Congrats to all runners of the UTMB 2023 this weekend, but most particularly to Alexis Baron a friend and colleague of our daughter in Martinique, who finished 164th in less than 30 hours the 172.2km length and 9967m elevation race.
Archive for UTMB
UTMB congratulations!
Posted in Kids, Mountains, Running with tags Chamonix, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Courmayer, French Alps, Italian Alps, Martinique, Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, Swiss Alps, Ultratrail du Mont Blanc, UTMB on September 4, 2023 by xi'anone more time around the block [UTMB 22]
Posted in Mountains, Running, Travel with tags altitude running, Chamonix, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Courmayer, French Alps, Italian Alps, Mont Blanc, Pays du Mont-Blanc, Swiss Alps, trail running, Ultratrail du Mont Blanc, UTMB on August 22, 2022 by xi'anrunning the UTBM
Posted in Statistics with tags Butte Montmartre, Chamonix, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Fondation du Souffle, Mont Blanc, Paris, road race, ultratrail, Ultratrail du Mont Blanc, Urban Trail de la Butte Montmartre, UTMB on July 16, 2020 by xi'antrailers versus mountaineers?
Posted in Kids, Mountains, Running, Travel with tags Alps, climbing, Everest, hiking, Mont Blanc, montain running, Monte Blanco, mountaineering, swimming pool, trail running, ultratrail, UTMB on August 31, 2019 by xi'anA slight altercation in a swimming corridor during lunch put me back into this Le Monde paper I read yesterday about (real?!) mountaineers being annoyed at trailers, especially those currently running the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). A lady stopped me from going further for not crawling as this was a “crawl only” lane and started a lengthy tirade that I cut short by moving to another lane. I find such debates pretty absurd and rather hypocritical. When the fundamental goal is mostly to reduce the number of people on the trails, in the mountains, or in the pool by creating categories with those in and those out. This seems an unavoidable human trend that happened several times in mountaineering, from the early days when going above a certain limited was prohibited to those when climbing solo, rope-free, mixed style, without a registered guide or certificate, &tc. base-jumping, was or became taboo. It is annoying to see crowds in the mountains, whether on the Everest final sketch or on the UTMB track, for sure, but by nature these are singular events and the next peak is almost surely free. It is also annoying to find other climbers on one’s chosen route as they will certainly cause delays, but this is the nature of the game and the next route may well be free. I thus find pretty annoying that some claim their rights to enjoy mountains are higher or purer than others, whom they accuse of elitism and ill-placed competition, when themselves are far from free of the same defect.