Tor des Géants by Stevie Haston

                                                    Photos credit to Lorenzo Belfrong


How would you like to run for 330 km? You probably wouldn’t, no sensible person would. Would you like to do 24,000 meters of ascent and decent? No definitely not, you would have to be out of your mind, right. The Tor de Geants is a race, or event, that takes in the 330km and 24,000meters of up and had 380 entrants of all ages, who thought it might be fun. Surprisingly they all seemed fairly normal to me, a bit passionate perhaps, very fit and eager, but no they weren’t out of their minds. Don’t get me or them wrong, none of them thought it would be easy, and they certainly knew it would hurt more than a little. So why did they do it? Well for a start the TDG is held in some of the most beautiful valleys of the world and they were arranged in a logical way to create a journey that showed this beauty off, but also paid homage to the local people who try to live within these mountains in a peaceful and harmonious way. The TDG takes high level walking routes around the mountains of the Aosta region, starting and finishing in Courmayeur. Courmayeur is well known to the climbing community, but in the last few years it has become a great centre for mountain running. And this is where I personally got involved, as I know these valleys intimately from climbing in them for 30 years. I noticed the TDG announcement 5 weeks before its start and was seduced by its magic and its provocative challenging allurement. All that beauty within a scant 7 days, was it possible? It was apparently possible for non professionals, but was it possible for me a rock climber who hadn’t done any endurance for a few years. I had been looking for an excuse to take a break from climbing, and the more I thought about all those lovely valleys in the race, the more I was hooked.

If you break the Tor de Geants down into stages, it sounds logical and simple and this is what fooled me, although I guess I must have been willing to be fooled. Each day you would do a mountain marathon with 4000meters of ascent and descent, how hard could that be I reasoned? In truth this would be hard enough but the tricky bit about the Tor is the lack of sleep, something even the good competitors had trouble with, but of course they were at least clever enough to understand this important factor. I also desperately wanted to see some good guys and girls running hard, to inspire me. Sport for me is about people who try hard. The motivation and passion among mountain runners has always cheered me up especially as it is a sport that doesn’t get much mainstream attention. In my cynical eyes they would be freer from the nonsense that sometimes surrounds climbing and would give me a boost. After really looking at how the Tor broke down and its apparent lack of sleep I did want to back out and thought just about watching it, I was scared by the sheer hard work involved, the pain, the lack of glory, the night marches into your own private purgatory if not hell. Did I back out? No I didn’t , because in 5 short weeks I morphed into a runner, I turned into an endomorphine junky, like I was when I was a kid. The enormous joy of travelling fairly big distances over fabulous mountain terrain bit into my soul and wouldn’t let go. In training around the lovely hills of north Wales I met great warm generous people who helped me run. When I went to work in Courmayeur I met more gentle loving people who helped me run, the sun shone and those mountains just begged you to walk trot or run over them. Six days before the race I met Marco high in the hills at a refugio, a chance meeting of like minded souls, he gave me a schedule for trotting the race which helped me greatly and was sad that he was going to pull out of it because of overtraining. I tried to keep him in the race and said my good byes. On the way back home 50 kms a cut developed in my heel, I would have to cancel my race, and I developed Marcos visage, sad miserable, like loosing a lover. 5 weeks work down the tube, Marco had invested more, I was lucky I tried to tell myself I had a good excuse and wouldn’t have all that pain, but neither would I have the joy. In the six days before the race the cut did not heel and then I did what a lot of endurances runners would do , I just decided I was going to enter and every mile I did would be a victory until I gave up.

On race day I walked the 2 kms to the start and got excited seeing all the great athletes and all the ordinary runners who were about to try really really hard just to finish. The excitement was really extraordinary, the organizers put on a great start and everybody was pumped up with the music and the enormity of the distance. Before I knew it we were off, and because the first couple of hours were uphill only there was no painful landing on my heels and I started to gain places from my back of the pack start. The weather was glorious, the mountains stupendous, and the feeling among the runners was uplifting. I felt no real pain that day and ran a fair bit, the crunch came later that day at the end of the days stage. We all had the opportunity to rest eat and sleep in a so-called life base, these were entirely adequate indeed excellent and with lovely volunteers but due to the runners nerves the coming and going of people and your metabolism being all over the place sleep tended to be impossible. Indeed the good guys and girls didn’t stop, they just pushed on, it was something I didn’t really understand and even if I had I would not have had the confidence to do. This was my first race, and I had jumped into a big one where tactics and experience counted even more than running ability and things like VO2 max. In this race and others like it, sheer grit and being very tough count very high, I was finally ahead of better athletes than myself and I in turn was placed lower than some ordinary but fantastically enduring people.

At life base one I tried to sleep, I squeezed my eyes shut for 2 hours, but no sleep, not a wink, so I got up and started walking in the rain, in the dark. And here I learnt another lesson, you must have the right equipment, a good system of clothes and be familiar with it, and know how to use it. I wasn’t on top of this and changing waterproofs every 5minutes costs you time, and all those changes and little rest stops over 330 kms add up to about a day, a day that you can’t get back. There was a tough Col at 3200 meters and here again was a lesson despite being someone who climbs at medium altitudes this is not enough and I visibly slowed down above 2500meters. So acclimatisation is very necessary on this race. Some of the downhill sections from Cols fully taxed my mountain craft in the rain, and I was grateful of my decision to take poles. Walking poles were in great evidence, and let you use different muscles as well as helping you maintain stability in the dark and when walking downhill half asleep. But they do need practise to use well.

At one point a good Italian runner paused to cheer me up before he over took me. Come on he said a bit more and a lovely smooth decent for 14km. And he was right, a smooth even path but I couldn’t do it justice, a slow dogtrot was all I could muster.

Another similar night in a life base and I was up before I’d rested, talking to Mark from the Lakes. He was going to quit due to a wrenched knee, I tried to keep him in the race, and he helped me with my cut, but he reluctantly pulled out. So I was now fully into a cycle of trying to sleep, but only resting for a few hours. Having a warm meal and then off again. The uphill ascents, however hard were fine, and the down hills were often agony. I had to develop different ways of walking, or trotting, which didn’t involve heel strikes. Somehow I kept going. The fourth section was 56 km with about 5000meters of up, it went on, and on. I started just before sunset so that my feet would be colder and wouldn’t get as damaged. At the Refugio de Coda in the dark a sparkling view over the plain of Piedmont, town lights 50 km away were like a fairy tale and then afterwards endless rocks. I overtook a young lady who was having an asthma attack and tried to assure her it was fine and then rushed on so I could tell someone. An hour later I bumped into Pascal who was looking after a few runners including the girl I’d just seen, it was at a windy col as the day broke, and she was overjoyed to hear I thought her pal was fine, she trotted down the hill like a spring bunny with some medicine. Pascal will probable do the race next year, see you then eh? Anyway this stage nearly broke me, but after a short rest at the next life base I carried on, I didn’t trust myself to sleep now, thinking if I found sleep I wouldn’t wake up. Now then, this next stage was supposed to be easy, but I found it very hard, my feet had both got really bad, and there was a huge unending rocky descent to finish. A lovely airy series of cols worthy of Lord of the Rings, and then downhill torture for 1500 meters. It was hell, I did some of it asleep, on auto pilot. The last 2 stages I knew, because I had done them in practice so I thought I had the race in the bag. But my feet got worse and worse till finally I needed a lot of work from a doctor and a nurse. L would like to thank the nurse again, she was from Spain and was very empathetic when she was lancing the cuts and blisters, I really did know it was hurting her more than me. Finally I was on my feet but I couldn’t get one of the shoes on so we had to cut that too. In the end I limped off, it turned into a hobble after a few kms and somewhere along the way I did about 14 kms of running. From the final Col I always knew that it would be ok as the view of the Monte Bianco is one of the most magical this planet offers, with the ridge of the Noire like a great flying buttress soaring to the roof of the mightiest cathedral of Europe, it is simple sublime. I finished 82nd to a lovely warm welcome, and met the two leading girls who had come in a day and a half ahead of me, seriously good times not like mine. Julia asked me what I had been up too in all that time, cheeky little Imp, she was great, hi Julia next time! Some of the runners of course did excellent times, some just scraped through, but many of the more experienced ones said it was the hardest race they had done. This is not a warning, it is merely so you know, in my humble opinion as I am a novice, and the joys seemed equal to the effort. The bonus is you get to see the best from people the warmth and generosity of the locals and the right stuff by the competitors,all in all very life affirming.

The Tor de Giants is a fantastic run in superb mountain landscape, but it is much more than that, it is the spirit of 1200 volunteers –incredible- its local people who walk up hills in the middle of the night to say bravo- and competitors who aren’t your enemy, they are your friends. You visit differing valleys who speak three different languages but all love the region and respect it and protect it. I am incredible lucky to have been tricked into this celebration of mountain life and thanks once more to the organisers and sponsors. A special personal thanks to everybody who gave me a helping hand and there were many, very many grazie. The Tor de Géants is finally over, long live the tour, do not hesitate make your date with the Geants.

Link http://www.tordesgeants.it/

TOR DES GEANTS for STEVIE HASTON

Stevie has been taking a rest from climbing and his training in Italy for the Tor des Géants, an other crazy idea of his, he hope to finish the race, but he has some bad blister already from his training,

you can follow on http://www.tordesgeants.it/ and on the new Grivel website http://www.grivel.com/ check the videos on MEDIA...

Thanks  to Lorenzo Belfrond for the picture...

Italy is numero Uno, by stevie haston.

Went to northern Italy for work and pleasure again, both good. It rained again also, but the flowers were bright and plentiful and the mountains looked very big with their mantle of snow on. I did my normal run passed the Jorrasses and for a few moments had a bit of static as I looked up at an unclimbed couloir that was claimed and named as a route the other week. So three nice guys fail on a route, but decide to claim it anyway and there is a report in Planet Mountain and UKC web sites condoning it. Gee, is there any point in actually doing anything anymore. Come on, the thing is still waiting to be done. I paused, shook my head, and then I thought about the talented sport climber who just added 70 bolts to the Maestri route on Cero Torre, the climbing world is loosing its senses and it’s getting worse. Anyway the north face of the Blanche got a ski decent just this month, first time since the first, 30 years ago, so on the way back down I paused, thought about that, and it cheered me up. And strangely enough, a few days later I was up at altitude in a hurricane doing some film work, which although really unpleasant made me feel a lot of respect for people who do give mountains their due place and respect and don’t stop before the tape looking around for applause.
The big personnel news which is pretty depressing for me, the route I really want to do is humiliating me, and it looks like I will have to get better or more likely just bin it, because its too hard for me. I have made no head way on it, created more mental barriers for myself, and worse, realised it’s super morpho for me. So in reality, I am on to a thrashing to nothing. If it wasn’t for the fact that its brutal character has imprisoned my desire I would defo say I have given up on it, but I’ll try a bit more just to hurt myself. It’s only had two ascents by two of my heroes at the peak of their game, both lads with a bigger reach and 15 pounds lighter than me. Think about those facts, and you might be as depressed as me! They both regularly placed high in comps and this power endurance kindda route was there bread and butter. However to justify the likely hood of failure I have convinced myself that it could be beneficial in a training way rather than an ego way, just use it as a gigantic exercise machine and a mental game, and award myself points for doing bits of it, or good links. As its on the way from work to the apartment its almost sensible. This route is defiantly tilting at windmills at the moment, but I always did like that book.

Met a great guy called Max who was trying a very nice power endurance 8b+, he was helping his mate do a route and between burns sat in a fold up chair reading a book on Adolf Hitler. It turned out that he was the same size as Laurence so with his help we were able to convince Laurence to try a route she had secretly had an eye on. Max was also able to give me some great beta despite being 5 inches smaller than me, grazzie. His optimism and happiness were contagious even though I was tired and I look forward to seeing him get his route, which he most defiantly will unlike me! We were discussing how hard it is being mountain climbers who are into redpointing and how are habits of security impede our ability to take risks and climb well on sport routes. Anyway his ability to switch on was much better than mine but I am having a bad patch, this bad patch doest extend into me being sour though and I am getting a lot of pleasure from other peoples success, just wish I had some of my own. I’ll have to start training with Ernest and stop eating and become obsessed and mortgage my soul again.

My boss was a demanding tyrant as usual, but I love him like a father. Once at a meeting 10 years ago I doodled a cartoon of him, a distorted huge head, large hands, small ears, and one of my sub bosses looked over my shoulder and started giggling and then big bosses son started laughing too until the meeting was disrupted and I was dragged over the coals. But to this day on his door he has the cartoon, a big brain and small ears is no good, so he altered the cartoon to a big brain and huge ears because that’s what the boss should be. Bravo Boss.

Because of work my head was always full of great gear, work, more design, efficiency, costs, communication, too much coffee, so I would run a bit or do a lot of Yoga to try and relax. But to very little avail, I’d wake up at 5 am and start thinking or wanting action of some sort. In the end I looked at my training and decided to work a couple of things in a complicated exercise plan and cut down on duration but up frequency, day on day off, but each second day on different by 50%, in exercise and intensity. This is to try to iron out my weaknesses, by sacrificing some of my strengths; loose some power and hopefully gain some power endurance. I need more crimp strength too even though I have gained,. If I make a small gain and loose 10 lbs, I might become an interesting mutation. Lets see, 12 weeks or more, and the transformation to wingless bat, half gibbon, should be complete.

Miha, today I miss you, by Stevie Haston.

Miha you died two years ago on Cho Oyu, but it is only today I finally understand that you are not here. You were so young, and full of promise and fun, uncorrupted and hopeful, your death has robbed me today of some of the blue sky, and I will try to paint it back in because I know you would want me too. People reading this will not know you or indeed sadly, may never have even met someone like you and your passing removes one less chance for bright sparks like you to fly. I remember a conversation with you about how you were going to knuckle down and do less climbing and more money work, and you laughed, ordered another beer for us, and now that I think about it I cant remember if you winked at the waitress or it was the sun in your eyes. ‘Do free Rider’ you said with glee, ‘I have done it, not soo bad, and it is good, and you haven’t, how can this be?’

Miha's car!

We all met in Kathmandu to do a remote mountain and there you go, I just remember the good times, the bouldering in the flowers. At the airport when we couldn’t get a helicopter and you were getting miffed I bet you beers that I was heavier than you and I won though you were so much taller than me. Do you remember we called ourselves the ‘happy morons’ and how we laughed, do you remember me cello taping my eyes all slitty to be funny?

You did so much climbing after you decided to do less, ha! All the 4000-meter peaks in the Alps in one winters season must have been good, a good one, bet you had some liquid carb, eh? Fitzroy, Nameless Tower, hard sport, what were you going to do when you were old?

Tomas and you are dead now, two funny guys less from that table which crumpled with beer glasses, I was injured and you wondered how I could be happy in crutches, and I said that it was because I would live to see another Spring and you demurred.



Miha Valic thanks for making a ‘happy moron’ laugh, a bit easy though, now if we were intelligent climbers that would be hard! In remembering you I will paint the sky blue, I will turn all slabs into overhangs, and make Laurence smile and laugh like you did. See you on the other side, Miha.

Fortieth generation Italian, by Stephano Haston.

I have just spent a week working in northern Italy, so I am tired; I have some lira in my pocket, met some new people and was generally more alive from using my brain, normal for northern Italy! If it wasn’t for the coffee, which is reason enough to go, I would be I in need of a sanatorium like in he Magic mountain, kinda consumption of the brain has taken place.

Wake up sometimes was five, stare at the wooden beam, make a pot of coffee, actually that should read, choose a coffee pot from the five in the cupboard, then watch it do its stuff, fill the nostrils, eat some carb and pop out for a run. Most days it was raining, but a few were clear, and they were divine. I would run up the hill, till I was opposite the Grande Jorasses, pausing to check gullies, dream a little, sometimes my whole person would inhabit a thought and I would take wing, flying up the snow slopes, swooping around the granite, going right at the hut, straight up the Tour du Jorasses up the route of the Etoile, then on to the summit and let my sight stretch its way around the big glacier basin and on towards the Dru. Wow! Turn around bright eyes, go to work! So around I’d turn and do big imaginary snowboard turns through the slightly heavy spring powder until I’d have to jump the huge seracs, and soar gaining a lot of air and wonder how I could ever get down to the road again. Spiralling down, an air corkscrew, Id lightly land on my feet and jog down to the apartment and a yawning Laurence eating her muesli, trying to do some yoga. Naturally she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in my Wizard of Oz reverie.

Off to work. Working with good, intelligent, gifted people is not so bad; it’s almost a pleasure.

Lunch, and watching other people eat, not so good! So what that the Balsamic vinegar is brill, I want the pizza del Mari and the Anti pasta of God. More work.

One morning we went climbing instead, because we needed to work our arms, A cliff with a view, yet urban and two minuets from the car, a crazy overhanging cliff, so good, so steep, happy, yet not in the groove, timing wise. We got a bit spanked, but it didn’t matter. Met some local lads, all lovely boys, who showed us a bit of skill. A very enjoyable morning, and then a really productive afternoons work.

I have thought about living in this valley, and maybe I will one day, it does suit my personality, but I miss Ariege. Anyway in an ideal world I can have both, and life is not being unkind to me at the moment, even if I am not climbing so well. Have ‘golden dreams’ as they say in Italian, and I look foreword to returning to a climb I can’t do.

Whether it is knobbier in the behind, by stevie haston

Whether it is nobler to blog, or to suffer the slagging of arrows, or work power endurance, is the question. The weather is up and down, mostly down. I don’t know if this has affected my mood, probably, as I do need a lot of bright light, or I get depressed. A meter of snow fell in May and its burden of heavy snow broke thousands of trees locally, a sad thing in deed. My garden suffered, so the roses are late, and we will miss about half our flowers. I felt like crying more than once. To top it all, one of my favourite cockerels drowned in a water bucket, his name was Napoleon, and he was a dwarf, with the spirit of tiger, his little harem miss him awfully.
Anyway that’s not the point, the point is to blog, or not to blog. As a diary a blog s good, it’s good but not private, it takes time, and is a burden, there is little up side. I have been working a lot recently, mainly writing and some working on climbing products, which has meant little time for other stuff and yet I cant help but say, that the people who have written and told me they enjoyed my writing have cheered me up. So I’ll try to blog for them.

There has also been the problem of the month of May itself. May is so blooming pollen crazy that it’s had me ill. I love May, but am allergic to pollen. Here’s a funny one, all my life I wanted a Wisteria, I adore their blossoms, and for two years my Wisteria didn’t blossom and I was sad, but since then its gone mad and pumps out huge quantities of mind numbing, heavy pollen. Every day is a battle not to chop it down, a bit like this blog,

I love the people who enjoy my stuff, after all they must be intelligent, and like-minded, and obviously if you don’t like my stuff you are clearly of an ugly disposition, and are dumb, and do not disserve Tiramisu.


Laurence warming up on an 8a-progress for her!

There is another problem, my climbing is in a hole. My climbing is vacillating, and lacks true direction. And I can’t enjoy it in the way I can a run in the woods, or a bit of caving. I keep wondering if that’s it, it will just decline. I so enjoyed being good a while ago, it was such a rush, I thought it would continue. But it’s very much like my garden I am afraid, it needs mucho work, and the storms will do their damage wont they. While in Italy, I tried a route I would like to do, but of course the problem is that it’s hard, and very much not my style. It’s 28 meters long, power endurance all the way, no rest no shake out, start and go till the chains. It’s magnificent in its simplicity, but it will require a lot of effort from me if I am to be even a serious contender. Still there is a similar route for Laurence on the same cliff at her grade, so it might be interesting for us both. Perhaps she will drag me up out of the little quagmire I have sunk in. I don’t know if any of you have done power endurance, but its weird stuff. If you have done any running I would compare it to running an 8OO meter race, you can give out anywhere in the last half, absolutely anywhere. Its also funny in that old age, or any age other than perfect age, is supposed to affect power endurance. You get vets still good at longer distances but not at the 800. In climbing there are good examples of many older climbers being very capable but not at super power endurance, or comp type routes. So it might be interesting if I knuckle down and try, cos I think it’s a hurting thing, it’s a terribly hard thing to do and train for it. I need courage to start it, and courage to train for twelve weeks, all to then probably fall off just short of the chains. I’ll have to mortgage my soul to the devil, where is the horny red blighter when you need him.