Some of you may recall a winter talk a few years ago by Graham Nash and John Ryan about their exploits in the Swiss Peaks 360km race, which involved hallucinations, lost phones, sleeping between ski crash mats in an abandoned hut and generally being totally knackered. I like to think I have slightly more sense than either Graham or John so when I was looking for an overseas race I immediately discounted this but instead signed up for the 100km version of the race. Graham recommend the route and when I asked about training for a 100km run he simply said “you’ll be fine”. With that detailed training plan I immediately signed up.
The route covers the final 100km of the full 360km linear route and starts in Finhaut and broadly follows the line of the Swiss/French border to finish in Bouveret on the shores of Lake Geneva with approx 6,200m of ascent. It crosses a number of cols as it passes through the very impressive Dents du Midi massif and reaches a maximum altitude of just under 2,500m. Overall the race went well for me with the usual lows and highs you expect in a run of that length with some of the night sections being particularly memorable, seeing the lights of Montreux in the distance at 2am reflecting in the Lake with the sky to the far north being lit up by flashes of lightning felt very special. What wasn’t expected was the rain and resultant mud which was pretty continual throughout the night which made the descents really slow and tricky.
As I was crossing the finishing line at 7am, Dorothy and Billy Elliott were just about to start the 44km race which covers the final section to Lake Geneva and packs in about 2,500m of ascent. While the rain had mostly stopped for them the trails by this time were even muddier as more runners had passed through and Dorothy likened it to running the Carnethy 5, not what you would normally expect for a race like this, a pair of mudclaws rather than speedgoats would have been much preferable. We all spent the rest of Saturday eating and drinking beer and watching other mud covered runners cross the finish line.
In summary these are tough well organised races set amidst some great scenery with a lakeside finish and unlike UTMB there is no lottery for entries or “running stones” required, you just sign up and accept responsibility for yourself to get round whatever course you’ve chosen. The race distances on offer next year are 360km, 170km, 100km, 70km, 44km and a 21km, so something for everyone.
Alan Renville