Saint Etienne-Lyon Ultra

mithril

Has anyone done this before?

I am hoping to give this a shot in next month, Aer Lingus flights permitting.
Not a huge amount of information on the web, and poignantly,most of the contributions are by the late Eddie Murphy, who is the only Irishperson I know to have done it before.

Appears to be something similar to the Art O'Neill, a bitlonger, but with a larger number of participants, and less open ground tocover.

RJC

John Kynaston's blog has a report from the 2009 race.

http://www.kynaston.co.uk/reports/2009-12-06.pdf

I gave serious thought to running this one a bout a year ago but end of season apathy kind of put a dampener on it for me.

Vitamin T

A few IMRA runners ran this race back in 2009 too. Here's a couple of links to their reports:

http://www.imra.ie/forum/topic/id/1982/

http://runssel.blogspot.ie/2009/12/racereport-la-saintelyon-06122009-saint.html

mithril

Taking the train to Saint Etienne from Lyons this afternoon, and running back at mid-night.
I will dump some kind of report here afterwards.

Look like about -5 which I have prepared for, but also snowing, and my Montrails don't have much grip. Consensus on the web site seems to be something like Yaktraks is needed for traction in these conditions so heading into city center now to try and pick up a pair.

ultraman1

best of luck mithril....remember to keep ur bars warm,frozen food aint easy to eat...

mithril

SainteLyon Race Report


I first heard about the Saint Etienne-Lyons run from the late Eddie Murphy when we ran the Art O’Neill together during the icy winter of 2010-2011. At first running in the dark for 9 hours did not seem to have much appeal, but gradually he sold it to me.
I had expected that we would run it together at some point in the future, but none of us know what the future hold, and for Eddie it ended tragically after the Connemara Ultra run only a few months later. My thoughts were very much with him as the long hours passed in the dark as the race unfolded.
Training for the event was minimal. This was the sixth marathon or longer event I had entered since the Kildare marathon in May, and I focussed on making a solid recovery from Dublin Marathon so I would hit the start line as fresh as possible. Train easy, race often, is my philosophy these days. I had done a couple of two hour runs on Three Rock mountain with race kit and used this to refine my choice of kit. Although the grip in the shoes was minimal, I decided to go with the Montrail Continental, which is more a light boot than a running shoe, because it provides a lot of protection for the Achilles tendon - a chronic injury - and I had used it before on a few occasions without picking up an injury.
Organising the event was easy, on-line entry and I booked a cheap Aer Lingus flights into Lyons on Friday. It might have been a good idea to take a few hours nap during the day on Saturday since I would be running through the night, but there was plenty to see in Lyon, and I knew I probably would not be back again.
My hotel was right by the main train station, so at 6PM , I took one of the hourly trains to Saint Etienne, and followed the group who were obviously also running the event from the way they were dressed to the convention center for registration. I managed a few exchanges with some of the runners; surprisingly in most cases my French was better than their English. The Massif Central is an isolated part of the country, and you get a false impression of proficiency in English when you visit the main tourist spots. It was here that the scale of the event for the first time become apparent. There were 6000 runners doing the solo event, and another 6000 doing it in a relay.
The event is long-running and well resourced - with sponsorship from Lafuma and the local electricity company - so as expected everything went smoothly with registration, and generally it was exceptionally organized. I killed a couple of hours at the pasta party, (maybe a little too close to the start of the race), and visited some of the exhibitions on other events in France which gave me some ideas for the future.
The profile of the runners would be marked different from what we get in Ireland, much younger generally, with most of them being in their twenties. There were very few non French participants. A very high proportion were wearing outdoor gear from the French Decathlon chain , which we don’t normally see outside France.
At 11:30 , we got the signal to line up. I had selected 7-9 hours as my target time and was given a coloured bracelet at registration which gave me access to the correct pen. It had been very mild in the weeks coming up to the race , (15 degrees the previous Saturday), but there had been a cold snap in the previous days and conditions of -3 and snow was forecast for the race. However, there was little wind which made it more manageable. I had been expecting a rendition of the Marseillaise as mid-night approached, but instead we had Joyeux Noel for someone in the crowd who had opted to run the race on their birthday. We had had a countdown in French, and 20 seconds later, I had crossed the start line.
The first 8 KM was through the suburbs of Saint Etienne. The roads were relatively wide at this point and I regretted later not making more of an effort to overtake, since I got caught badly with traffic later. We passed a number of small villages, and a lot of well wrapped locals were braving the cold to yell “Bon Courage” as we passed by. After Sorbiers, we moved from suburbs onto small country paths, and you frequently got a pungent smell of farm yard manure coming from beyond the trail.
It’s not a particularly hilly event, but most of the climb is on the early sections. At this point though the body was very fresh, and I had no difficulty gaining altitude. More of any issue though was that the ground was very slippery, as rain on the road had frozen and thawed on successive nights. I took the first of about eight tumbles in the race at this point, but I never took any damage, I had a good pair of rubber gloves and on every occasion I was able to use them to absorb the shock.
16km brought us to the first of the 6 interim check point at Jarex; I checked the watch; 1:38, which was pretty close to plan.
We had a warm well lit area to change at each of check points and a huge array of food to chose from. There were no sports bars or gels; just jellies, biscuits and more solid food and bread. From previous experience, I know my stomach can tolerate food better than most in the middle of a long race, so I systematically explored everything except sausage over the course of the race.
From the amount of sweat on the inside of my waterproof jacket, I realized I was overheating despite the sub-zero temperatures, so as planned beforehand, I threw away one of the disposable layers I had brought for this purpose (an old paint encrusted fleece and Department of Agriculture leggings circa 1985) . I had ignored the requirement to bring a 500 ml water container with me since water is heavy to carry, and I knew from previous experience that I don’t drink much water in a race. I took a few glasses at each of the refreshment stops, and found this more than adequate.
The next section of the route from Jarex to Saint Catherine is the highest section of the route, following trails through what normally would be fields, but were now covered in snow, and was where the chance of a competitive time vanished for me. There was a well trodden path which you could follow without sinking, but it was narrow and if you deviated from it you would sink deeply in snow drift. This meant that it was almost impossible to overtake, and the volume of runners on the route quickly brought the column to a halt on anything like a climb. This meant that the bulk of this section had to be walked unless you were one of the front runners.
Compensating for this though was the magnificent view. The was a bit of mist on the hills, but you could still see a long line of torches for around a kilometre on either direction wending their way up the hills.
KM 28 brought me to the second check-point at Saint Catherine, and from that point the route was predominantly downhill. It was also the slowest on the course for me at 26:26 reflecting a very long delay at the check-point. The zip pocket of my jacket within which I had the couple of energy bars and gels I carried to supplement the rations at the check-points jammed, probably frozen, and a very nice French lady spent what appeared to be an eternity trying to get it open before eventually we had to abandon the effort. I eventually managed to tear the wretched thing open ,and transfer them to the other pocket. I did not really need the bars , but I did not want to lug any surplus weight around for the next 40 KM.
From this point to the end, we had a check-point roughly every 12 KM, which helped a good deal. A well accepted rule in ultra running is that you look for a way of splitting a long course into sections, and you focus on completing the current section, rather than the race in its entirety. You had a chance to relax in a warm and well lit area roughly every hour, although I never tarried as much in the later sections as much as I did earlier on.
The course was amazingly congested compared with other Ultra I have run, partially because of the number of runners and partially because the conditions made it difficult to overtake, and throughout the course, you were never more than 100 meters from another 10 runners. I had taken a powerful headlight with me, because the one I used on Art O’Neill 2 years previously was not adequate, but on this occasion you did not actually need an individual torch – there was plenty of illumination from the densely packed group reflected on the snow.
We entered a wood, which I remember as the most treacherous section of the whole lot where ice had thawed and re-frozen on top of fallen leaves. There was constant shots of “glace” and even when warned , it was difficult to keep your footing. People were getting careless by this point due to tiredness, and I passed a couple of grim scenes where people were huddled up in survival bags waiting for assistance to arrive after an awkward fall. I was glad that I had not ignored this this kit requirements, since you cool down very badly when you stop moving in the snow.
We saw the lights of Lyons much earlier than I expected, from about the 40km mark, but then seemed to take an age getting closer to it. About 7A.M. day light started to appear, but simultaneously it seemed to get a lot colder, and I had to put back on a layer which I had previously put away. Although we had run the course predominantly on snow and frozen ground, it had stayed dry up until that point, but we had sleet from that point to the end of the course.
The final checkpoint was Beaunant, and there was a lifting of spirits as we could sense the end as not too far ahead. We had a final steep walk up a hill , and then a lovely view of the Roman Aqueduct, and shuffled our way thorough the Lyons suburbs.
At this stage in an Ultra , you commonly see a lot of “zombies”, runners stretched to their limit, oblivious to everything that is going on all around them, and with tunnel vision focus on reaching the final line. On this occasion I did not see anyone in obvious distress, but most were walking at this stage. As a result of the amount of walking I had done earlier on, I still felt fairly fresh and even though there was nothin at stake, I wanted to get to the finishing line and out of my damp clothes as quick as possible, so I overtook a lot of people with a sustainable jog to the finish.
The last section was along the Saone river, and then through a park to the stadium. There was a lot of encouragement, which was impressive since it was not really weather to be out for a stroll, and I spotted the arch which marked the finish up ahead, and managed an attempt at a sprint finish.
9:33 which was a good bit slower than I expected beforehand, but I was not too upset. Conditions were difficult on the day, and I had at least managed to finish with something in the tank when a quarter of the field had abandoned.
A lot less muscle damage than I expected, and I was walking almost normally next day, but I did not escape unscathed. I had a good night of celebration in Lyons that night, but came down with a stomach bug next day, and nearly threw up on the flight back. I heard before that a marathon depresses your immune system, and you are eight times more likely than normal to pick up an infection in its aftermath.
I will take things very easy now until Christmas and expect to lose a bit of fitness and put on a bit of weight, which when it matters I can lose again very easily.
No firm goals yet for next year, but playing around with a few ideas. The race gives me the second qualifying point I need for the Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix race – the short version of Ultra Tour Mont Blanc – so I will try my luck in the lottery.
A 100K race and the New York marathon might figure somewhere as well in the picture.

mithril

Updating with link to race video.
Particularly well done I thought, even though the commentary is all in French.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNtdqpG5oow&feature=youtu.be

Enduro

Great report. Well done. Sounded like an excellent experience.

tHE vAGGABOND

Well done, that really does sound like a brilliant experience and what it really should be all about

Killerz

Really enjoyed the report, hadnt heard of the race, sounds really cool. Well done!

911sc

Great report.

Interesting that this race is now 70kms... i think it use to be exactly 69kms, simply because it finishes in Lyon which is postal code 69000.