Ultra Trail Harricana 125 KM: Race Report by Aymeric
For 2022, I set myself quite the challenge: to complete the Ultra Trail Harricana of Canada. 125 kilometres of climbs and descents, of strong emotions, of highs and lows, but above all a whole lot of fun.
KM 0: Start at 1 p.m., 300 runners on the start line; Gab, Vincent and I attack Mont du Lac à l’Empêche and Mont du Four. You had to be patient, everyone following one another single file. Jérôme decided to attack the pack right from the start so as not to get stuck too far back.
Km 15: First aid station, we see a guy all pale who’s practically passing out; clearly, this won’t be a test for the faint of heart. Clearly, it’s not going to be his day. Vinc and I make some slightly dangerous manoeuvres to get past the bottlenecks, so we can roll the km on the downhills. We leave Gab behind, who wasn’t ready to pass people the way we did; he preferred to keep chatting with folks far more experienced at racing than us. Which goes to show he didn’t make a bad decision by being patient. Vinc and I think we’ve got good legs and we want to make up the time lost in the first 15 KM. A mistake? A bit, yeah, but we won’t know that until later in the race.
KM 26: We find Jérôme again at the bottom of the Morios; it doesn’t even take 4 minutes for Vincent to go into climber mode like we know him. A shout-out to Mathieu Blanchard, who’s flying down the descent as if he hadn’t just finished his UTMB 2 weeks ago. We reach the first crewed aid station with our girlfriends; we didn’t cross paths with Gab again on the Morios descent, a sign that he’s really not far behind.
KM 40: A dip in gear on the climb up Montagne Noyée. Vincent and Jérôme drag a few people along in their uphill “disco train” while I stay behind, both hands on my knees trying to keep climbing. I’m nodding off, unable to run consistently, unable to eat; there are 20 KM left before reaching Émilie at the Hautes Gorges station to drop out of the race. I put my life, my training, my passion for running into question. In short, everything goes through my head, this is going to be endless, I tell myself…
KM 50: I sit down at the aid station, take 2 sips of instant coffee, a cup of broth, and I start to get my wits back. Gab arrives a few minutes after me; I must surely have been waiting for him without meaning to. We continue on our way together and the energy comes back. We’re making good progress, without pushing the pace too much. It’s on the descent that we cross paths with Maxime; we think he’s there to pass us, far from imagining that I’d spend the entire rest of the race with him. Talk talk, chatter chatter, and no more desire to quit after all. We give ourselves 10-15 minutes at the halfway aid station to set off together, so it seems an alliance has formed for the night.
KM 89: We progress slowly but surely through the night; the climbs are endless, but we keep our spirits up, we move along as a block, km by km, and we even have Fred following us in the “train” for a while now. Gab seems to be having digestion troubles, so we leave him a little behind; he says he’ll catch back up to us shortly after a detour into the woods. All well and good to slow the pace and look back searching for a headlamp in the distance, we don’t see him show his face after 1h30. I know he has a mind of steel, he must be progressing too, maybe even found someone to vent his usual gripes to.
KM 95: Daybreak, we come off the trail onto an ATV road; Maxime and I switch on pac-man mode, we swallow up positions, people have empty stares, drained by their night while we’re sweating freshness, as if we were doing a little Saturday morning run. Who do we see a little further ahead but Jérôme and Vincent, 4 minutes apart, who spent the night together ahead of us. We grab a good breakfast at the Épervier station and the 4 of us team up to get to the Split station.
KM 109: Vincent seems to hit his first low of the race; Jérôme stays with him, offers him his poles to help. While Max and I still have juice, we decide to keep going; we find ourselves alone at the last aid station, 7 km from the finish, so we decide to finish this thing as a pair.
KM 125: It’s over, 21h47, 26th out of 300 runners, 170 DNFs during the race, big smile, legs blown out, time for a nap!
A huge thank you to my love for your support 365 days a year, for enduring my training over the dinner hour and for being there during my race. I love you.
A huge thank you to Noémie and Sandrine for the killer aid stations and your support all along the course!!
A huge thank you to my coach Nico, who has been making training plans for me since Christmas 2021. It lets me better organize my weeks, dose my training load intelligently and progress in the sport thanks to you. See you soon enough!
A huge thank you to my race partners, Gabriel and Vincent, without you, without our challenges thrown out on a whim and our daily chats about running, training would be less fun and so would our race weekends. Every moment shared in the race was enjoyable and unique.
A huge thank you to Jérôme, new race partner, the time spent together was awesome, and I owe you 2 packs of Clif Bloks at the next race!!
A huge thank you to Maxime Tardif, we shared the biggest stretch of the race together, without announcing it, without expectations, and we rocked it all the way to the end!
Time to rest, you know full well I’ll be back on a trail near you soon enough!
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