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Audrey aims to create new memories in Chamonix

We all run for different reasons. We all have our own markers of individual success. For some, winning a race is the culmination of a lifetime of dedication to the sport.

Crossing the finish line first is a big step in any athlete’s career. From the egg-and-spoon race at sports day to a local running race, breaking the tape is a memorable moment for any athlete at any level.

It can also be life-changing. Winning a race at perhaps the world’s greatest international trail-running festival is an achievement many trail runners aspire to.

HOKA ONE ONE athlete Audrey Tanguy did just that in 2018.

Career highlight

Audrey only took her first steps in ultra-trail competition in 2017. Less than a year later, she crossed the line first in the 126km TDS race at UTMB. It was, and remains, a career highlight.

“Winning the TDS is actually my best racing memory,” she says. “I loved every single moment of that race, although maybe except the Col de Tricot!”

“I really didn’t expect to win and am still so happy and affected when I think about it now.”

This year has been Audrey’s first full season as a professional athlete for HOKA. She has finished 2^nd at Lavaredo Ultra Trail and 3^rd at Madeira Island Ultra Trail so far this season, and heads back to Chamonix to race TDS again later this month.

Same race, new challenges

TDS links the Aosta Valley in Courmayeur, Italy to the Savoie region in the French Alps. It is the second-longest individual event during UTMB week and starts at 4:00am on Wednesday 28 August.

This year’s race route promises to present some new challenges.

Now 145km long and reaching +9,000m elevation, the race starts in Courmayeur and follows the same route as previous years. It then charts a new course through the Beaufortain region before arriving to the finish in Chamonix.

Intriguingly for Audrey, the infamous Col de Tricot remains. It is the steepest single climb on the Mont Blanc round. At more than 2,000m altitude, it arrives 130km into this year’s race.

Creating new memories

After spending three weeks trekking in Kirghizstan to prepare for the race, Audrey is ready to tackle the race head on.

“On the one hand, I can’t wait to run TDS again,” she says. “On the other hand, I’m afraid that having a different race and outcome this year will change my gorgeous memory of last year’s race.

“Physically, it will be longer and harder, but I have more experience now. I’m aiming for a good race. By that, I mean good race management, good sensations, good thoughts throughout and hopefully a good result to match.”

Striving to be the best you can be is a common thread that connects all athletes, whatever level or ability.

Living the simple life

It is this dedication to be the best version of ourselves that both connects us and continues to drive us on. It is the same for Audrey.

“For me, ultra-running is a perfect life,” she says. “It’s a simple life, almost every day is the same, but I love it.

“When you want to be as good as possible, you try to do your very best and it isn’t always possible or doesn’t always come off. But, for me, ultra-running is not a sacrifice. It’s just my life and my passion.”

Photo credits: Sunny Lee and PEIGNÉE VERTICALE

Rising to the challenge of the grand Tarentaise

When you’ve spent the past decade travelling the globe and running in some of the biggest trail races in the world, what do you do to stay motivated?

If you’re HOKA athlete Julien Chorier, you take to the Alps and tackle the 295-kilometre challenge of the Tarentaise, of course.

“At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t really find a main aim for the season, so I made the decision to create it,” says Julien, speaking just before his appearance in the TDS race at this year’s Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) event, where he finished ninth.

“I really wanted to create something new, something that would allow me to discover new things,” he adds.

Sharing the experience

But the opportunity for Julien to share this experience with his family and closest friends was the biggest motivating factor behind his record attempt.

“Most of all, I wanted to do it in an environment that I knew well, somewhere close to home, so that my friends, family and training partners could all be a part of it too.”

Julien completed his ‘Grand Tour de la Tarentaise’ in a record 66 hours and 13 minutes.

Rising to the challenge

The 38-year-old, who lives in Saint-Thibaud-de-Couz, France with his wife and two daughters, has enjoyed an elite trail-running career spanning more than a decade.

“Most of all, I wanted to do it in an environment that I knew well, somewhere close to home, so that my friends, family and training partners could all be a part of it too.” Julien Chorier

Julien won the CCC race at UTMB in 2007 and finished on the podium in the 171-kilometre event the following year.

He has won prestigious trail races around the world, and is a two-time winner of the Grand Raid de la Réunion, also known as ‘La Diagonale des Fous’.

Taking on the Tarentaise

La Diagonale des Fous translates to ‘The Madmen’s Diagonal’ in English, rather fitting given Julien’s appetite to take on the toughest of challenges.

The Tarentaise is more renowned for its beautiful ski resorts and the route Julien tackled featured 295 kilometres and up to 20,000m of elevation. It was certainly the sort of challenge he was after.

“I left Val Thorens on the Friday morning under sunny skies and just happy to be there,” recalls Julien. “I didn’t dare to consider the magnitude of the task before me at that point!”

The sunny skies didn’t last. Battling heavy rain and hailstorms, rocky paths, landslides and crippling fatigue, Julien arrived back at Val Thorens a little over 66 hours later.

Together, we go further

Julien’s journey was documented the entire way by Aurélien Colin and his Athlete 2.0 crew for a special feature film that premiered this week at UTMB.

It will be 2019 before the film is officially released – but for now, share in the spirit of Julien’s adventure with this teaser.

“Our motto was that, alone, we go faster,” says Julien, “but with many, we go further. I think we achieved that with this challenge.”

Photo credit: Rémi Blomme (Athlete 2.0)

Keeping on running — even when all hope seems lost

You might not have heard of Ludo Pommeret, but he is the Usain Bolt, the Lionel Messi, the Lebron James, of Ultra-Trail running. His story of a seemingly impossible comeback is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.

Imagine entering a race that will require you to run an entire earth day and night — if you’re exceptional that is. It will take far longer than a day if you’re not. Imagine running in a race over a distance greater than four marathons, across the Alps, Europe’s highest and most punishing mountain range.

Now picture puking your guts out by the side of a trail less than a third of the way into the race, and looking so pale and broken, that, as they pass you, all your friends and fellow competitors will suppose you’re about to drop out and seek urgent medical attention. But you don’t. Somehow you don’t.

The next time they notice you, you’re standing at the very top of the podium.

Scaling new heights

Growing up in the French Alps, Ludo Pommeret was unsurprisingly drawn to winter sports. He loved skiing and snowboarding. And windsurfing in the summer. He loved sports with stoke and adrenaline; running seemed achingly dull in comparison. “When I was younger, I thought it was not very interesting to run,” he says. “I thought runners were boring.”

Ludo was really good at snowboarding, especially big mountain freeriding and soon found he was picking up sponsors and doing shoots for brands. But as the stakes got higher, his interest in the inherent dangers of riding in the backcountry began to wane. “When you reach a certain level, the descents start to be quite dangerous,” he says. “And you are jumping more and more, from higher and higher points… When I got older I started to think more about the danger. It became different.”

He was hungry for a new challenge. A less risky way to feel the same buzz he’d got from charging down mountains. He certainly didn’t expect it to come from running, but when his brother-in-law suggested he enter a small race close to his village, he decided to give it a go.

“It was good. My brother-in-law and a few friends entered. They all did athletics and cross-country regularly, but I finished in front of them, so they were surprised,” he laughs. “I was too.”

Laying the foundations

At the beginning he didn’t think running was something he could be good at. “I entered another race. This one started in my village so I thought, ‘Why not?’ It was a very long race — 106 km in total, with lots of elevation — though you could do it as a walker. But it was too difficult, the doctors stopped me after 60 km, as my blood pressure was too low.”

Did he not want to steer clear of long races after that? “No, I thought maybe I just have to prepare for such a race. But the next year, I couldn’t finish either.” Then in 2003, that race stopped and the Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc, or UTMB, began. It’s since become a world-famous event, often cited as the “Tour de France” of trail running. Ludo entered in 2004 but dropped out again, this time scuppered by tendonitis.

“Then I stopped long races. I decided to start doing smaller ones, to build up slowly.” It worked. Ludo was no longer getting injured and he started winning races. “That was the beginning of my running,” he says.

To his surprise, he started to experience that same passion and thrill that he used to get from snowsports once more but this time he was getting it from bombing down a mountain in his running shoes without a board or set of skis in sight. He loved the gradual anticipation of the climbs and running as fast as he could down the rugged and technical rocky terrain on the other side.

He now wins the races he once couldn’t finish, including last year’s UTMB, where he staged a never-seen-before, epic comeback, going from 50th to finishing 1st. It was this race, which had left him vomiting by the side of the trail seemingly stripped of hope. Yet with seemingly indefatigable spirit, he kept running, through intense summer heat, violent thunderstorms and disorientating darkness, to the most unlikely of victories.

How did Ludo keep going and maintain any semblance of morale when his chances of winning seemed so remote? “These races are so long and so much can happen. You just need to be there at the end and see.”

“Trail running is like life. You know you’ll have a bad moment in the race. Almost all races have a moment that’s difficult and hard to manage. In life, it’s the same, we have good and bad moments. Almost every time you have a bad moment, you’ll have a better moment to come.”

Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture — people and movements that paddle against the flow. Find out more about HUCK.

Learn more about the supportive and technical trail running Mafate Speed shoes Ludo wears.