Ultrarunning in the Alpine Foothills

My host dad here in the Talloires area, V, is an unfalteringly strong and determined athlete. Three years ago when I was living at their house, he ran an ultramarathon around the lake. I was away for the day, but my host mom had described the race to me: approximately 50 miles around the lake, climbing every single mountain that rings the lake, a total of 4500 meters, or ~14,800 feet, never mind all of the descents. He started the race at 3:30 AM and by the time I had returned that evening, V was also home, showered and pleasantly chatting with the family after 16 hours of running.

I was disappointed, in 2009 when I was last here, that I had been away the day V ran the race and that I had not been able to offer encouragement throughout the incredibly long ordeal. That night, after dinner, he and I were standing outside looking at the sunset. I slowly spun in a circle, my eyes scanning the horizon. "So you really summited every one of these peaks?" I asked, my eyebrows nearly touching my hairline. He nonchalantly shrugged as I made what I assumed to be a French way to express my disbelief.

Running is one of the ways I first bonded with my host family. Each year they request a female student (because my host mom continually dreams that she had a daughter) who is athletic and is willing to participate in outdoorsy activities with the family. The day I moved in I told them about how I like to run and bike and the first morning I woke up in their house I headed out for a run (much like my first morning in the Priory this year). V always asked about my running and biking and as I was re-breaking in my ability to make small talk in French upon returning this year, my conversations with V naturally turned towards running.

When I was at their house (now) two weekends ago for lunch, my host mom offered for me to tag along with them the following weekend for V's race. This year, for some reason, the race happened nearly two months earlier than the first summer I was here. I think there was a new organizer - rather than the old name, "Annecime," the race was called the Annecy "Maxi-Race" this year.

LA and I decided to take my host mom up on her offer so I called her last Friday, informing her that yes, I was interested in watching and cheering for V, and that I had a friend who wanted to come with me and would that be okay. She said of course, and she came and picked us up on Sunday morning at 10:30. We headed up to the top of the Col de la Forclaz (1157 meters, 3795 feet), a perennially popular biking destination and the most famed departure point for parapente and deltaplane in the Annecy area. LA and I waited at the pass with my host mom for nearly forty-five minutes before she decided to give V a call to check in and see where he was. V said that he was still in Dossard, the village at the southern tip of the lake, and that it would likely be an hour and a half before he summited the Forclaz. (This was not the end of the world, however, as the view at the top of the Forclaz is absolutely stunning and LA and I had been admiring our jawdropping surroundings for the past three quarters of an hour.

My host mom, LA, and I therefore headed down the mountain to their house in MSB where my host mom picked up some Coca that V had asked for. LA and I chatted with my middle host brother and with their current American student until we had sufficiently spent enough time at home and could head back up the mountain. The five us then piled into the car and made the 20 minute climb one more time.
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I must just interrupt myself here and mention the unending stream of cyclists heading up this nearly 4,000 feet mountain. The variety of carbon bikes was astonishing, and although prior to the beginning of May I would be drooling over the bikes, I couldn't help thinking about the flashy carbon bicycle I had waiting for me in the thousand year old monastery where I am living (I have to just say this because it still doesn't seem real to me) and about how I had no choice but to complete the climb at some point. It takes somewhere around 45 minutes - 1 hour for a person of my speed, but I have set it as my goal and I hope to complete it by the end of the summer. I still have two months before I leave France, so there's not a ton of pressure right now. One last thing however, was the noticeable lack of female cyclists. I have grown used to seeing some while I ride in the Annecy area, but it is definitely not Minneapolis. Of the 70 or so cyclists I watched summit the Forclaz during the two hours or so I was up there, I only saw two women the whole time.
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Once we were back up on the top of the Forclaz at what my host mom deemed the best vantage point, we stood with our cameras poised, ready to capture the image of V's head as we looked down on him ascending the 50 degree trail. He finally appeared, looking somewhat haggard, but also looking tough and determined, with the face of a man who had been running for the past nine and a half hours, two thirds of that time up mountains.

He filled his water, downed two Cocas, and then we continued up to the very summit with him. LA, my brother, the student, and I were not wearing appropriate footwear so we sweated up the road, trying to hide the fact that we were exhausted and out of breath after ten minutes, embarrassed to even begin imagining what V must be feeling. (In all fairness, LA, the student, and I had completed a four hour hike in Chamonix the day before).

We said good-bye to V - who changed his shoes - at the top of the mountain, not quite able to imagine that he had a good five to six hours of racing left, and certainly unable to imagine all that he had completed up until that point. The only reassuring part of the morning was that both my host mom and my brother wholeheartedly agreed with the Americans that V was fou, crazy, and they shared that they did not understand his impetus for racing either. We cheered and shouted allez! and bon chance as V disappeared up the trail.

Not feeling ready to head back down quite yet, the five of us trekked the last ten minutes up to the départ for the parapenters. LA and I were mesmerized watching them take off. I would love to describe it more in depth, but it is getting late, so I will just include a few pictures and will describe more the next time I write.

In this one you can see the parapenters up in the air. This picture was taken from where the racers crossed the road, but the parapenters were jumping from further up the mountain. The following pictures were taken at their launching pad area (notice the astro turf).

I love the strong bright colors of the parachutes in contrast with the gray blue of the mountains, sky, and lake.

Mon Premier Tour du Lac en Pinarello

This weekend was great in that we were off the entire weekend - we just had to be at the director's house at 7:30 last night for an event she called a "drinky-poo" which was intended to encourage the ten faculty to bond, expedited by six bottles of wine.

I woke up at 10:30 on Sunday after staying up quite late in order to act as chauffeur, and had a leisurely breakfast of several bowls of cereal (typical Sunday amount). It was beyond gorgeous in the morning, with the sun brilliantly shining and not a cloud in sight. However, around 1PM, the weather began to change suddenly, as it is wont to do here, and within a half hour there were dark grey clouds threatening rain and hiding the summits of the mountains. I had planned on biking, and I did not want to give up on my tour de lac, so I ignored the clouds and donned my spandex, hoping the weather would depart as quickly as it had arrived. I headed out at 2, and within five minutes rain was splattering my sunglasses, but I kept going, bending low to defy the sudden headwind. Within 15-20 minutes I arrived at the southern tip of the lake and got onto the piste cyclable or bike path where I knew that the headwind would turn into a powerful tailwind as I began heading north on the western side of the lake. I was quickly heading up the path at 24 mph with very little effort on my part.

The rain soon subsided as well and before I was halfway up the lake, the clouds had cleared over the southern half and the blue sky had returned, dramatically altering the color of the lake as it became Caribbean blue and the snow on the mountains sparkled. I continued heading north towards Annecy and a bevy of thunderclouds, but by the time I had reached Annecy, an hour after leaving Talloires, the sky was devoid of clouds and it was as though the storm had never arrived.

Here is a map of the tour de lac so you can get an idea of where I was.

View Larger Map

The surroundings were so stunning as I reached Annecy that I decided to stop and sit for a while on the Pâquier, the large green area along the lake in Annecy. It was dog central and I perched on the stone wall above the water next to where steps lead into the aqua waters of the lake. This is many dog owners' preferred location for letting their pets swim in the lake in the city, and dogs of all shapes, sizes, and swimming abilities paraded one after the other into the lake, some more hesitant than others. It was great fun to watch the retrievers bound into the lake, then look behind them to gauge their owners' reactions. My personal favorite dog was a small jack russell wearing what looked like a crossing guard's neon yellow vest with two large reflective stripes on the back. His name was marked at the neckline, "KKWET." I was perplexed, unable to figure out what the letters stood for. I realized soon enough as they began calling his name, "Cacahouette," or the word for peanut. It is very slang-ish to use the sounds that the names of letters make to form words (something I learned all about with Frank).

KKWET was joined by his owners - a young couple - with their two children, one a very new infant, and the other around 18 months who was delightedly splashing water on KKWET wearing only a onesie. I know I was being creepy but I had really very little interest in leaving the stone wall where I was sitting, especially not after two families of ducklings swam by my curiously, checking to see if I had anything to feed them. I tossed a few pieces of CLIF bar into the water, but it quickly sank, thus the ducks soon grew bored and swam off. One of the mamas did manage to grab a little nibble before it sank, however.

I left Annecy heading south along the eastern side of the lake back towards Talloires, feeling much stronger than I had felt two days before on Friday riding the same route. I biked through Menthon and as I got to the top of the switchbacks leading down into Talloires, I knew I was not ready to head back home - and I wanted to rack up a few more miles on my new bike. I instead took a left, heading uphill, following the route the Tour de France riders did in 2009 when I watched the Stage 18 Time Trial.

I'm not quite sure why I sweated and strained up the Col de Bluffy. It is likely, however, that I was drunk on the magnificent view and on the sprightliness of my new bicycle. I climbed up 2 or so miles and 551 vertical feet. The most thrilling part, which I completely did not expect, was the three year-old paint on the road, faint, but still readable, offering encouragement, praise, and jibes at the best cyclists in the world who had mounted the same climb at a pace likely several times that which I was managing to eke out. The paint motivated me somewhat, but my legs soon remembered the plains of Minnesota and once again protested at so rudely being forced to spin over Alps, when the arches of the bridges crisscrossing the Mississippi proved to be challenge enough for my legs at the end of two years in Minnesota.

I reached the top and quickly turned around and headed back down, realizing that I had to get showered in time for dinner and our drinky-poo. I did not let myself go full speed on the way down, instead carefully gripping my brakes, still unfamiliar with my new bike and not interested in risking my life on hairpin turns in the French Alps. I reached the bottom in a fraction of the time it had taken me to climb the Col, and headed down the Talloires switchbacks into my village.

I am slowly learning how to ride this new bike (it now has just around 81 miles on it and I'm hoping to bring that up to 100 as soon as the rain ceases) and I am even more slowly beginning to realize that I am lucky enough to be able to spend a part of my summer in this paradise. I regret that I did not bring my camera with me on Sunday, but I needed to just absorb my surroundings without feeling the need to document them for everyone else. I will be sure to take a more leisurely ride accompanied by my camera, however, and will post the photos then.

A bientôt.

Reuniting With My Family

I have now been in Talloires for a week and I feel like the past three years since I was last here never happened. Almost.
I have jumped fully into my work here at the Priory and am enjoying each and every moment in the Alps, regardless of the fact that it has been quite cold and rainy for much of the time since I arrived. My work most days begins at 8 AM when we eat breakfast together and have a meeting with the director of the European Center here. (By we I am referring to the five of us interns, but there are two more arriving on Wednesday and one more will arrive the first week in June). We each have one day off per week - I will be off on Wednesday and will join the students for a hike - and work the occasional weekend. The work is interesting here - at times engaging and plentiful and at times there is not a whole lot for us to do.
We all have events that we are in charge of, and the first even that LA and I have planned together will be an excursion to the Château de Menthon (located in Menthon-Saint-Bernard where I lived as a student here).

The Château, like much else here, is extremely old. I'm not talking about Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock old, I'm talking about millenia. Or one to be exact. The Menthon family has been living in the Château for 800 years. I will be sure to post pictures of the interior and describe it fully after our visit on Thursday. If it looks familiar to you, it is because Walt Disney used this château as the template for Sleeping Beauty's castle.

By feeling as though I never left, as I mentioned above, I am referring to the warm welcome I have received from my famille d'acceuil or host family. They are hosting a student right now, but she speaks no French which appears to be a bit of a strain on them, though they are certainly getting great English practice. When my host mom and the youngest son (now 10) came to pick up their new student last Tuesday, she had tears in her eyes and she warmly greeted me.

It is fascinating because while the French kiss on the cheek as a form of greeting between friends and with women, I am so naturally inclined to hug someone when I am thrilled to see them, as that holding of another person so perfectly expresses my excitement at seeing them and my desire to hold them close and regain that connection. My host mom and I awkwardly sort of kissed on the cheeks before I extended my arms for a hug which maybe actually happened at the same time she was kissing me on the cheeks. I then gave a huge hug to my littlest host brother who also tried to kiss me on the cheeks, but it was lovely to see them nonetheless.

I just finally bought a sim card for my European phone on Saturday, so my host mom was quite anxious that she wouldn't be able to contact me this past week. She ended up calling us here at the Priory on Friday looking for me, because she wanted to invite me over for lunch on Saturday afternoon. My host dad came to pick me up, and once again there was a somewhat passionate kiss on the cheeks (by passionate I am referring perhaps more to forceful) as he grabbed my shoulders and squeezed hard, no doubt replacing that physical contact that we would express in a hug.

My oldest host brother had returned home from university for the weekend, so when my host mom described lunch to me, she mentioned that he would be home and that with me there, the family would be complete. I have been absolutely flattered and blown away this week by the welcome and generosity they have shown me. From ensuring that there was no meat in the meal, to asking after my parents and my sister (and offering them a place to stay if they were ever to come to Annecy; my sister was offered a place to stay for a month if she were interested in improving her French), to graciously offering to pick me up from the Priory, to agreeing to drive me into Annecy to buy a sim card for my phone, it is like returning home to my family - except they are much more accommodating than mine is.

The two older boys were a bit shy at first - perhaps because their mother was forcing them to speak English so that their current American student would understand the conversation - but the little one was back at his old antics, running around, sitting close to me, asking me to play games with him, changing his shirt seven times.

The little one is by far the most rambunctious of all of them and he has certainly not changed in the three years since I was last here. The host dad and I picked him up from a sleepover on the way home, and after arriving home, he hopped in the shower and changed into a t-shirt and nice shorts. After sitting with us as we watched the family's slideshow from their trip to California last summer, he quickly remembered the Amherst t-shirt I had brought him three years ago, which, according to my host mom, he wears all the time, and ran upstairs to change into it. We then sat down to a beautiful meal cooked by my host dad who is responsible for the cooking for Saturday lunch, but the little one quickly got up after picking all of the vegetables out of his lasagna, claiming to be bored because he does not speak English.

He ran around on his own outside for a while as we cleared the table and my host mom prepared the tea and espresso for after the meal. As we sat outside sipping our hot drinks (slightly unnecessary as the weather finally became beautiful on Saturday and the sun came out in full force, quickly raising the thermometer to somewhere near 80 degrees), my little host brother was upstairs leaning out of his window with no shirt on, alternately flexing his arms and kissing his biceps. The entire family ignores his antics, which likely only encourages him. I, however, cannot help but laugh and be delighted - although I do understand how it can quickly become old. He soon grew tired of the shirtless act, and so donned his entire rugby get-up (he has just started playing this year), complete with the knee pads and a tight black spandex top. He called downstairs, "Maman, est-ce que tu as de la maquillage noire?" (Mom, do you have black makeup?) She answered no, clearly not wanting to share her eyeliner with a ten year old who wanted to rub it across his cheeks in order to adopt the air of an intense rugby player.

After tiring of his rugby attire, he came downstairs with his pièce de résistance: khaki cargo pants, a blue t-shirt, a green fleece vest, tan bucket hat, aviator sunglasses, and a fake rifle. I could not help but burst out laughing - clearly the desired effect. He looked like he was heading out on safari, or a hiking trip, or a hike where he was preparing to kill a mountain lion. The potential James Bond look he may have been going for with the aviators was somewhat killed by the bucket hat and cargo pants.

Needless to say, Saturday afternoon was absolutely excellent and the older brother drove us into Annecy after lunch (5:30 PM) so that I could buy a sim card. The other interns then picked me up and w headed back to Talloires for dinner. We went out for dinner and I had a beautiful greek salad with stuffed grape leaves overlooking the southern half of the lake and the surrounding peaks (which all still have snow on them).

This has been a very long post, but I want to write about Sunday as I sit here in the lobby as 80 locals enjoy a speech by an ethnomusicologist on a German musician.
I'll break it up into two so as not to overwhelm.

Back Home in Talloires

I have now had two and a half incredibly long days here in Talloires. Despite the jet lag and the settling in process, it has all been wonderful and I am beyond happy to have returned to this place that I love so much. It is late now and I am getting up early to run tomorrow morning - work starts at 8 for me tomorrow - so I must go to bed, but I just wanted to post some pictures of this incredible location. You must also first understand that the photos just don't do this place justice; it is more beautiful, more stunning, and more exquisite than words or images could ever describe. It was quite cold here last night and it was also raining, and so when it is cold here in the valley (43F), it snows up in the mountains. Once the clouds cleared this morning we had a breathtaking glimpse of the peaks.

The room I'm staying in leads into another room which has a great balcony. I can look down to the lake or up to the mountains. I'll include just one photo of the lake with more to come in the next few weeks as well as more detailed and eloquent blog posts.

More to come before long.