Since winter finished I have been back in Wales for a few weeks doing a little running and working in Snowdonia. It is a great place to get some training in for the Mont Blanc Marathon which I signed up for months ago and it sure came around quickly!
Snowdonia
Arriving back in Chamonix in early June I spent a few days up high on my skinny skis enjoying the last of the spring corn. Mainly this was just spent touring around the Aiguille du Midi and a quick jaunt up the Tour Ronde with Pete. This was great to re-aclimatise and get back into the high mountains.
When the Flegere ski area reopened for the summer this meant the Aiguille Rouge was easily accessible again. Heading up the Crouches-Berrard traverse with Dave Searle and Pete we went fast and light and enjoyed running around in the snow and traversing this classic ridge.
As the month of June was coming to an end this meant the marathon was close! I will am honest when I say I have only been on 4 worth while training runs ranging from 9-16miles. Entering the Marathon I was originally planning just to finish, to see if I could complete the big task ahead. After running some of these training runs in fairly good time I then set myself a goal of 7 hours for the 42km with 2750m of height gain. The nerves were felt in the morning but after a 7am start I just focused on the race. Getting off to a good pace I felt strong for the first half. After loosing some time on the big descent around the 15mile mark I had dropped 200 places. With the final long push back up to the finish at Brevent I gained almost 180 places and finished in a time of 6 hours 54 Â minutes. 659 overall place out of 2650 and 355 out of 981 in the senior mens.
I am really proud of my time and I might be tempted to run again in the future, but might train some more before the race!
I am heading back to Wales for the summer so will be doing a lot more running and some Welsh trad climbing, before returning to Chamonix for the Winter.
Joel Evans 