Race Day 7 - Pilatrail des trois dents

This is usually the point where I start by saying something along the lines of "another week, another marathon". Pas cette fois (not this week)! 45km of French trail running in the Pilat national park to the South of Lyon with around 9,000ft of mountains thrown in for good measure. Ce n'était pas un marathon (This wasn't a marathon)! C'était un tas de mentalists exécutant des montagnes sous la pluie (It was a bunch of mentalists running up mountains in the rain)!

Un mentalist sur la montagne!

You'll notice that I've included English translations of my perfectly formed French sentences so that 1) those of you who didn't attain the dizzy heights of a D in GCSE French like me can understand and 2) those of you who actually speak French can understand. I can't say that I learnt much French during my trip but I did learn quite a few things about my ability to speak foreign.


1. I seem to know a word for most things in one European language or another.
1 (ii) Unfortunately most of the words are in Spanish or German!
2. Ola is NOT French!
3. My French seemed to improve during the race. Once the rain really started and I deployed the John Smith technique which seemed to be new to the French. When you're soaked through and covered in mud there doesn't seem to be much point trying to avoid mud or puddles, might as well just route 1 it right through them if you ask me. This resulted in quite a few comments, all in French of course. My favourite, or at least my favourite translation was something along the lines of "you should stop that, you're disturbing the fish".
4. Being able to make up what the marshals are shouting at you can actually become quite a fun game. There's not a lot you can do with "Allez! Allez!" or "Bravo!" but some of the more complicated instructions can be quite motivational when the task of translating is left to someone with my level of competency.


Marshall: "Prendre la route sur la droite"
My translation: "The end of the race is just down there on the right". Well merci beaucoup Monsieur Marshall, c'est un pleasant surprise!


Marshall: "Il y a une montagne massive a venir"
My translation: "There are no more massive mountains left to climb, honest!" Well that's tres bien! Much appreciated mon ami!


Marshall: "Cesse d'être une fille grosse et levez-vous à la montagne!"
My translation: "Hurry, there are several skimpily clad women waiting for you at the top of the mountain" Excellente!


Marshall: "Allez! Allez! Sissy Anglais!"
My translation: Hang on a minute, that's tres unfair! I much prefer when I can't understand what you're shouting at me! Sans les attitude veuillez!


5. It took me five minutes to explain to one French marshall at a water station that I wanted water without gas. Apparently "De l'eau sans gaz" just doesn't cut it and the international hand signs for water and gas don't work in France either! Non! Pas avec sucre! Sans gaz! Sans gaz! Non! Pas d'oeuf! De l'eau! Merde!


6. Eddie Izzard is spot on! Everything they teach you in GCSE French is completely useless! There were no mice under tables, cats on chairs or monkeys on branches!

Le singe est sur la branche! Non! Le singe n'est pas sur la branche!

After spending a day in Lyon on Saturday where the weather was nothing short of "scorchio", wait that's Spanish, isn't is, "les scorchio", that's better, me and Will.I.Am (me Da) picked up a hire car and drove down to Veranne where the race was due to start the next morning to register. So it turns out that in France you need a doctors note in order to participate in these races. Thankfully the race doctor was on hand for an impromtu medical which didn't really seem to involve much more than making sure I was breathing and had a heart beat. I just about passed both tests and was issued with a note which proves that doctors the world over have exactly the same illegible handwriting!

After passing the medical I had a quick chat with the race organizer and started to realize that trail running in the UK and France appear to be quite different things. Yet again the stupid metric system was causing issues. I had thought there was 2,100ft of climbing involved, turns out it was 2,100m which is a little bit more! I had also assumed that "des trois dents" meant that there would be three peaks to tackle, just like the three peaks challenge in week 2. Turns out that's just the name for one of more recognizable peaks that you have to run along. I lost count of the number of mountains climbed. They were still managing to find new ones at 36 and 40km, every time that I thought the descent had started there was another mountain to climb!

"Des trois dents" in slightly better weather!

We stayed Saturday night in a little village called Pelussin about 7km from the start. As we arrived to check in the rain, thunder and lightning started. Not wanting to get too wet we found a restaurant next to the hotel. The usual pasta dish had to be substituted for crepes. I love crepes!

The race started at 8:30am on Sunday morning. Unfortunately I had assumed that this was to get it over and done with before the afernoon heat. Within a mile or two I'd worked out it was because the race was going to take a LOT longer than a regular marathon. Pretty much all of the competitors had specialist trail running shoes and a good number of them also had mountain climbing poles. Every part of the route had a new and different challenge.

The paths up the mountains weren't exactly smooth!

 You can just about make out the red tape denoting the "path".

The mountains were high...

...the forest trails narrow and full of roots and rocks to trip over...

...and the way down was "descente dangereuse". I could understand those signs!

Unfortunately I can't find any pictures of the worst bit downhill through the forest where I took a couple of tumbles the last of which around 40km resulting in my right leg cramped and getting stuck in something approaching a ballet position, which I can reliably report is not much use for running! After that I had a French guy who spoke no English try to give me a lesson in the best way to run down the mountain. Based upon his technique it seems he was just telling me to slide down on my backside.

So about six and a half hours and quite a bit of climbing, falling, rain, mud and other fun later I made it to the finish to find that there were no medals! Seems a little harsh based upon the effort that went in and especially considering that almost a quarter of the participants didn't finish! I tried to get some perspective as to exactly how difficult the race was afterwards and worked out that it was equivalent to running a marathon and climbing Ben Nevis and Snowden. With that in mind the challenge for the rest of our time in France was to find some sort of make shift trophy to represent the race. With everything in France shut on a Monday the airport did not fail to disappoint from same Grade A tat. It was a tough choice in the end but I think you'll agree that the small bottle of brandy shaped like the Eiffel tower now proudly on display in my trophy cabinet does the trick nicely!

A massive thanks to my Dad for coming along for the adventure, making sure I was well looked after and especially for waiting for several hours in the torrential rain to get a couple of snaps of me finishing. Also, thank you to everyone who made a donation this week, the grand total now stands at £4,766.25 only a couple of hundred short of the five thousand pound target that I set back in January!