Tour Monte Rosa, stage 2

**Alagna to Macugnana**

Stage 2/6
photo by Andy Astfalck

With a team of four we decided to run around the Monte Rosa Massif, covering a distance of 170km and 11,000m ascent in 6 days. We battled extreme weather conditions, detours due to landslides, hypothermia, sickness and injuries. We worked as a team and were determined to finish together. This is our journey, part 2/6 from Alagna to Macugnana.

Monday August 3,

It wasn’t the good night sleep I was hoping for. During dinner I made sure to drink and eat enough to refuel and get my body in good condition for the next day. As, during this multistage adventure, with consecutive days of intense exercise, sleep, nutrition and hydration all become more important. To be able to keep energy up and keep going it is essential to recover well. Over the days fatigue builds up, even more so when you’re not recovering well in between the runs.

For the first half hour, while lying in bed, I start to get the feeling it isn’t going to be the restful night I was hoping for and badly need. First I need to go to the bathroom, which is not that surprising as I drank lots of water during dinner. My first thought is to stay in bed and try to make it till the morning without having to get up. The bathroom is outside and at 1,600m altitude in the mountains in the night this can be quite cold, especially when you walk around barefoot because you do not want to put your trainers back on when its not really necessary. I stay lying in bed for a while contemplating what my best move would be, but I know if I wasn’t going to get up now, I more than likely will be having to go in a few hours. I decide it is better to go now while I am still awake. It is still before midnight, which means I could still get enough sleep in… I drag myself out of bed, wrap a towel around me and run barefoot to the outside bathroom building.

Once I reach the bathrooms, I realise being barefoot in a toilet might not be the most hygienic thing in the world. But I adjust quickly to the outdoor lifestyle and little things like cleanliness are easily out the window. I return to bed and try to catch my sleep. Still, my body does not feel calm, my heart rate seems elevated and I feel a bit sick to my stomach. I think I might have eaten too much at dinner, as I was afraid of not eating enough and not having enough energy for the next day. Lesson learned. I remind myself to not overeat tomorrow. I check my heart rate just to know if my mind is not playing tricks on me… “This must be wrong”, I think to myself. My heart rate seems to be around 80 and I am lying in bed. I try to calm myself with some breathing techniques and check again, but it does not seem to have any effect on my heart rate which is still very high.

Still feeling nauseous, I worry about having to get out of bed again and empty my stomach outside. To me, vomiting, is one of the worst things in the world which I usually try to prevent at all costs. Also, I can not afford to lose the energy that my dinner was supposed to give me, so I stay in bed hoping the feeling will pass.

Eventually the night turned into morning and I don’t know if I have slept a little, or at all. I check my watch and the stats shock me even more than the day before. My body battery has gone down overnight. Something I have never seen before and I did not even know that was possible. I might as well had not gone to bed at all. After this terrible night, a ‘resting’ heart rate double from what it normally is and a body battery of only fourteen percent, it is safe to say, I did not feel incredibly confident about the day to come. But I am here in the mountains, we have started our adventure and there is no way back now.

LET'S GO!

The day starts from our Mountain hut Rifugio Pastore in Alagna Valsesia. We decide to leave relatively early as the weather predictions for the end of the day are not great and this way we are hoping to stay in front of the bad weather.

We start with a climb from 1,600m to 2,700m altitude. This second day, hiking up is again a battle. Although we start with an easy hiking pace, before starting to run, as we just had breakfast and our bodies need a moment to wake up. During the night it had rained, but now it has cleared up. It is not sunny either, but the fresh air provides a nice cool temperature perfect for an active day in the mountains.

Eventually going up the first mountain is not too bad. My energy levels are low, but I am still moving forward at a decent pace. Once we will get up to our first summit of the day, we will have a nice long downhill. The path going down seems perfect, not too steep, a little rocky, which makes it interesting and fun.

Weirdly enough, those type of paths always remind me of playing computer games. The type of games I played with my brother when I was younger, like Mario Bros. Running down these paths you have to be quick on your feet and jump on the right rocks, not to fall over, or to get the mushrooms for extra power in the game. I usually hear the Mario Bros song in my head as I jump from one rock to the other, feeling like a kid, being invincible, having fun and enjoying life.

All four of us are running down fast and enjoying running instead of hiking for a change. This is my terrain, this is what I am good at, but something is off and again I am falling behind…

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL, AGAIN

I struggle concentrating. I keep sliding and going over my ankles quite a few times. Also my toes start to hurt at this point, as my big toes are hitting the toe box in the front of my trainers with every step down.

Later I find out that there had been a problem with these new trainers. I received the new ASICS Fujitrabuco Sky just before I left for this trip. I know most people recommend never to take new shoes on a long distance run like this, but well… They looked so pretty, matched the outfit I had laid out, and I have never had problems with any shoe before. So, I figured there was no risk taking these new trainers for a nice long six day run in the mountains, as that is what they are made for.

Little did I know that ASICS had the sizing wrong for this shoe and they turned out to be one full size smaller than what they are labelled as. Fortunately I always use half a size bigger shoes on long runs like these. That is probably why I had not noticed it straight away. But after running down for a second day, I really start to feel it and it am not comfortable to say the least.

It starts to slow me down as I am trying to run avoiding the increasingly searing pain. I am half way down the mountain so I have no other choice than to suck it up and continue, but my running gets less confident and what is supposed to be an incredible fun and fast downhill, becomes a struggle again.

On top of that, it has started to rain, making the rocks slippery. As I am running with less confidence, placing less pressure on the shoes, leaning back maybe, I get less grip on the terrain and I am sliding all over the place. I try to flick the switch in my mind, telling myself that if I just ‘go for it’ I will be fine. But every time I try to run ‘as normal’ I slide, fall, or go over my ankles again. In the end, feeling I have no other choice than to take it easy and slow down, accepting it is going to be a long day.

Although the one thing that makes me feel better, is knowing that we will only have one downhill to go this stage, and we will end the day with an uphill. I never thought I would be happier to go uphill, but at least it will stop the hurting.

HELLO ANDY

We finish our downhill back in a small Italian village at 1,200m in Macugnana, where we meet Andy, the ASICS photographer, for lunch just before our final climb of the day.

Andy has been traveling all over Europe for the past weeks, photographing ASICS Frontrunners in races and during their team events in Spain, Italy, France and now has come out to catch us with his camera during our self organised multi stage run. We are stoked to see him. Not only because he takes such awesome pictures, but he is a really nice guys and always has good stories to tell. Personally I am happy to see him as well, as it gives an excuse to take a break, which I desperately need at that point.

I am glad to hear Nils and Christof are also in for some proper food and an actual break. With the three of us we are able to convince Karen, who once she finds her pace prefers to just keep going, it is a good idea to refuel before we attempt the last big climb of the day; a daunting 1,500m ascent up to about 3,000m where we will spend the night.

Karen did have a point in wanting to keep moving forward due to the weather. The weather for the week overall was very promising, mostly sunny and good. Only this one day the weather forecast for the end of the day is not great with a chance of rain and thunderstorms, which is not preferable high up in the mountains in our summer gear. But we need the break.

Our lunch options are pizza, pizza and pizza, so we decide on the latter. We enter one of the restaurants on the town square in our sweaty, muddy, wet from the rain, running gear. I feel a bit conscious of the scruffy look and underdressed in comparison with the Italian families sitting there dressed up for the occasion having their nice family lunches, and even celebrating a birthday.

The five of us sit down in a corner of the restaurant. It Is at those moments that you stop, you realise how tired you actually are. I try not to give in to the tiredness and order pizza and a coke to give me some energy for our final ascent. I notice I am not the only one struggling with energy. Nils, at the other end of the table, who normally eats loads and anything anyone leaves on their plate, is also struggling to finish his plate and is looking pretty tired too. I definitely overestimated how much I can eat and after two or three bites have to admit to myself I can not eat anymore. Conscious of not getting in enough fuel I order another coke. Liquid calories and a double dose of caffeine are the solution.

During lunch we are discussing our trip with Andy. We talk about how things are going and our struggles. He has heard about the Sky trainers being too small; a known problem globally apparently. He mentions he has some new sample trainers for 2021 in his car. He has them with him to take some photos for the next season. As it happens to be, I wear sample size and they fitted like gloves. I don’t know if it has anything to do with my feet having been incredibly uncomfortable for the past one and a half day, but these trainers seem like the most comfortable things I have ever put on my feet. In this moment Andy saved my life and definitely my feet.

I am extremely happy to be able to continue on these new trainers and notice the difference straight away. Although they can not give me back my energy, but at least I am not in pain and have more grip on this Alpine terrain.

AND OFF WE GO

Andy decides to hike up with us for the first few kilometres so he can take some shots of us on the go. Conscious, as he is, of not slowing us down, he sets off with a rapid pace. I struggle to keep up with him, but it gives him the perfect amount of time to scout the right spots to take the pictures. It is fun having him around. It gives some new energy to the group and different conversations, perfectly distracting from our own fatigue.

I guess we are about half way up the mountain when Andy decides to turn back. We quickly find out he turned back just in time before the weather changed and it starts to rain. The higher we get the heavier the rain and the wind. You can feel the change in atmosphere in the group. From comfortably chatting, to it becoming quieter, where we shift our mindsets for the battle to come.

I try to find the right pace to keep climbing on the steep and rocky terrain that just got more extreme due to the worsening weather with heavy gusts of wind. It am quiet, or better said, we are. The wind makes a howling noise blasting against the mountains and occasionally throws me off balance. We are fully focused and turned into our own minds to find that mental strength we need to get this last part done.

We know we are not far from the summit, only six kilometres but also still six hundred meters of elevation away. It gets cold, very cold. I can not feel my hands anymore. I keep moving my hands to feel if they are still functioning, hoping there will not be lasting damage. Then I see Nils trying and failing to help Karen put her gloves on. Everyone’s hands are too cold to properly function at this point. I have not even bothered to put on my gloves as I know I would not have been able to anyway. Also, the rain would make them wet straight away, defeating the purpose, as they would not been able to warm up my hands anymore. I decide that the best for me is to just keep going, however uncomfortable it may be.

We are all extremely cold, *risking hypothermia, in our shorts, shirt and just a light jacket that hardly could keep out the rain. I hear Christof chattering his teeth behind me. He is kind enough to stay with me, although my pace is not fast enough for him to warm up. Later he tells me that he tried to stay warm moving his arms as fast as he could as if he was running, but none of it really helped him much.

I am only focused on the road in front of me and every single step I have to take. My vision gets blurry. I still don’t know if that was due to the cold, the altitude sickness or my lack of energy but I was solely relying for direction on the verbal cues from Christof behind me, shouting “right” or “left” and the occasionally “do not stop” and “keep going”. His words alternate with my loud breathing and the occasional swear words. If this is an audio fragment, Christof noted, people would think real different things of what we are doing here… it makes me giggle as we continue forward.

250 METERS TO GO

“Only two hundred fifty meters of elevation to go”, I hear Christof saying. That can’t be far, I thought. Although we can not see any mountain hut yet, we rely on our watches with the GPX files Christof has created or downloaded from somewhere to point us in the right direction.

Karen and Nils are already a bit higher up and arrive at the mountain hut slightly before us. Afterwards they tell us, they got worried arriving at the summit and not seeing the mountain hut. Their watches showed the hut was only nine meters away but they still could not see it. Fortunately our watches are right and we find the hut, just in time. I really do not want to think of what could have happened if the hut would not have been there. We realise now, that we were on the brink of real danger and needing to call for help.

Karen and Nils arrive shaking, shivering and exhausted at the hut and order four hot teas. As the staff looks somewhat surprised, they explain, there are two more coming, Christof and I. The moment I step into the hut I feel like collapsing. It is like the body knows it’s over and it can stop fighting. It is the same with races. I find it interesting how that works; you can keep going when you have to, but once you reach the finish line it feels like nothing is left.

I throw my rucksack off on the floor and sit down at the first bench I spot. I think I must have looked at Nils and Karen but could not make sense of it as my vision was still blurry. They come up to me and give me the tea they had ordered for us. Nils asks me if I need to wrap myself in the foil safety blanket. I actually can’t remember what I answered, or if I answered at all.

After a few minutes I feel good enough to stand up and move myself to the burning fireplace where Karen and Nils are sitting, looking pretty comfortable. I sit down next to them, take off my shoes and nestle myself with them underneath the foil safety blanket, where we sit, shivering, for the next half hour trying to get back to normal temperature.

I have never seen myself shiver this much in my life, or for this long. I am shaking that hard, I am spilling my tea trying to drink it. Meanwhile the staff from the hut has brought us another wool blanket to go on top of our foil one and I have drunk more hot tea with honey and a hot chocolate. Still, it takes about forty five minutes for my arms and legs to stop shaking. After about two hours, Karen notices we are getting back to normal. The colour has come back to my face, we are more chatty again and seem more awake.

But this whole ordeal has taken everything from me and I feel exhausted. I even contemplate going to bed without food or a shower, but know that would not be smart. We still have more days to come and recovering and refuelling becomes essential then.

The mountain hut serves an amazing homemade three course dinner. The hearty soup I ordered tastes perfect and is exactly what I need. As a main course I have a local stew with oven baked potatoes of which I have one bite and realise eating sturdy food like that is still one bridge too far for my stomach and the whole plate goes back to the kitchen, almost as it came.

When they ask us for dessert, Nils, Karen and Christof laugh as I agree to have dessert. There’s always room for dessert, I think, and easy carbs are easier to digest than protein. But even this time, after one bite I have to give up. Instead of sending it back to the kitchen however I wrap ii in my napkin to take with me as a snack for the following day - never let a dessert go to waste.

Ps. Even though it may not sound like I am enjoying myself. In a weird way maybe, I enjoy the struggle, the pain, having to dig deep. Moments like these force me to be in the present. I feel closer to myself and my strength, which is a beautiful thing to experience.

*Lesson learned: On hind side, we realise we got hypothermic, and we are now aware of how close we got to danger. For future adventures we will take better safety precautions.

Manon Schutter21 September 20201 Comment