Cham ya bam; UTMB prep, taperitis and spending too much cash

Well here I am sitting in an internet cafe in Chamonix (or Cham) with some overcast skies and a nice 18C or so at 10:45am. Tapering is well in progress and luckily no signs of taperitis (when completely made up pains pop up to worry you). I am also on a beer taper which is helped hugely by the price here (4.5o - 6 euros a pint aaagh!).

Drew Sheffield and I made our 06:30 flight on Saturday despite having to haul ourselves out of bed at 3:30am and the ChamExpress connection from Geneva worked great. We stepped out of the van and I nearly fell over having never been here before. All around are the most unbelievable towering serrated, pointed peaks, sheer rock faces and tumbling glaciers. What a place to be, and what a massif to run around. Excitement set in straight away.

Other than an erratic hot water supply and the Dire Straits played outside at 08:00 on tannoys our flat is great and will only require 200m of walking from the finish, which, after the race will be very very appreciated.

We met up with Richie Cunningham, Andy Cole and his wife and took the free train to Vallorcine on Sunday. Andy and his wife took an easy walk whilst the rest of us took a slow jog / hike up to Col de Montet (puffing due to altitude for sure) then on to Tete aux Tet and Flegere before taking the Kinlochleven on acid descent to La Floria and back to Cham. This is the last 18km + 1000m or s of ascent of the race which we wanted to recce and just enjoy for it affords the most magnificent views of the Mont Blanc massif in all its jagged and glaciated glory. I took a fall on the technical, rooty and rocky trail just before La Floria but other than a skint hand and knee no damage was done (phewft).

Monday was spent at > 2500m with Drew and Richie as we took the cable car up Brevent, the mountain facing Mont Blanc. The first section was in little pod cars to seat 4 or so with a 30' or so drop beneath. The second section was in a 60 person car with a 500' drop beneath as it travelled up the sheer cliffs that lie beneath the summit. I held a pole in the car and looked at the floor, not being the best with heights. Gibber gibber. We basically sat down and let our bodies get used to altitude but also made the time to hike down 500m or so to Lac Brevent to swim in our undies after a few shrieks getting in. We then hiked back up in the glorious sun which shone upon us both Sunday and Monday. I wasn't puffed on the hike back up at all so reckon I should be fine during the race.

Yesterday was a lazier day with a short 4.5 mile walk to Les Houches with Richie along the 'Milngavie to Drymen' section of the UTMB, and last night we cheered on the Petit Trot de Leon (PTL) runners as they left the town at 22:00 fr a 114 hou max. 260km adventure in teams of 3. The music was going, and the race has definitely began to feel imminent. Bring it on! George Reid also arrived in so our flat is now complete.

Today is registration day, tomorrow a lazing around day and Friday the last minute prep day as we will kick off at 18:30 local time. Time to relax, gather strength and prepare. I'm feeling good and focussing on staying that way, particularly psychologically.

My race number is 3570 and this is my planned maximum schedule (40 hours) if anyone wants to follow me on the UTMB website mobile phone text update service. The weather is forecast to be 23C on Saturday, much better than 29C so touch wood it looks good.

Here we go! Waaahooo!