Last November I ran my first Spartan Ultra Race in North Carolina, so when I heard about the Ultra World Championship in Morzine, France it looked like a cool destination race to do this year, especially as I planned to be in Europe around this time anyway. 

My preparation for this race was mixed, from one side, spending a week in the Dolomites got me better acclimatized for the altitude and some steep Trails Running refresher, from the other side I did not have a lot of options to spend on Obstacles technique or general strength for about 3 weeks before.

As I participated in the Spartan Trifecta Championship in Sparta, Greece last year, I expected the championship course to be harder than the one I did before, and indeed it was.

Spartan Ultra Race in Morzine takes place on a separate day, so there are no other runners at the course at this time, though unlike the US, where it often takes place on some private land that is dedicated to the race, it shares the course with other users in Morzine and there are mountain bikers, hikers and trail runners around. 

There are multiple aid stations on the route, some only having water, others stuff like bananas, oranges, chips, nuts, and dates. No cups were available – you were expected to bring your own.

Everyone was also given a plastic bag to store their supply – you could access it when you were about 60% through the race, though no external help was allowed.

To be allowed to run the race (any race, not just Ultra) you had to present the printout of the QR code from the “Health Prevention Course” which you got by completing 10min online training. There was also mandatory equipment – 1L hydration capacity, whistle, headlamp of the flashlight, emergency blanket, and blinking red light to attach to a backpack. Those were checked twice – before the start line, and after you exit the transition area for the second loop.

The course was laid down to maximize viewing possibilities, as much as it can be done for the Ultra. You do the long loop, the shortened version of the loop, and the very short part of the loop to get to the finish line, meaning you can pass through the same obstacles anywhere from 1 to 3 times. Each of these loops passes through “the village twice”. The first section, right after the start is rather flat 4km or so run by the river.

The race was stated to be a little shorter than 52 km and some 3100m elevation gain, though my GPS and those of other folks measured about 58 km and some 3500m elevation gain, some 37km for the first long loop, and 20km for the second.

The terrain was brutal with very long uphill sections, sometimes quite steep, and vary long downhill sections too – this is what more than 1000m of elevation difference between the lowest and highest point on the course allow. On the first loop, we visited two over 2000m peaks that dominate the region and had gorgeous views of surrounding mountains, including Mont Blanc.

We had sunny weather during the run so sunburn and overheating were the issue, whereas folks running Beast the next day, which goes through some of the same course had a rainy day and much more muddy and slippery terrain.

In general, that was a mountain trail runner/sky runner race as even with 70+ obstacles running is what you spent most time doing, and penalty loops were not significant. I’ve seen many folks not even trying to do harder obstacles but rather going straight to penalty loops. At least some of those penalty loops were weighted.

Being able to carry heavy shit uphill and downhill is another skill that was important to perform well on this race, as were several heavy carries, which you could not avoid by doing a penalty loop.

In particular, the “double carry” which I also saw on the Beast race in Spartan Trifecta Championship was soul-crushing – you take a 60lb sandbag uphill, trade it for the chain to do an uphill loop with, and then take the sandbag down. Each loop was more than 1km in length and you got to do it twice.

The other creative use of the chains was to have a chain carry to the sled and have extra heavy sled pull, which a lot of people struggled with.

Chains are mean – you can hardly carry them in a comfortable way (all my shoulders ended up bruised) and also you have to pay very close attention to how you grab them, or you can pinch or break your fingers.

I like how Spartan used Terrain for the obstacles – we had to carry a log around a lake and swim with it to cross the lake twice, cross the little pond formed by the waterfall climb out on the net, and climb a long steep net right there in the village to get on another level.

There was the obstacle to traverse the slack line, which was rather problematic for me, both because I am not great with balance, and because we do not have it in the US so I do not train for it.

There were also several differences in how obstacles were put together, in particular instead of monkey bars for Ultra and Beast we got 2 level monkey bars, requiring you to go up and down on them, being a much more than usual challenge to runners.

My first goal for the race was to finish it without injuries and be in a position to do the Super and Sprint runs on Sunday, to complete Trifecta Weekend. Things went reasonably well with Running, though about 6 hours in, still on the first loop, I started to get cramps in the inner tight. It would come in bouts and as I slowed down they would go away, so I could speed up again. Probably I need more training with long technical uphill and downhill runs.

Even though I did not tape my toes or use any kind of anti-friction cream on my feet and the fact I was running with wet feet through most of the race, I avoided losing any toenails or any significant blisters – just a couple of hot spots.

I ate a combination of aid station food (mostly bananas) and water, plus I carried my hydration solution, energy gels, and Spartan salt tablets. At the transitioning area, I also made myself a Kachava smoothie, as I knew it was something I could consume quickly and hold during the run.

Even though I did not have a lot of opportunities to train for grip strength and obstacle technique for some weeks before the race I think I did pretty well. Besides my lack of balance skills, I made silly mistakes – I missed 1 out of three spears – I hit the target but the spear fell out, made some silly mistakes on the ape hanger, multi-rig, and elevated monkey bars on one of the passes.

The obstacles which I had trouble with and which cost me a lot of time and energy were heavy carries – need to get better with that.

Overall this race was much harder than Spartan Ultra in North Carolina – It took me around 6 hours and 50 minutes to complete that, and 6 hours longer, or almost double to complete Spartan Ultra race in Morzine.

The cutoff time for this race was 22:30 at the finish line, which meant 14:30 to 15h to finish the race depending on your start time, which sounds like a lot for a “50k” race but which was quite real – quite a few runners could not finish the race in the allotted time. 

I ended up finishing in 12h:48m, 257 out of 415, and 46 out of 76 in my age group – one of my worst results, though the competitive field here was a lot stronger than your usual neighborhood Spartan Ultra. 

Overall this was a fantastic experience – with the gorgeous and very hard course, as well as a very nice French alpine village setting, which was converted to welcome Spartans over the weekend. We had AirBnB rented right in the village and walked to the Spartan activities as well as great French restaurants – quite a difference from many US Spartan events which often take place in the middle of nowhere.

If you have an opportunity I would surely recommend this race and this venue – I would encourage through to run some other easier Spartan Ultras before or at least some Trail/Skyrunning races with significant elevation gain over technical terrain. 

I surely would love to visit Morzine again sometime as schedule permits, might be also going to the Spartan Beast course I did not have a chance to explore this time around.

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[This is how smile after running for 13 hour looks like]

Mid March 2023 I completed my 2nd 50 Mile (some 85Km by GPS) race (Strava), and I’m surely doing it again, which, I guess, makes me a committed member of the Ultramarathon Trail runners community.  

If you would tell me 10 years ago I would be running ultra, I would unlikely believe you.  In my 30s I was a “stereotypical” computer geek, who did not invest much time in keeping the body fit and healthy.  I was lucky enough with my genes so I did not grow obese or but as I was nearing my 40s I started to observe more of the effects of not taking good care about myself.  My belly started to grow, I started to get regular headaches and back pains as well as get mildly sick several times a year.   

I also found a level of exercise which was previously easy would make me run out of breath.  Back in 2019  a friend of mine encouraged me to go Trekking in Nepal and even though I thought I trained reasonably well – it kicked my ass. I was much slower and miserable on the trail than I wanted to be.

I loved the trip and was sure that while it is my first trip to big mountains it is not the last one,  and if I want to enjoy the views I better get myself in shape with focus on cardio endurance.  

I picked running as this is something you can do anywhere. I travel a fair amount and among other things running is a great way to explore places from very different angles – as a “Normal Tourist” you rarely get to explore places so early in the morning.  

I also found early morning runs a great way to wake up, have some “thinking time” before the mad rush of the day or catch up on educational podcasts, which otherwise it was always hard for me to make time for. 

It is amazing how much progress you can make in running in a few short months. I remember some of my early runs were some 2km or so.  When I gradually increased it to 5K.  I remember once I went to run for 10K and was so proud of myself for completing it… and I can barely walk for the next couple of days with my hips so sore. 

I do not state any of this is a best practice – I did not follow any particular “couch to 5k” but rather explored things as they interested me.  It took time for me to start being interested in the science of running,  learn about typical training programs, nutrition etc. 

While I enjoyed running I am not someone who commits to a single sport, I enjoy variety.  Specifically I also like Climbing and Obstacle Course Running (OCR) –  In particular I think OCR is a great discipline which requires endurance, cardio, coordination but also decent upper body strength. 

Once Covid-19 Pandemic Started in 2020, for a time, there were no OCR races or Travel, so I could get into a pretty good running training cadence.  As lockdown eased I also joined local Climbing (Triangle Rock Club) and OCR focused Gym (WarriorTech OCR) as well as a Run Club. (Fleet Feet)

Joining such communities was wonderful  – especially the run club and OCR Gym have a relatively small group of people training together, going to some races together which makes it great to compete, and support people you know. 

While I previously looked at Marathon as perhaps once in a lifetime achievement in my Run club I saw folks with real jobs and older than me doing a few Marathons a year as well as “Ultra folks” participating in 100 Mile, 36 Hour races etc.   When you see what people “like you” can achieve it is much more motivating than results of Professional Athletes.

It is my Running Group that motivated and supported me doing 50K run in local trail ultra race and also doing 50 mile races in the last two years. 

Unlike road races where you often have thousands of people running and always have someone to chase, Ultra Trail Runs tend to have a smaller number of runners over long distance so you can spend a lot of time running alone which makes it harder for me to push myself.  On the last 50Mile race by lucky chance I started a conversation with Olga Douglas who turned out to be an experienced trail runner running a recovery race. We ended up running together which made quite a difference. 

Where am I now with my Running ? 

As Running goes, my best results so far are the medium length distance – My Best Results on Half Marathon are around 1:34, which means with some focused training I can get to my goal of 1:30.   I need to continue working on my Endurance for Full Marathons – both Road Marathons I suffered “bonking” and took more than 4 hours to complete them.  Getting body to burn more fat while running at Marathon speed and figuring out race feeding is something I still need to figure out  (Half Marathon is short enough you can run it on stored energy)

My 50K on Mountain to Sea trail was 5h 15min which is not bad for that terrain, I could also run all the time.  50M however took me more than 13 hours this year (and more than 14 hours) last year with way too much walking, so there is more endurance which needs to be built out for this distance.  

What are my future Running plans ?  

I will continue participating in the local  Mountains to See Race so I can track my improvement.  My goal would be to finish it in 10h at some point.  This can take a couple of years though.  If I finish it within 12h next year it would already be a good improvement.

I also want to do a 100K race sometime – it is a nice round figure and great sounding achievement (for us Metric folks).  This is the distance I can complete in a reasonable amount of time.  For now I do not plan to run 100M races as I like my beauty sleep so much. 

I also find with my love of the mountains Running on Technical Terrain is what I love the most – last year I did a 25K run on the slopes of St Helens Volcano and it was great!  If time permits I plan to do full 50K this year.  I also signed up for a 50K Run the Rut in Montana.    

I’d like to do some destination ultra and Marathon runs as well, for example Everest Marathon looks like something to do one of those years 

I am also looking to do some destination OCR races, though these are less common so might be harder to fit in the schedule.

If you know some other cool races which I should consider – let me know!  

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