Writen by Michael Carraz - http://mickrunningliving.blogspot.ie

I have done it!
I know I am spoiling the story by starting with the outcome but I must begin this post by shouting about how happy and fulfilled I am. I have completed the beast that is Ronda del Cims with its 106 miles and 13,000 meters of vertical gain.

This race was not about a time or ranking. It was first and foremost a challenge. A challenge of me against the mountains. And that is how I went into this event with the will and determination to cross the finish line, whatever it takes. I did not care whether it would take 62 hours (overall cut off time) and whether I needed to walk or take loads of breaks. All I cared about was crossing that finish line.


After all, it was my first 100 miles and everybody around me was quick to remind me that it is the hardest mountain event out there, or at least the hardest they've ever done. I can't judge whether it's true or not. And frankly it does not matter. I had been in Andorra for 3 weeks prior to the race and I knew that it was not an easy course. I knew that if you come here unprepared, your chances of finishing are dwelling significantly. I saw people quitting because they had not been able to wrap their mind around the terrain and how challenging it is. I heard people mentioning how happy they were to have made it alive from the top to the bottom. With hindsights I now understand that finishing this race is not just being fit and strong (although it helps finishing it faster!), but it's about being prepared mentally about what is coming and keep things in perspective. 100 miles is a long way. 100 miles of technical, gnarly mountains makes it even longer. Thinking of the distance and what lays ahead is intimidating and discouraging. The key, and this is what worked for me, is to forget about how much you have done and how much more is to come. They key is to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. It is extremely simple and tremendeously hard at the same time to be present in the moment and not think about the distance. I personally spent a great deal of time thinking about how I felt - if I needed to drink, eat, pee etc. My mind went blank a few times - by this I mean that I was thinking about lots of things without thinking about anything specifically. It was like a vortex where lots of thoughts are being absorbed and you can only remember a picture or the shadow of a thought afterwards.

I am now in the process of planning the second part of the season. I am not injured and while I have been tired for a week post race - which is perfectly normal I suppose after being up and running for close to 39 hours - I am now feeling fully recovered and ready to roar.

Below is a blow by blow account of my race at la Ronda.
I must start with the night pre race. Usually, I am pretty relaxed and don't have much trouble sleeping before an event. That was not the case this time. I was very nervous and as a result got very little sleep. And when I did it was bizarely dreamy and therefore not restful.
Anyway, I thought there was no point of stressing about it and I just let it happen. I was just happy when my alarm rang at 5 am on Friday 10th July.
This was the day I was going to start la Ronda. I also knew that this was not the day I was going to finish it!
I went into it as long day (or several for that matter) in the mountains. And in spite of having had a bad night I was feeling pretty confident and well prepared. As the start time got closer, I had adrenaline kicking in and I was waiting patiently around the starting line where more and more runners were gathering.
Laureda had got up to cook me a wonderful kick-ass breakfast. She also came with me at the start line to see me off and give me all her support. It felt good to have her around and although she was not going to start her own race before 10pm at night, I knew that I would think a lot about her during. I knew it was going to be weird to not have her with me as we had done 100% of our Andorian training together.

I felt like the countdown to the 7am start was in slow motion. But once the RD put us on our way after a quick firework, everything went back to normal speed. In fact the start was fast. I know I say the same thing for each race - i.e. people starting too fast - but I think it was even more shocking here as I knew that half of the field was going to be out there for more than 52 hours (median time to complete the whole course). Anyway, the race length and duration did not seem to affect negatively the early pace and most runners were just happy to let the adrenaline and early excitement to carry them as far as possible. Personally, I was very aware of the intensity and chooses to sit back until le col d'Aresnes - first difficulty of the day. It was a pretty long way from Ordino to the col with more than 1,500 meters of ascent. I settle into a combo line and was trying hard to not go to fast. It is so tempting when you see a group of people going by to get sucked up into their rhythm and pace. I was working reasonably hard but without getting into the red zone and as usual thought to myself that I would see at least half of these runners later in the race, blowing up or having to slow down.

Once we reached col d'Aresnes, we then followed a ridge until Collada de Ferreroles. The ridge was pretty rocky and technical and I could hear runners around me moaning while they were sliding.
From Collada de Ferreroles, it was a long, steep and demanding downhill that would take us to the first aid station (20km into the race). I had a very relaxed descent while taking over a few runners who  clearly did not like going down as much as I do.
I was pretty happy to reach the 1st checkpoint and aid station in just over 3 and half hours (first time I was checking my watch). I had originally planned to get there in about 5 hours so I was clearly either going way to fast or had over estimated the time it would take me. Anyway, I was feeling good and thought that nothing could go wrong if I was keeping this intensity. I refilled my water and noticed I had not drunk a huge deal.  The checkpoint was too busy and hectic so I moved on pretty quickly making a mental note to start drinking more. This is one of my problem when running in an event: I get so focused that I "forget" about drinking or when I do drink I don't drink nearly enough (compare to what I lose).

Moving on from Refugi de Sorteny in direction to Portella de Rialb, there was a gradual uphill to another refuge which then got steeper as we were getting closer to the top. I met and started talking to a French dude who had done Le Grand Raid Reunion multiple times. We had a steady pace and the guy was pretty interesting with loads of story so much that I did not realised we had passed Portella Rialb and that we had started the descent to reach the lake Estany Esbalcat. Laureda and I had recced this part so I felt very comfortable going down and left my temporary companion thinking I would see him later.
I noticed it was hot and that I was sweating profusely. I had drank much more and my bottles were getting close to empty. I also wanted to pee so I stopped by the trail and started doing my business. I was enjoying the magnificent panoramic view when I felt a burning sensation. I looked down and got terrified by what I saw. I was peeing blood! It was so red that it looked literraly like blood. I have had some blood in my urine in the past but never something so colourful.
I did not know what to do and looked around to see if another runner was coming by. I wanted to show it to someone as I was terrified. My first thought was that I was going to have to pull out from the race with a kidney failure. I was devastated and panicked to the point I had tears coming to my eyes. I started running downhill again but I slowed down a lot. Now I could feel some pain in my kidneys and for a minute thought about the various scenarios that could play. I could go see a race doctor at the next checkpoint but I knew that it was going to take time and I also knew that there was a good chance he would stop me from continuing or I could try to slow down and drink as much water as I could possibly gulped in the next hour and monitor the situation closely by looking at the colour of my pee.
It was an easy choice. I stopped at the first source I saw and filled my two salomon flasks.
By the time I reached Coma d'Arcalis (second aid station and checkpoint of the day) half an hour later, I had drank a liter of water. At the checkpoint, I drank several glasses of sparkling water (as much as I could in fact) and stayed there for 10 minutes taking time to eat. My companion from earlier arrived and I explained my problem. He happened to be a doctor and started to explain why my kidney were doing this. Basically, I was dehydrated and the kidneys were working harder as result - "eating" the muscle around it. His advice was to drink and also EAT as much as humanly possible for the next hours.

I left Coma d'Arcalis with the fear of not being able to get this under control. I don't think I would have cared too much if this would have happened in the last 5 or 10 hours of the race. But I was barely starting. I had about 35 to 40 hours to go and the idea of peeing blood all the way was worrying me.
I tried to put this worries at the back of mind focusing on drinking as much as I could and stopping at every stream I crossed to refill my water.
The climb from Coma d'Arcalis to Pic del Cataperdis was mild at first but then got very steep. I could feel every muscle working and tried to keep a good pace without working too hard.
The view from the peak was another beautiful one. There were no clouds around and when I looked behind I could see how far we got. Loking ahead I could also see how far we had to go!

I have only some blurred memories going from the peak of Arcalis to the Pla de l'Estany refuge - a 10km section - but obviously it was still a matter of going up and down. When we reached the Pla de l'Estany checkpoint, it was very windy and I stopped at the aid station for about 10-15 mins. I reminded myself that I needed to drink a lot of water and I was trying to eat as much food as possible. The difficulty ahead was la Comapedrossa - the highest peak in Andorra and also the most difficult to climb as it is a path (well there is no path really!) made of big rocks, sandy parts and very very steep.
Once I had stuffed my face with as much meat, cheese, bananas and chocolate as I could stomached I started the ascension of La Comapedrossa. I had reckoned it twice and had took the wrong way getting by some very dangerous passes. So I knew that this time around was going to be a piece of cake in comparison. It wasn't. It was longer than I remembered and I felt like I was never going to reach the top. This peak is particularly discouraging because when you look up, you see the top and you got the illusion that you are pretty close to the top whereas you are still 500 meters (of vertical gain) away. I put my head down and looked at my watch. In spite of having the feeling of dragging on, I was actually climbing pretty fast. I was following from a distance a spanish runner - with whom I will swapped places during the next 2 days and I actually ended up crossing the finishing line with him.
I caught up with a few people who seemed to really struggle. Before reaching the top, you go by a pass which gives the illusion that you are finished climbing and it's the beginning of the descent. That is not the case. The runners still have to climb another 200 meters in gnarly slippery rocks where sometime you feel like going backwards. I knew what was coming and I was/am so grateful for having provided with the possibility to reckon this part as I think it would have got to me mentally. I passed people who were literally grounded and could not move forward anymore. I gave them as much support as I could empathising with the pain mental or physical they seemed to bare at the moment. One foot in front of the other and keep moving was my moto.

Getting to the top and starting dropping on the other side toward the next checkpoint felt so good. I was still careful with my hydration but with my pee colour coming back to something close to normal I felt I could lift the breaks and got a real mood lift. In no time I was at the refuge de la Comapedrossa. I stopped to eat and drink and started talking with a woman who assured me I could make it to la Margineda (70kms point where the first base camp was) before the night. Initially I had planned to get there by midnight or thereabouts. Hearing I could make it before night fall - 9h45pm was very motivating and I took off from the checkpoint like I was in the last 10kms.
The next 10km were actually pretty cool with only one ascent. The rest was downhill and dare I say 'flat'. Well flat was more like rolling but still I managed to run all of it and I was still feeling good energy wise. No muscular or tendons issues as well. In short, everything was going smoothly and I just needed to make sure I was not pissing blood. I had drank so much in the past hours that I had to stop for a pee break approximately every 15 minutes. While it was quite annoying, it was also reassuring as I could monitor closely and frequently the colour, smiling and feeling relieved every time it would come out not red or purple. Sometimes happiness lies into small things heh?

I reached the start of Bony de la Pica climb. It was the end of the afternoon and hot. All day the sun had been shining and while it was pleasant, it was also starting to take its toll. I was looking forward for it to set behind the mountains. Unfortunately, I was chasing it as I was climbing. At the top of Bony de la Pica I got my bag controlled. The guy who were controlling bags wanted me to take a break, sit down and eat while checking I had all the compulsory gears. I told him I did not have time and he kept saying not to worry about time, that it would be taking off from my final time. Utter BS I thought to myself. How on earth he was going to do that? I asked him if he could stop time. He answered rather seriously no, and so I took off. I wanted to reach la Margineda before nightfall and this was not going to happen by sitting on my arse eating sausages at the top of a mountain.
The descent to la Margineda was the BIG descent. We were dropping 1,800 meters in 8kms. Not only that but the downhill was very technical, very steep and made mostly of loose rocks - and well most people would simply describe it as dangerous. To be fair it was dangerous. You had chains to secure some tricky bits but what made it hilarious is that the volunteers guiding you through some of the most risky parts were 14years old teenager asking you to be careful and not to take risks.

I finally arrived at the base camp of Margineda at 9:50pm, right when it started be dark. I felt pretty rough and dirty coming into it. Unfortunately, I did not have anything in my drop bag to take a shower so I cleaned myself up with some wipes and went to take a dump. I then eat, drank and eat some more. I somehow ended up procrastinating and looking around at other runners who, most of them, looked rough before getting all my night stuff ready: gloves, iPod and headlamps. I left feeling rather prepared to go through a long night. The only thing I have not really thought of so far was being alone. I did not mind being by myself during the day but somehow the idea to get through the night without anyone was not very appealing. I did not have a choice anyway and the iPod was going to be my friend.

I left the life base with music blasting into my ears. The route was following the road for a while before reaching the climb up to col de la Gallina. It followed a forestry path, quiet steep at first and then joined a track. The track was rather dull but it was runnable at some place and provided a good mental break of being able to just switch off and not being too attentive.
The descent toward Saint Julia was very much the same, alternating between tracks and paths. It was very warm (helped by the fact that we were at the lowest altitude point of the race : 992 meters) and I was starting to feel sleepy. I crossed Saint Julia following the course markings - all on road - and had to stop several times thinking I got lost (although there was no way of getting lost).
I welcomed the uphill to Coma Bella when I started climbing and thought that there was no way of getting lost there (even if I was to shut my eyes every now and then). This climb was the beginning of 1,800 meters of ascent. I tried not to think of it but I had it in the back of mind and could not chase the thought away. This was where I got a low patch. I felt tired and unmotivated. I felt that I was moving slow (and probably was) and that I would never get to Coma Bella. After each turn, I was expecting to see a house with tons of lights with volunteers waiting for me.  It never came. Well it did eventually come after what felt like an interminable uphill. I knew I had to seriously rest at this checkpoint before continuing, or otherwise I would just get broken. There were beds so I lied down and close my eyes. I felt like sinking into the abyss as every single muscle of my body finally had a chance of relaxing and not working. I tried sleeping but it was very noisy and I knew I would not fall asleep in this condition so I just stayed like that for 5 to 10 minutes. I then got up and, as usual, eat as much as I could.

I was seized up by the cold when I stepped out of the Coma Bella aid station. However it did not take long before warming up again. Surprisingly, I did not feel tired at all. In fact, I felt rested and strong and decided to take advantage of this as I knew it would not last. So I put my music on and started the long ascent to Pic Negre (2,600m of altitude). I stopped only once on my way up to put my jacket on as the wind was blowing hard and it was cold. When I got the the top there was a guy who stepped out of his tent to get my bib number. He offered me water, which I politely declined. The only thing I wanted was to get the the hell out of here. The fog and wind made it miserable up there.
The descent to refuge Claror was supposed to be easy but I somehow managed to struggle with the fog as I could not see the course marks and had to stop every 30 seconds to scan the area until I could see one of the reflective markers. Just before getting to Claror I saw a junction with the other race La Mitic. That meant I could see Laureda anytime now and I wondered how she was doing, hoping she was killing it (and she was!).

I stayed at Claror a bit, looking at the beds and wondered for 5 minutes whether I should try to sleep or not. The sun was rising and I thought I would feel less tired in a few minutes, plus I really wanted to take a dump and there was nowhere to do that at the CP. From Claror to Illa (the next CP) I had a relatively uneventful time (beside being able to duck into the bush and relieved myself). The route and surrounding landscaped were beautiful, going up steadily. The first two guys from la Mitic caught me just before arriving to Illa. I did not spend a lot of time at this CP, although my feet starting hurting and I wondered whether I should got it checked or whether it could wait Pas de la Casa - the 2nd and last base life (at 130km point).
I decided that it could wait and took off. There was two major climbs before getting to the descent of Pas de la Casa with the notable Col d'Issars - one of the peak I had not been able to reckoned but one I had read to be difficult. Perhaps because I had expected this col be relatively hard, I got the (good) surprise to pass it and start the descent toward Pas de la Casa without much fuss.
The descent was long and my feet were killing me. I ran with a French dude who kept reminding me that it was not in the bag and we still had 40kms to go. I knew that but I also knew we had done the hardest part and I was not going to let his negativity got to me.

I was pleased to be at Pas de la Casa and knowing I had a fresh pair of socks and shoes waiting in my drop bag was the big highlight of the day. When I removed my shoes my feet were so dirty that I could not possibly put my clean stuff on these filthy, stinky things. So I went to see the podologues to get my small and big toes taped. They cleaned and taped my feet (which took more than 15 minutes). While they were taking care of it, I shut my eyes and almost slipped into morpheus arms. Not quite though. I got up on my feet, eat, drank, refilled food supplies and water. After 50 mins (the longest I had spent in a CP so far) I left Pas de La Casa feeling fantastic with a new pair of feet.
The feeling did not last long as we were going down the valley following the river, before going back up to Pad de la Vasques. The terrain was boggy, wet and uneven. It took about 30 minutes for my feet to hurt as much, if not more, as they did before. I must have swear once or twice at the organisation for making us go through such shitty terrain. The boggy unpleasant part soon stopped and we were welcomed by a very step last 200 meters. By this time a group of 4 formed. I think it was easier to pull each other to the end and if we were here together after 140kms, we must have been at the same level on the day. This group would last pretty much to the end.

The last two climbs of the day went by pretty well. Although, there were about 600 meters of ascent each, they both felt like much more  - I guess it's normal at this stage of the race.
In the last climb (collada del Meners) I caught and passed Nerea Martinez. I was surprised and somehow pleased to see her. At no point I had expected to see one of the top 3 women as they are all professionals. When I passed Nerea I asked her if she was ok and she told me her legs were hurting badly. From there it was all downhill. 13kms of pure descent before the finish line. The beginning of the descent was painful. My feet were just killing me and I could only think about the finish and stopping the pain. Just before reaching the last CP (at 10kms from the finish) I caught with Emelie Lecomte. Again big surprise. She was in the same shape as Nerea - completely destroyed legs and she looked really tired. Her partner asked her to run with us until the finish line but as we departed the last CP she stayed behind. Emelie is the record woman of the GR20 in Corsica and she has had incredible results at le Grand Raid Reunion in the past. That's when it hit me that maybe I was not doing that bad. So far I only had the impression to "survive" the run but now I was feeling like I had a great performance.

I ran the last 10kms and crossed the finish line, after 38h50, 2 days and 1 night. Someone told me I was 25th and someone else put a beer into my hand. I was so happy to have finished and so proud of myself. I had put a lot of time and a lot of training in three months prior to the race and it was fantastic to see it paid off on race day. I felt blessed to be able to take part in this event and to be there with so many great people.
It is something I will never forget and this is an event I would recommend to anyone looking for a tough challenge. I have not mentioned it yet but I must say that the organisation was perfect, the course well marked and the volunteers the nicest, most helpful people I have ever came across.