Newsletters

Ultra-Trail 2012 - Newsletter n°2 - 08/02/2012

The first step to being at the start of one of the The North Face® Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc® races is to dream about it. It is this dream which led thousands of people to pre-register for this, the 10th edition.
Certainly, in reality, there are fewer places available than the number of runners who wish to participate. However, the main ally of the ultra runner is time; time to get ready, time to run, time to dream and …the time to place your feet on the ground.
If some people can, as from August 2012, pass into the phase of reality, others will have the possibility of achieving their dream in 2013, although they have time to get ready for it (...)

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Ultra-Trail 2012 - Newsletter n°1 - 14/12/2011

That's it The North Face® Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc® takes place on 2 legs, which is the minimum, after all, for a running race!
During the last 9 years, we have, together, experienced many things (from sun to storms, laughter to tears, suffering to ecstasy) passing through the full range of emotions.
But we still have to live through this event – each year's event being different from one year to another but we find ourselves, each year always with the same enthusiasm, and the same will to offer you the most beautiful of challenges, impatient to see the month of August arrive.
The 2012 event will naturally contain its packet of surprises: those that we will have prepared for you to mark the 10th year of the event; and maybe those that Mother Nature (who has become these last years a real co-organizer, or disorganiser according to point of view and experience) will have reserved for us. A 10th event which will thus have a particular flavour but the principle of which always stays the same and unites all the participants: make the tour or semi-tour of the roof of Europe!

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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°9 - 21/09/2011

We are becoming almost used to… Becoming used to seeing you in such large numbers, as we approach of the The North Face ® Ultra-Trail of Mont Blanc ®'s 10th birthday … Becoming used to encountering difficult weather conditions … Becoming used to being stunned by the beaming smiles of the runners and those not only on the finishing line, but at all points throughout the race … Becoming used to receiving so many testimonies of friendship and, it must be said, of satisfaction, from our institutional and private partners … Becoming used to appreciating the fabulous work of our, about 1800, volunteers …
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°8 - 15/08/2011

Of course, to assure your safety, we have arranged for first-aid workers, doctors and nurses. But the first element of the trail runner's safety……. is the trailer himself.
It is in your preparation, your experience and your awareness of the specificities of the event in which you are going to participate, that your safety lies (...).
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°7 - 06/08/2011

Are you ready? Or are you already near Chamonix at this very moment? How do you feel? A knot in your stomach? Of desire? Of fear? Of enjoyment? A mix of all three? Do not worry, it's normal. Those who have already run The North Face® Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc® know this feeling, this sensation of participating in an event not exactly like others. We anticipate not only the solitude of confronting the mountain but also the excitement of the big gathering during the previous days.
As of Wednesday, August 24th you are going to encounter more Ultra-Trail® runners than anywhere else in the world (...).
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°6 - 21/07/2011

You still have a month in which to prepare your luggage before coming to participate in The North Face® Ultra-Trail of Mont Blanc®. Don't forget anything, really do not forget anything. Take flippers, an inflatable boat… just in case, three bikes, the games console and of course all your running equipment in triplicate. It is going to take at least one truck to get all this to Chamonix, but no matter … Finally, no, not completely (...).
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°5 - 05/07/2011

L'Ultra, is a school of self-investigation. Runners, you would like to cross passes and to rush down mountains without pain but hurting yourself is also part of the game. The body sends information to the brain: ouch…. and then, you have to handle this information. To transform ones suffering, to master it, or to find your way out of it, you have the choice. And your choice is always respectable, although it literally respects the rules (...).
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°4 - 09/06/2011

Approximately 1500 years before the first Christmas, a man, hairy as an ape, ran through the mountains. His bright eyes, his powerful stride, it seems that he was brought up on heavily vitamined Royal Canine. Ultrak is doubtless going to take a thigh of auroch to his old sister who celebrates her 23rd birthday 100 km from there. For that purpose, he hunts for it along the way exhausting the animal because it is already the only animal really cut-out for a long-distance race. He suffers, our kind prehistoric runner, but he twigged that if he ate some fruit, drank a little spring water, and if he took two or three provisions with him, that it would all go considerably better for him(...).
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°3 - 21/04/2011

The compulsory equipment required to run the UTMB®, the CCC® or the TDS has evolved. Over the years, we have tried to organise our races using rules stemming from the world of running. The lesson learnt from the apocalyptic conditions of 2010, is that the mountain decides, always. (...)
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°2 - 14/03/2011

You are registered? Do you have the final key with which to run around Mont Blanc at the end of August wearing a jolly race-bib? And all the while knowing that you were one of 7200 hopefuls this year, and that you actually are among the 5500 runners in one of the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc® races (...)
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Ultra-Trail 2011 - Newsletter n°1 - 26/11/2010

Here are the answers to a multitude of questions: "Why do we run? " ; "Why do we organise a race? " ; "Why do we train for months and months to complete some tens of kilometres in the mountains? " ; «Why do we mobilize hundreds of volunteers' in trying to turnout the greatest party possible? «Because, we want some emotion. Not the fleeting emotion of cinemas, which makes us shed three tears and which we immediately forget, No, the emotion which changes us, which makes us better, is that which advances us in existence. Ultra, it is the school of emotion, the emotion of expectation, the emotion of bodies which build themselves up over the course of months, The emotion of close relations, who adhere to our passions, the emotion of the starting line, the emotion of the actual race, The emotion of the objectives achieved, and that of failure, sometimes … at all levels, it is there, and not always as we had hoped for But it is there. In 2010, the "race" stage was transformed into disappointment for many of you. Not all. In 2011, we shall still have no power to stop storms, but The North Face^® Ultra-Trail of Mont Blanc^® will continue to implement everything it can to help you to climb all the levels one by one (...)
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