On June 29, 2024 I completed 23km Mont Blanc half marathon. Here is a link to Strava.
Even though official distance was 23km my Apple Watch counted 26km. This is by far my longest "run" to date. I did two half marathons before (March 2023 and May 2024).
This run was interesting, because it was my first ever official trail run. Trail running feels completely different from the road running. I think if you are pro - it's real run, but for me it was more like a hike (at least after 12th km than a run).
What was good?
The landscape was beautiful. Organization was impeccable. Plus I think this run is a "bucket list" activity.
What was not so good?
I was preparing for this run since end of February. So it was 4 months. I ran over 400km in this time. However, I couldn't get in shape. In the previous years I was able to get into great shape(endurance and speed) after running just 100km (so in one month). But this year was different. First 1.5 month I just suffered running. Following 2.5 month were better and I enjoyed them, however my speed was extremely slow (need to write about it separately).
What I noticed is that it's way more enjoyable to run those races when you feel strong and quick(subjectively to yourself). This wasn't the case for me. I was able to do the race, but with the feeling of regret that my fitness wasn't great.
Another weird thing doing Mont Blanc race in French town of Chamonix was this realization how "white" and "privileged" this experience was.
I spent 6 years living in San Francisco and going on bike rides or hikes you would always see diverse crowd. But in Chamonix it was all "white". An upper class white - think skiing resort - with everyone having expensive running equipment. This threw me off a bit, because I know that France is very diverse. I don't want to write a lot on this topic because I don't have enough data, but it's outstanding how privileged sometimes my life is. I grew up in Ukraine in 1990s and all my relatives wanted is to have some rest and sleep after hard physical work. And now I pay money to do physically difficult things - run 25km in mountains or ride a bike for 100km.