SaintéLyon Trail Race: The French Classic!
I recently ran France's oldest trail race (68th edition), here's a recap!
Race Profile
- Length: 78 kms
- Creation date: 1952 (68th edition)
- Elevation:
- Positive: 2050m
- Negative: 2350m
- Aid Stations: 5
- Cut-off time: 16h30
SaintéLyon
SaintéLyon history
The "Asics SaintéLyon" (as it is now being called, since Asics is the main
sponsor) is the oldest trail race in France.
I couldn't find an entry on the English Wikipedia, but the French wikipedia has
a complete page on the race's
history.
TL;DR:
- the 1st edition was in 1952
- it was initially a hiking between Lyon and Saint-Étienne (and not the other way around, like today), using the GR 7.
- Running was finally allowed in 1977, as it was getting harder to check that walkers were indeed not running.
Tough Conditions
The SaintéLyon is ran on the first weekend of December, which usually rhyms with mud, cold, snow and or rain.
Furthermore, the race starts at 11:30pm on Saturday - technically Sunday early morning for folks not in the 1st waves :)
Registration
I wasn't planning on running this race, as the very late (or early, depends where you look from) start did not really appeal to me.
But I got convinced by my buddies Eole (who introduced me to trail running) and Matthieu (who I ran the Hivernale des Templiers trail) with last year, so I registered :)
Now registering is one thing, but running it is different - especially when the longest race I ran was 54 kms, and the SaintéLyon is 78 kms...
Prep
I wanted to avoid the same issues as the ones I encountered during my last trail race, so I focused my training on trail conditions in the weeks preceding the race, e.g. I did more downhill sessions in the woods nearby my house.
Pre-race
Strike in France
The race starting on Saturday evening, the initial plan was to take a train from
Paris to Lyon on Saturday morning, which would give us plenty of time to pick up
the bibs.
Now on top of that, I had to be in Paris the day before and sleep at Eole's
place, since I don't live in Paris.
This was without counting on the French Rail (SNCF) being on strike (train controllers) the very same weekend as the SaintéLyon; my train from home to Paris got cancelled, (Bad mouths would say "once again", but honestly this is not that often, especially coming from train controllers).
We didn't know whether the train from Paris to Lyon would run, so Eole and I decided to take an Italian train on Friday evening to Lyon and sleep there, to be safe (meanwhile I found a train from home to Paris).
Saturday in Lyon
We woke up, got breakfast at the hotel and headed to the Tony Garnier Hall to
pick up our bibs.
We had plenty of time, and also managed to secure a late checkout at 4pm at the
hotel, so no pressure at all, we got our bibs, went for a walk and visited the
different booths, and spent some time at the trail races booths, discussing
with the folks from St Jacques by UTMB trail race, which Matthieu, Eole and
myself will run in June 2023. When we told the folks on the booth we would run
it, they gave us a t-shirt to thank us - nice :)
We also bought tickets for the shuttle service to Saint-Etienne, and confirmed that it's best to depart early (4 or 5pm) and avoid the 6-7pm slot, as it's really crowded by then.
We then went to a nearby place to get some lunch, which of course was pasta, and
Fabien, Eole's friend, joined us, having just arrived from Paris by train.
We then went back to our hotel, had some rest, and Matthieu joined us as well -
good that we had a "suite" big enough to accommodate 4 guys :)
Around 3:30pm, we started packing and changing, and by 4 we were leaving and
walking to the shuttles, initially waiting for Matthieu who wanted to drop off
his bag in Lyon (we had been told it was possible, although it wasn't really
clear how that worked).
In the end, after 20 minutes waiting for Matthieu, we decided to hop on the
shuttle, and that Matthieu would join us in Saint-Etienne. Which was a good
idea, since there was in fact no luggage drop off service in Lyon, you had to do
it in Saint-Etienne - good to know for next time ;)
Arriving in Saint-Etienne
The journey to Saint-Etienne took less than 1 hour, and we got dropped off near
the hall where we would start later.
It was around 5:30pm, meaning more than 6 hours waiting and resting.
We joked that Eole had brought his home, as he had packed his sleeping bag, as
well as an inflatable sleeping mattress!
Well, turns out that was a smart idea, as he managed to get some proper sleep.
I had just brought the required emergency blankets, an inflatable pillow and an
eye cover, so while I managed to rest, I didn't sleep - note taken for next
time! :)
Food-wise, Eole brought some hiking food and gave me some rice - it did the job,
along with the food aid station we had - not great, but OK.
Note also taken for next time: bring some proper food (I saw plenty of
runners with pasta they had bought in Lyon).
To the Start line
Finally, it was time to stand up and start queuing to go to the Start line!
I was glad the wait was over, as 6 hours is quite something, even though in the
end it was nice, we had plenty of chats and resting here and there.
What we hadn't foreseen is that the wait would be quite long - almost 45 minutes in the cold, without moving. But in the end we were ready to go!
The Race
Start
Sure, you know that SaintéLyon is big: 17.000 runners in total (over 8 races), of which 6.000 run the SaintéLyon.
So I knew that:
- it would be packed,
- we would probably be never be alone,
- I was looking forward to seeing the queue of headlamps while looking backwards :)
What I hadn't imagined is that the race is really popular, so even with a start at midnight on Sunday, there are many people in the streets, at their balconies, cheering the runners!
We started the race all together (Julie, Eole, Matthieu, Fabien and myself), but after 30 seconds, Eole had disappeared - we knew he wanted to try running the race in less than 12 hours, and as we just wanted to finish it, this was fine with us :)
The first kilometers were ran in Saint-Etienne, so although our headlamps were
on, we didn't really need them.
Still plenty of cars and people in the streets, pretty impressive.
After roughly 4 kilometers, we finally left the city and started running on proper trails:
That also meant we didn't have city lighting anymore, and could only rely on our
headlamps.
As I suspected, the trails were pretty packed, so we took advantage of other
runners' headlamps as well - that was good because even though we didn't
have snow, there was a pretty thick fog, making it hard to see beyond 1 meter,
so having other sources of light was good.
I'm not gonna make a description of each and every kilometer, so the next chapters will just be my recollection of the section, as well as checking if we were good timing wise re the cut-off time.
Also, there's not much pictures of the first 8 hours, since we ran in the dark, so apart from seeing a queue of headlamps, that's all you'd see :)
Aid Station 1 - Saint-Christo-en-Jarez (KM 17, cut-off time 4h15)
- Arrived at 2:15am, so 2 hours ahead of the cut-off time.
- Refilled water, took mainly salty food (cheese and delicatessen) as well as some banana.
- Stayed ~8 minutes - we left around 2:23am.
Aid Station 2 - Sainte-Catherine (KM 30, cut-off time 7h00)
- Arrived at 4:37am (2h23 ahead of cut-off time),
- Same as 1st aid station: refilled water and took salty food.
- Left at 4:46am - so a 9 minutes stop.
Aid Station 3 - Le Camp – Saint Genou (KM 44, cut-off time 11h45)
- Arrived at 7:14 am (4h31 ahead of cut-off time).
- Was supposed to be drinks only, but in the end they had some food as well.
- Left at 7:24 - so a 10 minutes stop.
Aid Station 4 - Soucieu-en-Jarrest (KM 55, cut-off time 13h35)
- Arrived at 9:09am (4h26 ahead of cut-off time).
- Left at 9:22am - so a 13 minutes stop.
This one was tough to leave :) It was inside a gymnasium, so it was warm inside, making it not really appealing to run again in the cold ;)
From left to right: me, Fabien and Matthieu
Aid Station 5 - Chaponost (KM 65, cut-off time 16h30)
- Arrived at 11:05am (5h25 ahead of cut-off time).
- Left at 11:11am - so a 6 minutes stop.
The shortest stop I had: it was getting harder to carry on, so I knew that staying too long would not be good, and decided to make this a short stop.
Also, this section was a bit annoying, since you run the same route back from the aid station:
Arriving in Lyon
Finally there it was, the Lyon road sign!!!
The last 2 or 3 kms were not easier, as you had to go downstairs, then upstairs, then cross a bridge etc.!
But we made it to the finish line:
From left to right: Fabien, Julie, me, Eole, Matthieu.
Note that Eole is no longer wearing his running gear, since he arrived way before us, finishing the race in 10h07 🎉💪
Our time was 13h39, and we arrived at the same time:
Take Aways
- The human body is incredible: even with a sleepless night, I managed to run the race and didn't really feel extremely tired after - we went to a nearby restaurant, watched the Football game (France vs. Portugal), and then back to my hotel, and fall asleep around 9pm.
- The Olympus 5's grip is amazing!
- I really tested the grip of those shoes, given how muddy it was
- I didn't fall at all during those 78 kms!
- Pretty impressed by the battery life of my Petzl headlamp (Swift RL)
- it lasted for the 8h+ I ran in the night, and I still had at least 50% of battery left
- I used the "reactive lighting" for ~5 hours, as there were a lot of runners nearby and it was enough,
- then i switched to the 1st, fixed level of lighting for ~2h,
- and used the 2nd level for the last hour
- I had a 2nd battery with me as it was part of SaintéLyon's rules, but it's good to know that this thing's battery life is solid.
My legs were in good shape!
- Even though I suffered a bit in the last 10k, I could perfectly walk right after the race and the following days, unlike my last trail (X-Trail Corrèze) where I was "walking like a duck" the days after ;)
- This is clearly due to the "easy" elevation: there were no steep hills to climb or descend, it was relatively progressive, if you look at the race's profile:
I'll have to focus my pre-race training a lot more on trail-specific workouts, as the last 10k were tough:
- not only uphill,
- but also downhill,
- only running on flat ground was OK.
- If you compare the 2 races, my pace at SaintéLyon is significantly faster: 10'21/km vs 11'24
- I need to pay more attention to trees roots/rocks
- I hurt my right foot at least 5 or 6 times, and my big toe was a mess at the end of the race
- Timing wise, since it was my first SaintéLyon, I just wanted to finish it, and didn't push too hard:
- Stop duration at aid stations can clearly be shortened a lot: I took my time, ate at every aid station, so I could save time by eating my own food, and just refilling water at the aid stations.
- As usual, running such a big race for the first time means you learn from your
mistakes, e.g.:
- bring a sleeping bag/mattress,
- bring proper food for Saturday evening,
- ...
Wrap Up
I'm really glad I ran the SaintéLyon. I was initally skeptical, as in my mind, it was not a pleasant trail: starting at midnight, running in the dark and having mud or even snow.
But I take all of the above back: it was AWESOME - from the organisation, to all the volunteers who helped along the way (picking up bibs, while waiting in Saint-Etienne, of course at the aid stations), and all the "normal" people who cheered us, some of them being in some unexpected places (like in the middle of the woods at 4am!) lighting up some fire, with music playing out loud for runners!
I will definitely run it again - probably not next year, as I don't like running the same race twice in a row, but later, to experience this again, and also to improve my time, of course!