beat the fastest North American marathoner in history to the
next exchange by over 10 minutes.
The terrain around the Mont Blanc Massif varies wildly,
from road, to gravel, to wide-open fields, then singletrack
trails. Significant portions are run in the rugged alpine, above
the tree line, where basic scrambling and climbing skills are
needed. This year also saw the most remaining snow for the
event on the mountains, meaning runners had to battle certain
sections running knee-deep in the white stuff. The third leg
even required mountaineering equipment, running with an ice
axe in crampons. On the backside of the mountain, they clipped
into to a safety line and slid down the snow-covered peak. Le
Porho and Hall did battle on this leg as well, meaning the two
faced off on the two toughest sections of the entire relay.
The other Canadian involved in the race was Barrie, Ont.
amateur runner Bill Steinberg. He was training for the Boston
Marathon last winter when he found himself watching a lot
of trail videos online about utmb by filmmaker Billy Yang
to snap himself out of the dog days of winter training. It
was serendipitous, because the next day Facebook must have
pulled that data and served up the callout for Beat The Sun on
Steinberg’s feed. He decided to apply. Steinberg only got into
running at age 38, but was now a veteran of many marathons.
Each summer he’d go out and do a 50k trail race to get off the
roads, but never thought he’d get the chance to race around
Mont Blanc one day.
In April, Steinberg received the email from the Beat The
Sun organizers just as he was crossing the border during his
drive to Boston. Out of the over 30,000 worldwide applicants,
he’d been selected for the vetting process to see if he could
contribute to an Americas team. “It said that I had 48 hours
to confirm that I could commit to the training and take the
time off to come to the Alps.” He immediately made a phone
call. “I tracked down my boss on the Saturday and said, “I know
I’m just starting my vacation, but we need to talk about me48 Canadian Running November & December 2016, Volume 9, Issue 7
Marc Daviet, Paul Calver