By Michael DoyleS
itting near the back, I watched the heads of my colleagues swaying back and
forth as our minibus struggled up the mountain road. Our group of interna-
tional journalists were on our way to a lagoon on the Italian side of the Mont
Blanc Massif in the Alps. Our day had started at 5:4 4 a.m. in Chamonix, France –
sunrise on June 21, the summer solstice. The drive through the 11.6-kilometre
tunnel beneath the mountain range had lulled many of the reporters to sleep.
We’d started the longest day of the year at Chamonix’s town square, watching
the start of Asics Beat The Sun, a 12-leg, 1 40.1-kilometre relay race around the
massif. They traverse the mountain range that straddles three countries: France,
Italy and Switzerland, which includes 8,850 m of climbing. The course also
covers much of the same terrain of another celebrated trail race, the Ultra Trail
du Mont Blanc (utmb). It’s a life-changing day for eight teams from around the
world, comprised of three amateur runners and three Asics sponsored pros. It’s
a novel format, mixing mere mortals on teams with the likes of marathoning
greats Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor. The teams representing the Americas,
Northern, Central and Southern Europe, East Asia and the Oceania-Pacific
region race against each other, but their primary goal is to literally beat the falling
sun, finishing where they started after circumnavigating the mountain range.
They have 15 hours, 41 minutes and 35 seconds to complete the course and arrive
in Chamonix by 9:27 p.m. In the two other incarnations of Beat The Sun only one
team had ever accomplished that feat, and they did it by one second.
When we arrived at the edge of a lagoon, a local guide took us for a run through
the large open valley, lorded over by the jagged Aiguille des Glaciers directly in
front of us. Mussolini ’s air force once attempted to use the long and straight dirt
path cutting through the valley as a landing strip during the Second World War,
but it was too difficult for planes to land. After zig-zagging up a steep incline we
first reached the ruins of an outpost and prison used by the Italians during the
war. On the meadow shelf 50 m above rests the Rifugio Elisabetta, a respite for
hikers and climbers, sitting at 7,200 feet. Getting there was a slog. The mountain
range was covered with deep snow. It made for a tough few hundred metres of
running, but paled in comparison to what the racers had to battle on this, the
eighth and longest stage of the relay – 19k with two steep climbs and thrilling
descents. When we reached the rifugio, our guide turned to us and said noncha-
lantly, “about 10 years ago, an avalanche tore the roof right off this building.”
We waited for the racers, in particular Ryan Hall. The fastest American mara-
thoner in history had recently retired. At the pre-race meeting, Hall, by nature
relaxed and affable, chatted about how he’d shifted his focus from staying lean
and running big mileage to putting on bulk and strength training. He admitted
that he’d only really started running again recently after months off in prepara-
tion for this event. But because of his stature as one of the great distance runners
of the last decade, he was assigned the meatiest legs. The once scrawny California
kid now loped past us, thrusting his muscular arms forward as he attempted to
maintain some modicum of grace up the snowy trail. He was in shorts and the
bright orange race shirt that said “Americas 2” across his broad chest and his new,
post-running-career signature trucker hat. After Hall crested the first portion
of the climb and disappeared up the mountain, we saw a lean figure in the red
“Americas 1” shirt closing in, moving fast. It was Canadian David Le Porho, no
slouch himself with a 2:19 marathon PB. But unlike Hall, Le Porho trains around
his day job in the plastics industry.
Last year at Beat The Sun Le Porho had a breakthrough, and was arguably the
strongest runner at the event. “My training as a snowshoe racer helps on this
terrain,” he would later tell me. Le Porho picked it up after emigrating from
France to Montreal over a decade ago and has since become a two-time champion.
Le Porho revealed before the race that he was excited to compete against Hall and
had always been a fan. Somewhere deep in the mountains after Le Porho sailed
by us, he caught up with Hall. They ran together for about two kilometres as the
weather worsened. It began to rain and the wind blew so hard that both runners
stopped to put on their jackets. They carried on together, exchanging few words.
Le Porho realized Hall was fatigued, falling back, so he carried on alone. He wouldEach year, a group of athletes from around
the world assemble in the Alps to race 140K
around the iconic Mont Blanc Massif.
But their true adversary isn’t so much each
other, or even the thousands of feet of
elevation or knee-deep snow-capped
mountain peaks they must traverse;
it’s that they must finish before the sun sets.
runningmagazine.ca Canadian Running 47Alexandre Buisse