Let’s start from the beginning. UTMB Mont Blanc is a massive endeavor—a challenging and beautiful race around the Mont Blanc massif. It offers multiple distances, ranging from 15k to 170km (yes, we know about PTL, but we don’t coach people for PTL).
Anyone toeing the startline of a UTMB Mont Blanc Race, must have qualified by completing another race before, and collecting some stones (check this article if you want to understand how the qualification process works). This should help to automatically select out, runners that are not ready to race in Chamonix.
The thing is that this selection process, even if it’s as objective as it can be, can’t identify how ready the person is to participate in the race. Mainly, because you can qualify for 2025 with a race result from 2024, for example, if you ran Lavaredo Ultra Trail 120km in June of 2024, and submitted your name to the lottery and got accepted, that means that you will be getting to the start line of UTMB Mont Blanc, 14 months after you did your qualifying race. And as we all know, a lot can happen in 14 months. Some people can get fitter and stronger, others can get less fit, or have to deal with life problems, injuries, maybe you had a baby… the list can go forever.
It’s very likely to not be as ready as expected when starting to train for one of these races, which is fine. We helped hundreds of runners on these conditions not only complete their training plan for the race but to achieve their goal of crossing the finish line in Chamonix,
So the first myth that we addressed when designing training plans for each of our hundreds of customers, was that
“Most runners are not arriving ready to start training for the race”.
We’ve helped hundreds of runners in this situation not only complete their training plans but also achieve their goal of crossing the finish line in Chamonix.
This informs the first key aspect of our coaching, we must meet our customers where they are, and bring them up to the best possible fitness to achieve their goals. We can’t just give a runner a random plan and expect them to achieve the plan and be ready to tackle the hardest races on the planet (like UTMB Mont Blanc, or many others).
Another key aspect of the qualifying process is that all the races are different, as we mention in our 50k training guide. And Running in Chamonix, it’s particularly complex, mainly because we’re dealing with a very particular terrain.
It’s extremely steep going up and down, climbs are long… I’m talking about 1, 2, 3 hours long. And even more critical, downhills can take forever.
There’s a full half-marathon of pure downhill on the UTMB and CCC Route, that’s you, running 21km of downhill in the middle of the race.
I attribute this killer downhill as one of the main reasons for the high DNF rate that occurs at Champex Lac and Trient, during both of those races. So, if you qualified for Mont Blanc by running a race like Canyons in California or Alsace, or Chianti… well we’re talking of two different sports.
Based on that insight, we put a lot of effort into making sure this transition and adaptation of the type of terrain that you will find around Mont Blanc, is done during training and there’s not a shock on race day. How do we do that? Is very simple: a perfect blend of strength, intensity, and specific long runs tailored to the route and race conditions, all of which are guided by our Mountain Index. What’s our Mountain index? Well, one of our many secret sauces, that allows us to make every single workout count towards the preparation of one specific goal.
Now the final challenge, there are so many people that’s going to be racing in Chamonix, while living in London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, etc… you get the idea, I’m talking about people who live in cities and can go to the hills or mountains maybe on a monthly basis, or maybe almost never.
How the heck are we going to train them to tackle the climbs, the downhills, the distance, the weather, and everything else, while only having access to the Copenhill in Copenhagen? Or a few stairs on an office building?
The answer, is again, super simple… You need to develop your muscle endurance and strength. We achieve this by a combination of strength training, fatigue resistance workouts, speed workouts combined with strength training, and so on.
Imagine yourself doing 50-meter hill repeats or 1 – 2-minute flat intervals, followed by squat-jump in between intervals as your recovery time… give it a try, it makes your legs burn almost like a hard downhill run, without having access to a hill.
Now that workout is not the only thing we do, of course, there is a combination of very specific/tailored to the individual sessions that allow us to develop the capacity of getting to the start-line of any race, with a 92%+ chance of finishing your race
Why can we do that? Because we have specialized solely in trail running:
Every training app out there is trying to do it all, road running, trail running, etc… The truth is that we’re talking of different sports.
Liking trail running doesn’t make you a good coach at it. You actually have to deeply understand the sport from the inside to be good at it, and well with so many years of racing and coaching experience all over the world, we at Vert have created a team of experts who truly understand and breathe the sport every day of our lives – learn about our coaches here.
A Note on Price, Carbon Plates, and Cushioning
Ok, so let’s check some numbers. In 2024, which actually was a great year in Chamonix, not too hot, not too cold. Idyllic conditions, the finishing rate of the races, weren’t the best. Let’s dig in some data.
|
Race Name |
Race Distance |
Race Finishing Rate |
Vert.run Finishing rate |
|
UTMB |
170 km |
64% |
90% |
|
CCC |
101 km |
72% |
91% |
|
OCC |
56 km |
87% |
93% |
|
MCC |
40 km |
95% |
95% |
|
ETC |
15 km |
97% |
98% |
|
TDS |
145 km |
59% |
87% |
The finishing rate for the UTMB races can be found on the live trail website, where we have calculated the finishing rate by dividing the number of finishers by the number of starters of each of the races.
Mike was smart, so he signed up for his plan early in the year, like right after the lottery… that gives us a massive advantage over runners who start training for their race in spring… If you start in the Spring, for example, you may not be able to do the first two blocks of training. So by not building a strong base, the risk of injuries increases as the training evolves throughout he year.
- Specific block 1: We will set a first goal, probably a 50 miler, and train for that 50 miler with UTMB in the back of our heads. This block can be from 8 to 12 weeks long and we’re starting to focus on LT efforts, sustained climbs workouts, and sustained downhill workouts. Gear testing, nutrition training. Always with key strength workouts every week and some high-intensity sessions every couple of weeks, just to maintain the work from the previous blocks. In this specific block, we may try to target similar sections that will be found on the race, like the climb out from Les Contamines, which is a very long, runnable in the beginning and steep at the end climb… all in the dark. With a massive change in temperature as you get higher, for some reason the Croix The Bonhome section, is always cold.
This block will end with the test race or run, and we will put the training to test, but also the gear, shoes, backpack, nutrition, poles handling, headlamp, pacing, effort perception, and whatever else we need to test. We want to avoid surprises.
- Recovery period: normally 1 to 2 weeks of recovery, regain freshness and gear up for the last block.
- Specific block 2: here is where we will apply all the lessons learned in our previous race. Let’s say Mike realized his engine is very strong and had no problems running uphill, but his downhill was awful and he was cramping during the whole second half of the race… well Mike can’t really train downhills on DC so this makes sense, we will need to adjust the training to add some extra combinations of speed + box jumps sessions, stairs workouts and strength training focused on the muscles we use mainly on downhills. This specific block is to fine-tune whatever is missing while increasing the volume of training. Normally this is the block where the hours will be the highest, and it can be a combination of running, cycling, strength training, or others, depending on each runner.
- Taper: We will always leave 2 weeks of taper. The taper will be very personal, some runners perform better with a low-volume high-intensity taper, and others with the opposite, this is very personal. But we already learned from your previous taper experience, what should work for you. Here we also work on helping Mike identify sources of stress before the race, like work or family or travels, and guide him to adapt whatever needs to be done to prioritize rest and recovery. Sometimes the training is perfect, but external reasons boycott our races, that’s very common.
That’s a simple example of a training journey of classic UTMB runners, one of those who finished their race in the last 2 years. So yeah, it’s not rocket science, but it’s a lot of attention to detail, a lot of personalization, and many hours on our side to craft every possible journey, learn from it and improve it for the next year.
If you are selected for this year’s UTMB race or are dreaming of doing it one day, please reach out, we will be more than happy to guide you and help you out. Our coaching plans currently are at $25/month for the basic one, which includes weekly coach support, and the detailed training guidance described above. And $99/month for our premium coaching, including a coach call every month, to catch up and go over your training.
If you are interested in any other race or training for any race, or goal, we’re here to help you out. Our finishing rates numbers are very standard, not matter the race or distance, and this is because we truly care about each of our customers while having the biggest training plan and workouts database in trail running.
One last thing, if you didn’t get selected, no worries, it will come when is the right time.
Best of lucks on your 2025 season.
Moisés,
- 2 by UTMB finisher (best placing 16th)
- 1 by TDS finisher (10th place)
- 1 by CCC finisher (34th place)
