Path to Patrouille des Glaciers 🪖🧊

💭 General thoughts about training…

In general I disengage with the concept (and with the word) of training. Overtime I felt that I hate myself 😅 when I would miss to do some cool adventure that friends would propose to me because of “training plans” and I started to reconsider racing.

When I’m asked how do I train or how I prepare for something my answer usually is:

I don’t follow any specific training plan. I go for adventures that helps me to build the skills and endurance that I would need.

Of course, still great adventures/challenges needs some commitment, but sacrificing a whole week (or more) of adventures for getting some minutes faster on a one day effort became not appealing to me. I still race but I do it when the race…

brings me to discover new places
offers me the chance to meet people who shares a similar passion
pushes me to learn new skills
pushes me to arrive to further with my own means
…

So, overtime I limited the “co-laterals” of racing… and… , of course, I would not smash 👊 myself the day before… but no more time should be compromised. I’ll feel in peace with whatever result in a race as long as the experience scores on the following points and I do not compromise a lot of time before:

Story telling It has a good, compelling story to tell which make people inspired

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Surroundings An environment that has something special. A sunrise/sunset, a full moon, a nature landscape, a beautiful mountain, a special dessert, etc.

Social The great feeling of the experience was shared with someone else. E.g.: a pair/group adventure, you found people along the way, you gave an experience made for other people, someone made you feel a great experience, etc.

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Learning The adventure made you learn something. It pushed your limits, brought you to a new place, the conditions challenged your skills,

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Media It include pictures and/or movies of the adventure focusing on the 4 above points

🏋️‍♂️ Preparation for PdG

The legendary race in the Alps | Patrouille des Glaciers

The legendary Patrouille des Glaciers 2024 is an international military race, open to civilian, elite and popular competitors organized by the Swiss Army

www.pdg.ch

The legendary race in the Alps | Patrouille des Glaciers

So… here we are in front of a race that requires some preparation 🤔.

When I heard about PdG the first time I felt intimidated. I did not have a big experience in touring, specially in more technical terrain 🧗‍♀️ like glaciers.

I started skimo about 3 seasons ago and I felt in love 🫶 with the sport. I would admit that currently I don’t get tired of spending hours in the snow going up and down… Snow helps to make the adventure always different and the downhill ⛷️ is always rewarding.

So having PdG in the ToDo ☑️ list for end of the season 2024 sounded good. So it was time to find adventures that will prepare us*

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*PdG is done in teams of 3

I had a combination of personal adventures and races with the patrol members (Tijana and Tom) to get ready for it. Looking retrospectively it has been a great year skinning-up 🎿🏔️.

Good start of the season with Chris and some friends on a spectacular pow day where confused by another car (going for another tour) we parked to early and added 10 kms of walking to the tour (details: Park 🅿️ far away to walk more 😅 ).

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Learned skill for the race - Walk long distance on ski boots - Deep snow skiing on 80mm skis

Later in January, on my 4 weeks “retreat” in Blatten bei Naters I planned a half-everesting (details: 📜The story of... a half-everesting 🏔️ ) doing stops at the little home 🛖 for proper food, drying skins and boots. After a long day going up and down different trails I accumulated the wished elevation with some luxury that I would not have on race day.

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Learned skill for the race - 12h on ski boots - Elevation simulation of PdG on easy terrain

Jeroen, who I met in Manaslu Trail Race 🇳🇵🏔️ planned to spend some days in Switzerland and I managed to join him and his friends for another pow day. Lot’s of snow the previous days, so we needed to look for the safest option (details: The safest 🍀🤞 option, no complain 🙏)

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Learned skill for the race - Deep snow skiing on 80mm skis - All kind of snow due to the rising temperatures by mid-day

Gianni joined me for a week in Blatten and we often went for early morning or evening tours looking for sunrises/sunsets or full moon (detalis: Colorful 🔵🟡🟣 sunset 🌄)

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Learned skill for the race - Skiing up in the dark 🔦 on known terrain - Downhill ski in the dark 🔦 on known terrain

It was a very good start of the season with good hours on skis 🎿 already in January. At the beginning of the season I started to shape an idea 💡. The idea of doing a fundraising event to raise awareness for a sit ski for Lola (details: 24h skimo fundraising event) popped up. Nicole, Clare, Laura, Lola, Tijana, Mathieu and the great staff of Grächen accompanied and supported me to create a day for the books 📔.

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Learned skill for the race - Very long day on skimo gear (boots, ski suit, helmet) - Skiing a whole night up and down - Cold feeling during the night due to sleep depravation

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This experience gave me some skills for the race. But this was a very small part compare from what it really teached me as a person.

March started, and it was going to be an intense period of skimo races. The first one was with the planned team 👥 for Patrol for Patrouille des Glaciers (details: Patrouille de la Maya⛷️🏁). We had a good feeling together for a relatively small race compared to PdG.

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Learned skill for the race - Controlling the pace of each other in the uphill - Being coordinated when doing transitions - Keeping relatively together when going down

One weekend after I was in Disentis for a Vertical and Individual race (details: Trofea Péz Ault Individual ⛷️🏁. Vertical was a short day, so it gave time to do a loop around. Next day was with challenging weather conditions and race had to be shortened due to quite strong winds 💨 and snow storm. Visibility was extremely bad. It always help to be in very bad environment in controlled environment.

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Learned skill for the race - Touring with very bad visibility - Being outside with wind and cold

Back to work for a few days and next weekend was time to join with Tom a more serious race as per the numbers, 42 kms and 3700m ⬆️ (details: SuperSkimara 🎿🏁). We added to the challenge a 3 kms walk to the start line 😅. It was a big day, I finished empty 🥵

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Learned skill for the race - Touring as a team in the dark 🔦 - Ski crunchy snow (very challenging) on tired legs - Fairly close figures to PdG

And to finish the 4 weeks in a row racing, now was time for a multi-stage race (details: Tour du Rutor 🎿🏁) with Tijana in the Aosta valley. First day was an absolute highlight with a dream stage for the first time in the history of the race envisioned in 1933. For the next 2 days the weather turn to worse conditions to the point that stages needed to be adapted.

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Learned skill for the race - Skiing with extreme wind and cold - Pulling rope - Uphills and downhills in quite technical terrain - Put it and out boot crampon

On the way back from Aosta long weekend I saw that there has been good snow and I tried to persuade Chris for a day of pow. He has some pre-conditions but I’m easy with it. Trains at 5am are not a big deal 🤭. We go for an early start and catch the first lines (details: The reward ❄️👜❄️of the 5am 🕔 train 🚄)

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Learned skill for the race - not additional ones… but I learnt that who wakes up early gets good fresh lines 😁

And time has passed by and we are just 6 days away from PdG so we decide to go for a weekend together (details: Path to PdG: Cervinia 🇮🇹 weekend) to test the bloody rope and see how a big day feels together. Warm temperature a lot of sun and good pizza 🍕 , pasta 🍝 and cappuccino ☕ makes a great weekend.

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Learned skill for the race - Nutrition - Simulate same equipment as in the race - Simulate similar elevation and altitudes as PdG in slope terrain - Downhill ski with rope 🪢 - Pulling rope 1:1 and all together