Training Log Archive: Ari-o

Not really sure if this all gets logged as trail run or hiking. I'll just sort of be liberal with types. A new houseguest showed up last night so I have a hiking partner. Her knees are shot so we splurged on an all-access lift pass (which includes the 3800m Midi, which is one of the longest cable cars in the world, which is kind of cool). Danke, Lufthansa, for making it easier to throw around cash money.

Anyway, we set off to the Mer du Glace, which is a glacier (or as SGB would say, a glass-ee-yuh). Pretty mellow trail with a lot of climb.

C • glass-ee-yuh 2

Then we took a cable car down and went inside the glacier! Which is quite cool. They carve out the glacier (and put white tarps on top to keep it from melting) and let people walk inside.

The sad part, though, is that as you walk down it shows where the glacier was in 1986, 1990, 2000, 2015, and it is a lot higher, so they bolt stairs into the side of the valley. The only redeeming quality is that I got to run up.

Emily was closer to jetlag than I was so we took it easy up the next climb to great views of the glacier, and then across the Balcon Nord, which is a, well, a nice flat trail below the Mont Blanc massif. Some runnable trail, lots of hiking. Warm out, but a beautiful day.

The run ended at a refuge, which had an amazing lunch. For 30 Euro, we got two big plates with salad, charcuterie, sausage and the like. On the side of a mountain. (In their defense, it's near the cable car station, so it's not packed in.) Great view. Then we had to haul ourselves up to the Midi to go see the top, which was totally worth it. 3800m in a t-shirt as climbers haul themselves up and down an arret. Apparently most people take the cable car up and then go practice their climbing, but apparently it's sort of a tradition to take the first cable car up in the morning, climb Mont Blanc, and be back in town for an afternoon glass of wine.

Or if you're Kilian, run up and down in under 5 hours. 3700 meters. Not feet. Meters. On technical glacial terrain. And glaciers.

Instead of heading straight down, we took a quick walk over to a half-frozen lake. I went in up to my knees. Which felt great. But having come down from 3800m, I wasn't warm enough to jump in.

Day two running the Alps! Day dawned clear and sunny, and Hillary Gerardi, a friend from the huts who won the Skyrunning series last year (NBD) was taking a rest week so was up for an easy hike. Which of course was neither hiking nor easy. She has a pass up the cable car, I do not, so we met at the top of the Brevent.

I took the VK up for variety and because for whatever reason I thought it might be faster. Non! At the bottom some guy yelled at me in French about baton and non and I figured he didn't want me to use poles? IDK. Got to the top after 1:10 or so—I think I'll skip the race since we're in for a heat wave this week.

Then up to Brevent, right behind a huge party of people in tech gear going to practice tech gear things? Met Hillary at the top, drank some water, took some photos and down we went! The other side was a pretty good snow field, so with microspikes we were able to just run/glissade down. Pounded through some snowbank communities (read: vertical swamps) and then down some really beautiful trail running to a river, then up towards a hut. Looks like the San Juans back there.

At the hut I got a panache (basically a shandy) and a pain au chocolate aux amandes, and then we ran to a lake, took in the scenery, and ran down down down a bunch of trails to the town she lives in. Then a quick train ride up the valley to the start. Hot down there!

C • so cool! 2

Got in to Geneva on Friday. Took a bus to Cham, and then tried to stay up. Successfully, until 8 o'clock. Then slept 14 hours.

By the time I was ready to go in the afternoon, it was a bit cloudy out, but I ran up the side of the valley. Everything here is up! Not many views, but I went up to Col du Brevent, it started to drizzle, and I had a nice run down. Saw a mountain goat of some sort (a chamois?) too!

Travel day began with stadiums. It was humid out, my legs were tired, so I didn't go real fast, but managed 40 and a lot of sweat and water. Oh and photos. #StraightFace

And then the SwissAir flight sold out so they needed volunteers and $800 sounded mighty nice to me, so I took the $800 and ran. Well, I went home, and it was beautiful out, so I went to go for a bike ride. Mystic Lakes and over the top. Lots of boneheaded driving, more even than usual, it seemed. Dropped the chain over the big ring and then being used to my MTB where I can pedal it back on stuck it hard in to the chainring, on an uphill at least, so I stopped and yanked it out. I think it's fine.

Then down the bike path whee with some guy drafting me after I passed him, and then lots and lots of red lights the whole way.

Back in Cambridge I hit the Putnam-Post Office segment on a clear aspect but an Uber driving like a moron at about 12 mph weaving and bobbing around looking for a fare stopped that. Then on the Green-Perry sprint segment I had to slam on my brakes when someone ran a light. Oh and a bicyclist popped out of a crosswalk on a red light and I almost hit him, too.