What’s the training volume like for Canada’s only entrant on the men’s elite list for the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc? It is 171K, after all.
One of Quebec’s top ultrarunners, Jeff Cauchon, will run his second-ever 100-mile race at the legendary Chamonix, France event in early September. He’s 24, relatively young for the ultrarunning scene and has a three-year major-Canadian-race winning streak alive.
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UTMB’s elite entrants are determined by a runner’s ranking per the International Trail Running Association. For Cauchon, his top results include a win in his first-ever 100-miler, the Ultra-Trail du Mont Albert in June, and last year’s Ultra-Trail Harricana 125K. If you think he’s young to be in the scene now, consider this: he ran his first ultra when he was 21 transitioning to the trails from 10Ks and half-marathons in 2014. He’s included on an elite men’s UTMB list that includes Jim Walmsley and Kilian Jornet. UTMA (Mont Albert) is known as one of the tougher ultra races in Canada and features 8,500m of elevation gain while UTMB features more than 10,000m. There, Cauchon ran with American Adam Wilcox, the winner of the event’s 100K the year before, for the first half of the race before running clear of the field. In 2015, Cauchon won the 100K at UTMA.
Cauchon climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest three times in 10 days in preparation for UTMB.
The Quebec City ultrarunner says one of his goals for UTMB, like most first-timers, is to finish. Time-wise, and if all goes to plan, he hopes to finish in less than 27 hours. Cauchon covered his only 100-mile race to date in 25:29:49. For perspective, the top-10 UTMB finishers in 2016 arrived in less 23.5 hours including Ludovic Pommeret’s winning 22:00:02. Runners must complete the course in less than 46.5 hours.
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“I’m looking forward to [the] nice views and amazing mountains around Mont Blanc,” he says. “This mythical race is an ultrarunner’s dream.”
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Curious as to how much Cauchon, who does much of his training with his older sister Eli, the other half of “Team Cauchon” as they’re known on social media, runs? In late July and early August, on a trip to the northeastern United States, the civil engineer by day did 445K in a 10-day span including a single-run max of 60K. That’s more than a marathon a day, all while climbing 24,750m along the way. He was on his feet for 74-75 hours to reach the 445K mark. During his time in the U.S., Cauchon summited Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern United States, and home to the legendary Mount Washington Road Race.
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Cauchon understandably expects a tough race in France come the beginning of September. It’s not only the elevation of UTMB, with a course that passes through France, Switzerland and Italy, but also the altitude at which the event takes place. Multiple climbs during the single-looped course pass over 2,500m. (Read more about the race here.)
UTMB goes off at 6:30 p.m. local time on Sept. 1 as runners will race into the night. Stay tuned for more Canadian Running coverage in the leadup to the world’s most famous off-road ultra.
