UTMB: THE FURTHER YOU GO. THE MORE IT ASKS
UTMB includes a lot of preparation, and things were flowing pretty well. I’m already looking forward to this anticipation, it gets addictive. The work is done, things are settled. A certain kind of calm arises. Things felt very ready.
After a summer of big numbers in vert, distance and some good efforts where the numbers all aligned, I was ready for my time.
Words — @patrickstangbye
Photography — @aks
During the day Patrick wears: Passage Cargo Vest, Planar Lightweight Cap, Range Light Tank, Ambit Ultra Short, and Pattern Active Socks.
During the night: Drift Merino SS T, Drift Merino Arm Warmers, Drift Merino Beanie, and Sphere GORE-TEX® Jacket.
To finish: Lateral Peak T for the descent into Chamonix.
I track my sleep, recovery, along with resting heart rate and heart rate variability every day. It’s just a way to check in, and potentially adjust if training is too hard. I had been in the green and some yellow all summer, but woke up two days out from the race with a significant increase in skin temperature, a 10% increase in resting heart rate and an HRV that dropped 25%. Something was off, and I did what I could to shake it off and get to the start line. There was a sense of fear after a perfect summer, and I was considering how smart it would be to start two days out, but did what I could to recover. In our team we pride ourselves on getting to the start line. That’s half the job.
I’ve quit races with stomach problems, work fatigue going into the event and wild blisters (trench foot), but I’ve always started for the love of the sport. I’m carrying my DNFs with pride, they’re a sign of a life lived. But a DNS means projects have not even started.
That’s not me, that’s not us.
The start is 2 hours delayed. I’ve planned to take a 1 PM nap to get some final sleep before the race, before a 3 PM dinner. Now the dinner can move 1 hour and I try to still get the nap in. The official information from the organisation is still not confirmed, so I go into the nap a bit uncertain if it will change or not, but a storm is coming and we’re trying to dodge it from the high peaks.
Once the gun goes off, I’m in love. This race is a dream, it means more to me than it possibly should, but it also gave me more inspiration than I could ever have anticipated.
After the first 2–3 kilometres, groups settle in a bit. People are running with effort and focus, but we all trained for this and are excited for what is ahead. It continues like this for the first climbs, some light banter here and there between the groups that have formed. I’m exactly where I had agreed it would be smart to be. My legs feel a bit tense already, unusual, but I’m trying to run as efficiently as possible and starting to fuel already for what is ahead.
I met Barrie at Les Contamines, the first crewed station at 32km. I’m about to head out into the night and will first see him very early in the morning, so I plan to grab enough nutrition for the night and bring a merino tee, some sleeves and warm gloves to keep my body temperature under control and not use too much energy on keeping warm.
At 37km my HR fell from 160 down to 90. I got dizzy and struggled to give any sort of output. This lasted for about 1 hour on this climb, and my effort dropped considerably. My HR was going up and down between my threshold pace and something that should happen more if I rest. Once it settled towards the top of the climb I was very happy, and just hoped it would not come back as it felt scary, and something I wanted to get checked.
I kept running at a consistent pace, and was happy to run again, but was being a bit careful as I was unsure of what had just happened, and did not want it to happen again. My thoughts went back to my fever and some kind of virus in the body, but I tried to shrug that off.
The running was beautiful, and not too difficult. I was fueling up on a mix of Naak cucumber drink mix, Naak gels, some rice with sea salt, honey and olive oil at the stations. I usually grabbed Red Bull, Orangina, Coca Cola and Powerade with me out of the stations in my soft flasks to not get too much palate fatigue, and I was able to drink my drink mix towards the end. I also enjoyed some hot soup during the night which was helpful, and took a handful of fruit and crackers at every bigger aid station just to put something else in my stomach.
After the night I got new energy changing my shoes and top and heading into the daylight, climbing the most beautiful part of the race up to Grand Col Ferret. I was moving OK, but was struggling downhill in general on a day where my body did not fully feel like mine. I just kept going at what felt sustainable and fueling in order to move on.
I did see Sindre at Champec Lax, which for many is a crux of the race. At about 127km there is still 35km to go at this point and about 3 fairly hard climbs. Out of my family and friends who were there, some thought I was struggling, but my dialogue with Sindre was pretty straightforward and we did what we could to refuel quickly enough and get moving. The same was for the rest of the race. I knew that after I left La Fouly a bit earlier into Switzerland I was going to finish and there was not much that could potentially stop me.
About 25 hours into the race, already about 2–3 hours over what I had expected to race on a perfect day, I started getting some hallucinations. There was still daylight, but the sun was coming down shortly after. I had experienced it before, and was fairly OK with it besides trying to figure out which rocks on the downhill were real or not.
Climbing out of Vallorcine, the last checkpoint where I saw some familiar faces, I was able to increase the speed on the last climb. It gets very technical in the forest, but I know this area by heart at this point. I’ve stayed and run a lot in this area in the past years and the familiarity was very helpful and comforting late in a race that did not go exactly as planned.
On top of the last climb I quickly filled up my last bottle for this race and started descending into town as fast as I could. There were headlamps in front of me, and I started chasing people. In the end, I'm not sure how many I caught on the last hill, but between 8 and 12 people. I knew what I came to do was soon about to be done. A dream that started 9 years ago, but a dream that is still going as I write this.
This finish proved something I already knew. Whenever I decide to, I do not need much motivation, either external or internal. Discipline is something I honour. I understand people who have a complicated relationship with it. For me discipline also gives freedom, great marathoners taught me that. Fleeting desires fade into the background. Habits and routines make long-term goals inevitable. Routines are just another tool.
This time I had colleagues, family, old friends and newer friends waiting for me at the finish line. It meant a lot to me that they were there to share my moment, but I hope also it held meaning to them in their own stories about goals and dreams. I saw other people do these things before I decided to do them myself, and other people will hopefully be inspired to go on their own adventures from my finish. I’m happy to be back and share those memories with them yet another time.
