When you are running through hell — keep running

It was Aug 29, the clock was ticking down to the flag-off time of 5.30pm and nothing could get me down. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins; I was this close to realising a dream four years in the making.

The familiar UTMB tune, Conquest of Paradise, played, the countdown concluded, and we were off.

The first 8km of the race was flat, with ringing cowbells, cries of “allez, allez” and the tooting of car horns spurring us on. Then came the first ascent of about 700m up to Le Delevret.
A French fellow racer had warned me at the starting line that the first descent could be a very slippery affair, but even going uphill in the rain proved a challenge, with other runners lending a push to get me on my way.

On the first descent, I took a tumble and got myself covered in mud. Like a car on wet ice, I was slipping and sliding with hardly any traction for the next few kilometres. But I was grateful that the rain lasted only for the first four to five hours of the race, and temperatures held at a comfortable 14 to 15°C with no chilly winds.

I had made quick work of the first 64km, but soon hit a speedbump when I started vomiting after the Lac Combal checkpoint. A fellow runner kindly asked if I was okay, and I replied in the affirmative. He laughed and said, “This is ultra-running.” 

Indeed, I had learnt from previous ultra-races to be patient and to wait for the dark moments to pass. The month leading up to the race had been a similar test of endurance and faith – with my training schedule thrown out of whack by an extended bout of flu, my goal for the UTMB was simply to complete the race inside the time limit of 46 hours.

My journey to the UTMB, however, stretched further back: The dream of running “the queen of the courses” was seeded in 2010 after I completed my first ultra-race in Singapore. It is the dream of many trail runners, and I went about accumulating the necessary points to register for the UTMB by taking part in qualifying races.

I chalked up points through the HK-100 Ultra Trail Race in 2012 and the 161km Ultra-Trail Mt Fuji in 2013, and scored a spot in the UTMB’s balloting exercise earlier this year. I was incredibly lucky: Some runners ballot for years without any success. In the six months leading up to the race, I made several trips to Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan to conquer mountains and condition myself. My friends and I spent days wending our way through densely forested, rocky terrain and completing trails with elevation gains of over 5,000m.

The challenging trails of Asia prepared me well. Compared to my runs in Gunung Binaiya in Maluku and Mt Gede Pangrango in Java, for instance, the UTMB, with a total elevation gain of 9,600m, is long but less technical. Its trail had fewer loose rocks and did not require the use of one’s hands to climb up tree roots in its trickiest parts. 

Back to the Alps, my luck did not improve even after a change of shoes and socks at the Courmayeur checkpoint at the 77km mark. I was still feeling wretched, my stomach unable to retain any water, much less food.

I trudged to the 95km mark, and things began to look up. The nausea was subsiding, but I was still feeling weak when the route angled uphill towards its highest point at Grand col Ferret, about 2,500m above sea level.

For the next 50km, I maintained a steady pace and, on the last climb at around the 149km mark, regained speed. The feeling of passing a major hurdle was almost as breathtaking as the scenery of soaring peaks and plummetting valleys I was running through.

The terrain in the final 18km of the race was familiar territory for me after the training in Asia. Skipping easily over the rocks, I overtook about 200 runners in the home stretch. And with about 8km to go, I finally let go of worries that a sprain or fall would derail my race.

Close to the finish line, I began to take it slow, basking in the final moments of the epic journey, fishing out my phone to capture the awesome crowds, my exhausted fellow competitors being embraced by their loved ones, and the unique atmosphere of the UTMB.

Forty-two hours and 48 minutes after starting out, I finished the race that had once only been a distant dream. The UTMB does not award prize money; it seems the organisers knew that what each runner took away was worth more than any financial reward could ever offer.