The UTMB was a disaster in the end! Anne and I arrived on the Monday and in the days leading up to it we were soaking up the atmosphere and really enjoying our time in Chamonix. The weather was fantastic and initially it wasn't forecasted to be too bad during the race. Tim Whittaker, Charlie Johnson and I were planning to run together and when it became clear, on the Thursday, that there was going to be heavy rain we thought it was great news as none of us really enjoy the sun! Anyway, the weather on the day was pretty awful - heavy rain and wind - although by the time we arrived in town for the bag drop before the start it had cleared up (although the clouds were ominous).
The start was fantastic but as we ran along the road towards Les Houches the rain started again and was heavy. The climb up from Les Houches over to St Gervais was wet although we we were in our element, passing loads of runners and feeling great in the soggy conditions - it was like being at home! Anyway, we reached St Gervais in about 3'30" and having filled up our bottles and stuffed some salami down our necks we looked for the exit from the aid station. I thought it was always this busy but Tim suspected something was fishy and eventually some French guy translated that the race had been cancelled! We were all gutted - there were stories of landslides further up the course although I'm still not sure if this was true. Anyway, having calmed Charlie down (he was ready to smack someone) we ended up being ferried onto a train and then coach back to Chamonix at around 1am on Saturday morning. Tim and Charlie decided they were going for a run anyway the next day but I wasn't interested in leaving Anne, whilst on holiday, for a 'friendly run', so I declined and went to bed. At 8:30am ish I was woken up by a text from Tim saying they'd set off for their run and some guy had said they were restarting a reduced race from Courmayeur - had I heard and could I get there? At this point I found a text from the organisers sent overnight (about 2am I think) in garbled French/English that I think (it certainly wasn't clear) that there WAS a restart of a reduced race and there was 1000 places available (for any of the 2300 UTMB runners and 1200 TDS) on coaches from Chamonix at 6:30am. I was already 2hrs late, still in bed (soaking kit in a pile in the hotel room) - there was no chance. Plus, did I really want to do a 'less than half UTMB' , especially after all the disappointment of the night before? I was gutted, even more so now that this other race had been organised whilst I slept. Had I have known that it was going to happen when the race was originally cancelled I'd have probably done it but the way it panned out I wasn't really left with a choice.
As a result the whole thing was soured. We took an early flight back on the Sunday (we'd planned to leave on the Tuesday) as neither Anne nor I wanted to hang about. I'd spent months training, a load of cash on the holiday/race entry etc and I wanted to forget it ever happened! There is still no word on whether there will be any preferential entry into the 2011 race (I suspect not) so I'll just have to take my chances in the lottery (assuming they give me points for the GUCR which I have enquired about). I've calmed down now but for a week or so but I still have several issues with the organisers; were we not capable of running in rough conditions (I've certainly experienced worse condition on the fells at home), why in such a big race wasn't there an alternative route to the affected sections, why bother starting the race when the forecast was for exactly what happened and trying to organise a race in the middle of the night via text for 3600 people is lunacy. Ultimately though, I respect the decision to cancel the race on safety grounds, I'm not even bothered about compensation, but to not be offered the chance to complete the race in 2011 seems unfair. Hopefully I'll be there to complete what seems to be an amazing race unlike any other...
As a result the whole thing was soured. We took an early flight back on the Sunday (we'd planned to leave on the Tuesday) as neither Anne nor I wanted to hang about. I'd spent months training, a load of cash on the holiday/race entry etc and I wanted to forget it ever happened! There is still no word on whether there will be any preferential entry into the 2011 race (I suspect not) so I'll just have to take my chances in the lottery (assuming they give me points for the GUCR which I have enquired about). I've calmed down now but for a week or so but I still have several issues with the organisers; were we not capable of running in rough conditions (I've certainly experienced worse condition on the fells at home), why in such a big race wasn't there an alternative route to the affected sections, why bother starting the race when the forecast was for exactly what happened and trying to organise a race in the middle of the night via text for 3600 people is lunacy. Ultimately though, I respect the decision to cancel the race on safety grounds, I'm not even bothered about compensation, but to not be offered the chance to complete the race in 2011 seems unfair. Hopefully I'll be there to complete what seems to be an amazing race unlike any other...
