The last miles of the race I needed to dig really deep just to reach the last check point of the race where I eventually decided to drop.
I tried almost everything to fight my GI distress that started bothering me already after 15km of the race. After the 20th km of the race the nausea added to the equation and the vomiting sensations never left me during the rest of the race.
My energy intake wasn't there. It was insignificant if compared to the effort.
During my 110km of the race I managed to consume:
- 5 energy gels
- 1lt of energy drink
- 1 Moonvalley energy bar
- 2 cups of soup
- 60gr of pasta.
That's it!
Amazingly, drinking water was never an issue. At least I could rinse my body after the "emptying process"....
I was really sad of the necessity to leave the race. But I was shaking, could not focus and my sight was compromised. That was simply not the place to play hero and push for more 60km.
At the end of the day I have to be happy with this new record for me: I raced for 100km in the Alps with almost no fuel in my body! How crazy is that!? :)
The mountain will hopefully accept my presence again in the future and I will have more luck in the process. This time the failure was not the result of my error like in 2019.
I will be back. I love the race and the whole feeling of the race.
I love less the new UTMB concept and the price that the athletes need to pay just to be into the race. It doesn't help the sport and it forces the athletes to participate in races that are expensive, tough to enter and there is always the need to travel a lot. It's not nature-friendly.... not anymore. And this is something that is sad to me....
Still, we do love the sport. I will race some local races in 2024, enjoy the trails in Sweden and perhaps do one or two races abroad. We'll see about that...
Feel free to follow my evolution.... I'm just 50 years young! ;)
HUGE thanks to my family for the immense support, my friends and Glenn that shared the first 85k of the race with me...
Kind Regards,
Aramis
