Pau Capell's challenge on the Mont Blanc Ultra Trail

Paul Capell.

A complete circumference, 360 degrees from Chamonix to Chamonix around the highest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc, is 171 kilometers through France, Switzerland, Italy, 10,000 meters of positive elevation gain, a route profile like the waves of the sea, 810 meters , the lowest point, the village of Saint Gervais;

2,565m, the highest, the top of the Calcareous Pyramids col, one of the eight or nine ascents, and the Aguja de Bionassay, the Col de Bonhome, and its corresponding descents, through valleys, slopes, slopes, paths, ravines , and perhaps the crests of the col de la Seigne and Val Veni, from which the 2,300 participants in the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB) will see the sun rise at dawn on Saturday (if it doesn't rain, which surely won't), they will turn off the front that has illuminated the night, they will shout, wow, and continue running on foot, or walking,

a minimal parenthesis, an immense shot of energy in their search that will continue under the Giant's Tooth, Val Ferret... Names, landscapes, places to stop and be dazzled, views that they will despise.

His goal is another.

They leave at six in the evening this Friday.

Sunrise is 13 hours later.

There are 13 hours of running at an average of seven minutes per kilometer, going up more slowly, faster, at a rate of 4m-4m 30s per kilometer, on the little flat, and desperate, thrown, on the descents, jumping from stone to stone, cliffs and streams, at 3m-3m 30s per kilometer, and what pain, needles in the muscles, and the agitated soul.

Average speed, nine kilometers per hour and a little more.

When it dawns, the body is already tired.

And a little sad.

The snow on Mont Blanc is not perpetual.

Global warming is killing glaciers.

The small avalanches, the landslides, are continuous.

“Those seconds when you see the sun rise over that mountain and you say, wow, this moment... I live the trail for this moment, but after a minute, when you have already seen the sun rise, you return to the hardship... I have at least seven hours left, a whole working day, ahead of me, and I already have more of that in my legs, and it's not just running, you have to climb a mountain, go down it, climb to 2,000 meters, return to go down..."

On the phone from Chamonix, speaking Pau Capell, 28 years old, 1.70 meters, 62 kilos, from Sant Boi (Barcelona), one of the 2,300 participants in the most important test of the ultra trail circuit.

One of the 40 elites, he explains, of which, in an elimination duel, half will withdraw, and of the 20 that remain, ten will not have the day, and of those 10, five will have the day... "And if you you are among them, well very well.

And that's where you really have to fight to try to be a little smarter and save your strength for the end.

The human body reaches a point where the challenge is no longer physical, it is mental.

And when the mind comes into play it is very easy to throw in the towel”.

One of those who may also be there is another Catalan, the myth Kilian Jornet, the king of Mont Blanc and of any feat you want to think of, and winner of three UTMB (from 2009 to 2011), who is weak because he has had a covid hard.

Jornet, 32 years old, and winner this season of the Zegama and the 100 miles of the Hardrock, in the United States, decided to wait until the last minute, and for the advice of the doctors, to make a decision.

“We have to thank Kilian for everything.

He was a great instigator for this sport to become bigger and he keeps this flame alive after many years with all the feats that he has done, ”says Capell.

“Now, this is an already very stable sport that doesn't need to have these references, although it is.

But, oysters, he has done us a great favor so that we can all live from this.

Because of him, a boom has been created in this sport”.

Capell won the UTMB three years ago.

He did it in record time: 20h 19m.

This year he returns.

He wants to beat his record, he wants to be the first to break the 20-hour barrier.

There are four marathons in a row, and three kilometers as a gift.

Five hours each marathon.

A stormy Friday afternoon is forecast, with some rain.

Weak to moderate northwest wind.

Between 10 and 20 degrees of temperature at 1,000m, between 9 and 17, at 1,500m, and between 6 and 14, at 2,000m.

A test that combines two elements,

(resistance to high intensity, stamina) and adrenaline, risk, heart at 200 not because of physical effort but because of the feeling of danger when descending at full speed skimming over precipices.

"And I would add a third element, masochism," says the athlete, trained by Laia Díez, who has trained for two weeks in the Rift Valley, in Iten, where the Kenyan marathoners, and has not improved the race, as he intended, but their faith in humanity, seeing how, they who have so little, African athletes cooperate with each other, how they help each other to improve.

“You get so close to the limit that it can seem a bit crazy, right?

When you spend 20 hours running at a fairly high level of intensity, you think that, oysters, that the suffering is quite important.

You will spend moments of fatigue, moments of endorphinic exaltation, birds.

Moments in which the muscles will contract beyond their will, automaton steps.

He will feed his body with liquid food that he carries in the can in his backpack, and with bars, gels, hydrates, Nutella and jam sandwiches, which his partner will give him at the aid stations, in which he will look him in the face, and, as he knows him, he will decide if he sees traces of salt that he has sweated a lot, that he should take salts to avoid dehydration, and he will eat what he finds in the mountain shelters.

And Capell, a North Face athlete, dressed in clothes designed by Fernando Elvira, will also have to feed the spirit, the morale, the spirit.

And that's what family is for.

"My assistance is my parents, my brothers, my partner... A hug from my father when I've been running for 15 hours feels much more than a normal day," he says.

“When I won in 2019, I made four calls during the course, one for each marathon that I finished, and they were calls that I divided throughout the course and made to my loved ones, my parents, my ex-partner or my friend or my coach.

I do these strategies during the critical moments of the races.

And I survive."

Hillary climbed Everest simply because it was there.

Capell, who started running in the mountains to recover from a knee injury he sustained playing futsal and in 20 minutes fell in love with freedom, wants to lose 20 hours driven by an inner, mystical need.

“I run up the mountain to meet me.

None of us will ever know each other 100%.

Tomorrow, or a year from now, we're going to take some action, we're going to talk back to someone in some way or we're going to do something or life is going to take us to an extreme point, and we're going to say, wow, I thought at this extreme point I was not going to act this way, ”he muses.

“And in the mountains over long distances this happens.

There are moments of exhaustion in which you say I don't know why I'm running if I really am physically exhausted,

If his aspiration is fulfilled, he will arrive in Chamonix, back, before two in the afternoon on Saturday, at the time of vermouth on a terrace in the sun.

A vermouth and a can of mussels.

“If I drink a beer, I get a kick.

The body is somewhere else.

And the soul in the clouds.

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