
Race Report
https://preydefiant.com/case-study-lessons-on-sleep-motivation-fuelling-from-tor-des-geants/
Tor de Geants Practicalities
CARLOS SÁ ALCANÇA 4º LUGAR NO TOR DES GÉANTS
TOR DES GÉANTS 2015
Interview with Alex Ouziel about TOR DES GÉANTS
TOR DES GEANTS RACE REPORT 2013
Running 330 km Through the Alps: Natalie’s Tor des Géants
The Persistence of Memory
Mountain Running – Tor des Géants – Nick Hollon
Cidadão de Corrida
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog
https://www.tordesgeants.it/en/tor-blog
Comments
Post a Comment