Fifth Bromont 80, new thoughts on the event and my relationship with running as a 65-year old.

 It is Friday evening, the 23rd, a few days since I finished my fifth Bromont Ultra 80km, with my daughter Sophie, my faithful pacer who offered to join me after her first go in 2024.

It's weird, I feel like the weekend went too quickly! I spent more time than most of the runners in the 80, 16 hours and 36 minutes, but then why do I miss it? This trail, this event, are really under my skin. My first Bromont Ultra was the 55km ten years ago, in 2016. I realize now, ten years later (my first 50k was in 2015, it was hard!) the accumulated years of experience really do add up, and help us get to the finish line.

Every year I plan and try to fix the errors of the previous year. Having the race to look forward to gets me out the door running all year (and well, running is fun!), it's a weekend that I look forward to for many reasons!

Training-wise, this year was weird, I did exactly the same mileage as last year, 2,000 more metres of climbing, and about 11 more hours. The really crazy thing is that I felt as if I didn't get out for as many longer runs this year, but comparing them to last year the stats were almost exactly alike! September was interrupted by a dream trip for my 65th birthday to Chamonix in France, where Tash and I hiked every day on the most beautiful trails in Europe under the watchful eye of Mont Blanc. I did manage to get in a few runs there. My time on feet was terrific for that week!

I did suffer a couple of unfortunate slips and falls. In July, I was following Mabel down the trail from the cross, slipped on a rock and fell on to my butt first, and hit my back. It knocked the breath out of me! I was okay, but we cut the run short and went back to the truck. After a week or so it was clear there was muscle bruising, and the fall did affect my psyche and my structure.

In September, three weeks before Bromont, I slipped going down the steep "staircase" descending from the cross. I've done that route up and down, over 100 times each way. This time I extended my hands to brace myself and somehow my ring finger split open, as if I crushed the finger under a rock or something. It was bleeding and purple. I got to Hawkesbury Hospital and was given 5 stitches! That was very annoying and unsettling. It healed really well (thanks to my daughter Dr Molly giving me rehab tips) and Molly pulled the stiches after 11 days.

Do you think that was it? No! The Saturday before Bromont I was doing a loop of l'Escapade (14kms) and tripped, landing hard on a downhill on some nice rocks. Right knee bleeding, left elbow cut, left rib cage very sore (still sore) and right wrist sprained (not broken, thank God!). To say I was angry at myself was an understatement!

One more 5k at the cottage on Thanksgiving Monday and I began the taper for Saturday.

At 65, attention to recovery is as important as actually getting the workout done. It takes longer. Stretching, eating and sleeping really do count. I am pretty good at the first two, the third, well, I do my best, but sleep is harder at this age. I tried carb loading last year, and it seemed to work well, so I did my best to scarf down a ton of pasta, Wednesday through Friday.

Saturday morning, race day, arrive at the parking at 7:30 for a 9am start. Why so early? To get parking, of course! The race is so popular now, they have shuttles, and I don't want to be taking a shuttle after a long day on the trail, at 2am! Anyways, the pre-race hang in the ski lodge is fun! Cousin Pascal, also running the 80 arrived (early for once!), and Molly's former med school classmates Jerome and Marie-Piers came to say hi (he ran a VERY solid 80) .

We filed outside for the 9am start, and after the pre-race instructions from co-founder Audrey Laroquette, the gun went off and we began! I had been VERY stressed about getting to the start line healthy. Stitches, bruises, bleeding, sprains, all within a three week window of the start were really weighing heavily on my psyche. I had touched base Friday with Raymond Lanthier who has a very impressive resume of tough ultras, and he set my mind at ease, mostly. Once the race began, all my stress evaporated - it was such a relief, I got emotional! Wait, I told myself, save the emotion for the finish line!

Within the first half hour, a local runner who I have shared the trail with a few times, Anthony, caught up to me. We shared a lot of trail and road during the race, chatting most of the time about a lot of life topics. He has done a lot of BIG events this fall, I don't know how he keeps going, but he keeps "putting in the miles"! 

Night fell, as usual around 6:30pm, and on went the headlamps. By then we had gone up Mt Gale road, it was the 52-55th kilometres. There's a new aide station up there, very well appointed! The lineup for the shuttle bus long! Lots of people cheering or DNFing! We were in and out quickly, no time to waste! Finally we got up on the trails and on the hill with the view of Granby off in the distance. It's lonely and remote up there (private land), a really beautiful spot that only a few hundred people get to enjoy every year.

We circled around and down Mt Gale and back to the Bromont side for another 7 or so kilometres until we arrived at P1. This is the main base for the Bromont Ski operation. There is a lovely tent there at kms 63. Molly had driven down from Three Rivers where she was working a clinic, to pick Sophie up at the bus stop in Bromont. They had dinner and chilled until we arrived at P1. I picked Sophie up to pace me for the rest of the race. It was exciting to share this time on the trail at night with her!

We made good time, zig zagging around and up the mountain, until we almost reached the peak of Mt Brome. Then we ran down the service road, almost two kms back to the water park (missed a turn onto the trail so ran an extra 400m), and began climbing up Mt Soleil. It is short but steep, kind of a warmup for Lt Dan, the ogre climb of the course. Around midnight we began scaling Lt Dan. Recent treefalls had rendered the usual ropes inoperable, so on some sections we were using both hands for balance. My right wrist was still pretty sore, so I had to be extra careful. It is a formidable climb, 1.16kms with about 315m of gain. It is a. technical hiking climb, so after about 77 kms of moving, it's pretty tough! Sophie slowly and calmly moved her way up while I negotiated with my feet to move one at a time until we got to the easier parts! Anthony took off and finished about 8 minutes ahead of us. Bravo Anthony!

The summit of Mt Brome was as expected. Cold! It had been hovering around 3C all day, and while it was sunny, the open bits were quite windy. The summit on the other hand, at 12:40am, was VERY windy and cold! We got off the summit as soon as possible and of course, descending off the summit is quite technical and slow as well! 

With only a few kms left, I have learned not to get impatient after the summit. The trail winds its way across the hill before finally heading down towards the finish.  But remembering how I had had to walk so much in 2024 because of my very painful toes (Sophie thought we were going to run!), I made a special effort to impress Sophie and run the final trails, and I did!

Special shout out to my ACG Zegama 2 trail shoes! I have never had a shoe that is so comfortable, nimble on technical trail and yet plush and comfy enough to RUN with in the latter stage of the race! They really made the event so much more enjoyable! I still want to try the Norda 055 though!

As I began to hear cheers and cowbells (at 1:30 in the morning!!) I was filled with a primal joy - all the worries and accidents and doubts and anticipation were over with for now. I was going to make it to the finish not only in one piece, but still feeling strong enough to glaumph the last few hundred metres to the finish line with a gusto I didn't know I had! Sophie trailed me with her video camera going...I replay that and listen to the cowbells and cheers, it was magic!

Anne-Lise was there, amazingly (she slept 5 of 48 hours that weekend!) and actually interviewed us! I have never had that much attention at a Bromont finish!

Sophie and I made our way to the ski lodge to get my drop bag and eat. The food as usual was inedible, but the apple juice was good.  Sophie was getting tired, so I opened my backpack to get the truck key, and of course, it had fallen out of my pack somewhere during the day. We wound up calling Molly and waking her up, and she drove the five minutes to pick us up at 2:30 am....the advantage of the Studiotel Bromont being so close to Base Camp! I slept for a couple of hours (post bagel and cream cheese), but I was quite congested from the cold outdoors, and apparently was making a lot of troubling noises while I slept!

After some family interventions and gracious hotel owners, and we made it to P5 where happily, someone had found my key and returned it to Lost and Found! So it was a perfect weekend, in the end!

So reflections on all of this....

I was the oldest finisher in the male category. There were 5 of us this year, I was fourth (truly irrelevant). I couldn't find any 60+ who didn't finish! All 5 of us who started, finished. I found runs harder to initiate this year. I'm not sure why, every run I started I enjoyed, and did pretty well at. I already know that heat is not my friend. Maybe in the coming year I will do a sweat test and sort out my electrolyte situation. In the final hour, I felt my little hernia announcing itself. I am getting a referral Monday, Oct 26 to see a surgeon to fix this once and for all(edit: no surgery required). 

When I compare this year to the last ten years, what I see is that during Covid me and my friends did a TON of mileage. I didn't do a lot of vert however, and it's kind of funny to see how much more vert I have done in the last few years while maintaining a fairly constant mileage and time on feet! Another observation is that for my five finishes at the 80km distance, on two different iterations of the course, my average pace was almost always the same. Comparing the times is impossible, because the course changes every year, whether a bit or a lot, and I usually miss a part which adds or subtracts to the the distance and time! So while I am 65 now instead of 60, I am achieving the same goal in the same amount of time. I guess that means I am getting better at it, and/or fitter!!

At this stage of the game I am so super grateful for being alive (for starters) and for being healthy and fit enough to think I can even sign up for the race. I can't wait for next year already, and I can't wait to start back running, and maybe even making my hamstrings stronger for 2027!