So I finished my racing season at Limone Skyrace this weekend.
After the double KM de Chando I set a new PB in the vertical kilometer, achieving 35’18” at VGS (vertical du grand serre) despite feeling a bit rough and with heavy legs. I believe if I raced at Fully with that form I could have achieved a time of 34:00 to 34:30. Compared with last year’s 37’30”, a massive improvement!
Another week followed with the Diagonale du Mont Joly, a vertical race to the summit of Mont Joly in Saint Gervais. I felt great and placed 3rd overall around 1.5 minutes back from the winner, Adrien Perret. A super race and last hard workout before the Limone Skyrace.
Straight into the Limone Skyrace, I was feeling confident and started well despite immediately being tripped up on go and crashing hard onto my knees. I climbed well in the heat, started descending well and had good energy levels/hydration the whole race, but as time went on I developed huge heel blisters on both feet.
I am still confused now as to why it happened, I have run many thousands of kilometers and elevation meters in these types of shoes and not once have heel blisters ever been an issue for me. It ultimately left me in a lot of pain descending and reduced me to a slow jog down. I ended up finishing in 4h07 – far from my prediction of 3h20.
I’m still super happy with my fitness and I believe next year I will be able to compete with the best, so long as I keep progressing at the same rate. And if I don’t buy new socks the day before the race!
See you next year Limone.