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After sorting out a bunch of things at home and work, I managed to leave everything in good shape to take my flight to Paris on Tuesday evening. The time for another run at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc arrived…

As usual, the flight got delayed (thank you, Air France) since its departure and I lost my connection to Geneva, thus my previously arranged shuttle to Chamonix. Fortunately, I was able to give them a call and reschedule the car for later on Wednesday night (Mountain Dropoffs rocks!). The only one I really lost was Chalita, who was impossible to reach by phone or email to be informed of this and who panicked when I didn’t arrive to Geneva at the expected time. In an act of despair, he paid for another shuttle and headed towards Chamonix. I arrived to Chamonix by almost midnight and he was already installed into our room at my favorite hotel. We chatted for a bit and then got a good night’s rest.

Today we woke up early for a short run along the trail to Les Houches, enjoying the beautiful view of Mont-Blanc along the way. We’re now sorting our gear and will head off to race check-in and to hang around Chamonix downtown. It’s great to be back in my beloved Alps!

So after last weekend’s workout at Iztaccíhuatl, the hardest part of the training cycle arrived: the taper. I did my best at cutting down my weekly mileage, going out for really short (6-8 km) runs in my pair of MT10‘s. I only had one extra long run planned for the weekend: the always classic Maratón Rover Scout México-Cuernavaca. However, a simple obstacle got in the way: I didn’t show up for the race…

Yeah, though I signed (and paid!) for the race during Saturday morning, I couldn’t wake up early on Sunday morning to attend the race. The reason? Octavio’s birthday party on Saturday afternoon, which ended up being a memorable all-night event: lots of laughter, metal music, beer, among other stuff… Yup, you get the picture, we got really wasted. So wasted that I couldn’t drive home until past 2 a.m., and I needed to wake up at around 5 a.m., for racing…

But I did wake up! The only problem was that everything was moving around me while I was still laid in bed. No wonder I opted to remain asleep for reasons of “personal safety” until late morning… At least I had my gear ready for some long running, which I did in the afternoon (21 km of technical hills) and turned out to be one of the best I’ve done lately (2 hours, 39 minutes for my Villa Alpina course, a new PR).

Everything happens for a reason? I’m not sure, but at least so much partying felt like a great taper before the upcoming big races. Now I feel ready

Yeah, the weather this weekend at Iztaccíhuatl was a lot better than the previous one. Allowing me to cover a decent amount of vertical meters at altitude in a short period of time.

Serch dropped me at Paso de Cortés so I could run from there to La Joya and then start the triple climb to the Esperanza hut site. The morning was great, a little bit chilly so my first lap across the snowfields was faster due to the hardened snow. I even got a few patches of ice at some steep sections, which made the walking a little tricky in my Yaktrax‘s but nothing too serious. As the day went by and it got hotter (by the 2nd lap), the snow started to melt so those sections became a little slower.

I met Serch while coming down from my 2nd lap, he was going to do the same route but at a slower, more enjoyable pace. While I started my 3rd lap up the mountain, some giant clouds began to set in and it seemed like the good weather was about to end. I hurried as much as possible and managed to arrive to the 4,400-meter mark before it started to get funky. Serch had just came back from the Grupo de los Cien hut and told me that the wind was blowing kind of hard up there. I opted to call it a good day of training and turned back to the car with him.

The totals were: 8 hours 59 minutes 55 seconds, 29.59 kilometers and 2,650 meters of climb and equal descent.

The rest of the photos are here or in the slideshow below: