Trail Camp in Lubéron: a debrief

May 15, 2024 — Nico Cartron

This post is gonna be a bit longer than the ones I am used to, but since this is my first trail running camp, I decided to give a lot more thoughts.

Context

As part of my preparation for the Ultra Saint-Jacques by UTMB, I had planned (with Nico, my coach) 2 "shock weekends": - the first one 2 months before - detailed in that post, - the second one 1 month before.

Trails-in-France has a good selection of such weekends, and I initially registered for the one in Jura.
3 weeks before, the staff sent me an email, advising me to instead attend the one in Lubéron, as based on my experience and "skills", the one in Jura may be a bit tough to follow (indeed they recommended a UTMB index of 450, and mine is currently 414).
So I went for Lubéron, with ~73 kms and ~2800m of elevation (instead of the ~95 kms and ~4500m of elevation).

Day before

I went to the office in Paris on Thursday morning for a few meetings, then headed to the train station mid-afternoon, arriving in Avignon around 6pm.

Once at the hotel, I had a few work calls, and then I had dinner (pasta of course!).

While there, I spotted a guy on the other side of the room, weating a UTMB hoodie. Once I had finised dinner, I went to say hello and asked him if he was there for the trail camp - which of course was a "yes".
We chatted for a while - another Nicolas, leaving in France near the Swiss border, and working in Geneva.
We agreed on having breakfast together the day after.

Day 1

Breakfast and meeting other fellow trail runners

I met Nicolas at 8:30am and we saw a group of 3 girls - Juliette, Tifanie and Valérie - wearing trail running gear - they were also part of the camp.
We chatted while having breakfast, and then walked together to the train station, where we met the rest of the group: - Nicolas and Alice, our coaches from Trails-in-France, for the next 3 days, - Stéphane who would be driving us, taking care of our luggages, and hosting us for the first night, - Alison and Julien, Laure from Lyon, Séverine and Renaud from Paris.

So we were a group of 12: 10 trailers, and 2 coaches.

We then hopped on the coach (as in: the car), and after ~50 minutes Stéphane dropped us off.
After a short briefing, we started running.

The coaches

A few words about our coaches:

Nicolas: trail runner with a lot of experience, he has run a lot of (very) long distances, such as Tor des Géants, CCC, UTMB or the Terminorum race. This gives him legitimacy when talking and giving his advices - but he does so in a very humble manner.
Alice: she used to be in the army and is now a mathematics teacher. She is a bit more quiet but pays attention and is a great leader as well.

Nicolas and Alice exchanged a lot during the camp, and swapped group leading so that everyone gets to know them.

Morning

Target distance: 21 kms
Target elevation: 950 meters

Since Alice and Nicolas did not know our level, we ran together, waiting for each other after a while.

Afternoon

After a nice picnic, we kept running while getting to know each other.
Nothing specific to mention, the route was very pleasant, we had almost no wind, and arriving to our lodging was uneventful.

Stats for the day:

Distance run: 23.4 kms
Elevation: 994 meters

Evening/Dinner

We arrived at our destination around 6pm. Stéphane had prepared a nice apéritif which we had outside, and then we had dinner (quiche, ...).

dinner is about to arrive!

With a few folks and Nicolas, We played a card games called "Dutch" which was very fun, and then headed to bed around 10:30pm.

Day 2

Everyone agreed to split the group in 2: group 1 for those who wanted to get a bit more "engaged", and group 2 for those who wanted to take it easy.

I went into group 1 as I wanted to progress and push myself a bit.

Morning

Target distance: 25 kms
Target elevation: 1000 meters

Afternoon

Stats for the day:

Distance run: 32.7 kms
Elevation: 1590 meters

Nicolas asked us whether we would be willing to run a bit more (along with the additional elevation), which of course we happily said "yes".

These additions 7 kilometers were ran around "Fort de Buoux", which sadly we could not see as it was hidden by the trees.

Evening

We stayed at "Auberge des Seguins", a very nice place, where we had a wonderful diner, and went straight to bed after.

Our lodging for the night! <3

Day 3

Plan for the day and breakfast

We were a bit tight on time, as we had to be finished at 2:30pm (since our driver would pick us up, and drive us to the train station).

We prepared our lunch, then had breakfast, and left around 8am.

Morning

Target distance: 23 kms
Target elevation: 900 meters

Afternoon

Stats for the day:

Distance run: 24.3 kms
Elevation: 1180 meters

Feelings

This was my very first trail camp, and I can say that this went beyond my expectations!

Sport side:
- the "target" over 3 days was 68 kms and 2850m of elevation, and we did 80 kms and 3760 meters
- trail running 3 days in a row in the mountains was a bit of an unknown for me, but it went really well
- of course, the last day was a bit more tough, but when over the feeling was even sweeter!
- and I learnt a lot especially for downhill running
People side: it's never easy to have a group of 12 people and have them get well together. Everyone was really friendly and easy to deal with - even though we had 2 groups, the fact that we did it on day 2 allowed everyone to know each other. I had a ton of fun with plenty of folks, and I will for sure cross their path again in the future - Strava and LinkedIn will help :)
Coach side: Nicolas and Alice were excellent, although very different in their approach:
- Nicolas brought his "ultra runner" experience, exchanging with us and answering questions we had regarding our next challenges
- Alice was more quiet, but she observed us a lot, and gave us advices or cheering on us when we were struggling a bit
- What I especially liked is that every day we had some "coaching/tips" session during a break, e.g. how to use polls, or run downhill. It was really useful and well done, with the coach recording a movie of everyone going downhill and then debriefing individually in the evening.
Trails side: the trails we ran were extremely diversified, with up and downhill sections, with a mixture of big rocks and smaller stones, but also woodlands and pine needles. It was a real pleasure and not boring at all, with some really tough uphill sections, followed by calmer moments running on flat, and then false flat sections then steep downhills!
Nature side: of course, trail running without a nice view would be a lot less enjoyable, and to say that we got it would be an understatement! See by yourself with the pictures below, it was gorgeous!
Weather side: we've been really lucky, as we had a wonderful weather: blue sky, a bit windy on the second day, and temperatures a bit low in the morning, but after a few minutes running it was OK and in fact a lot more pleasant than the 30 degrees Celsius that folks had 2 weeks before that camp!