Making the most of a week-long stay at my parent’s home in
the Black Forest, I joined my brother in a short trip to run the Belfortrail,
taking place in early November in the Alsatian’ Vosges near Belfort, just a 2h drive away.
Belfortrail starts in the small town of Giromagny and makes a loop over the
Ballon D’Alsace and, infamously, up a 400m-of-climbing-in-1k ski slope called
Piste Schlumpf (translates to smurf).
AirBnB and hotel options are a bit limited in Giromagny, so
we had to drive in from Belfort for a race start at 6am in freezing conditions.
I overdressed a bit with both a fleece and a windproof jacket, which led to
some early overheating particularly as there were 500m of climb to warm up
right from the start. Not feeling very competitive that day, we had placed
ourselves in the back of the starting corral. This turned out to be not such a
great idea as the moment we had left the town and pavement and were on a 1%
incline, people started power and not-so-power hiking, forcing us to overtake
or match speed more than we would have liked to. There were some impressive
fire artist displays at the bottom of the first climb which we could thus
appreciate more, though, including a group using the burner of a hot air
balloon to create a pillar of flames.
My brother and I decided to part ways on the first uphill as
longer ascents are more my forte than his, and after about 5k and 500m of climb we reached
the first peak, with night gradually yielding to day on the next pretty rooty
downhill. We continued mostly on forest paths with some altitude gain, until
the mayhem started in earnest with the 6k/600m climb up the Ballon D’Alsace.
Whatever wasn’t too steep was fairly runnable, so I reached the highest point
of the race, 20k in, after about 2:15hm. From here, one could get a great view
over the Vosges, illuminated by a fairly impressive sunrise.
After the Ballon D’Alsace, we entered a net flat section
which was pretty hard to traverse though, as ground conditions were a mix of
mud, wet roots and slippery rocks, reducing the speed to a fast hiking pace. Checking the map later, it turned out that
the race was taking the “scenic route” quite often, which meant doing detours
of several km which could have been cut short by a 1k connector trail, so
missing a turn could easily have meant a much shorter race (and
disqualification). Track markings were good throughout, fortunately.
After passing the next aid station at Issenbach and Lac D’Alfeld and Lac de Sewen, and running
through the hamlet of Sewen which had questionable air quality given the ubiquity of wood
stoves, but a great spectator turnout, we again started a longer climb with
about 500m of altitude gain. The climb ended roughly 100m from the top of the
Piste Schlumpf, which was mercifully hidden by a copse of trees, because we did
not continue on the ridge but ran down to the bottom of the slope on a forest
trail often blocked by fallen trees. Reaching the bottom and the aid station at
the ski lift's valley station, I downed the gel I had just opened 1min earlier in a bad bit of timing, quickly
refilled, grabbed a couple of crackers and began the ski slope ascent.
The ascent wasn’t particularly fast but a sadistic kind of fun, especially as
some competitors at this point seemed to have over-paced and were cramping out
on the climb. Regaining the ridge, I went off course for about 50m before
turning around, and placed myself behind a runner with whom I would stay in
close proximity until the ultimate descent. On climbs he was unloading some
impressive French courses and kept complaining about something going on in his
legs, but he maintained a steady pace and blindly following someone and
focusing on my own aches was quite pleasant at this point.
Race profile wise, it appeared that we were done with
climbing after the Schlumpf, but a surprising amount of small but nasty climbs
still lay between us and the finish line. Smelling the stable, we kept up a
good pace until the final descent where I decided that conserving energy was no
longer serving any purpose, and started bombing down the trail and the final
stretch to the finish line, distancing the people I had just run with for a few k
by a couple of minutes. I finished 64th out of roughly 350
starters after 7.18h, and cheered my brother across the finish line who came in
just half an hour later, still in the top third.
Weather, landscape and organization made the race and trip
definitely worthwhile, and I could not have asked for a better event to close
my 2021 season.
Official website: https://www.territoire-sport-nature.com/belfortrail/
Official track: https://www.openrunner.com/r/13613621
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