Trail Race report: Ultra Trail des Maures 2025

May 19, 2025 — Nico Cartron

Context

After my Saint Jacques and CCC races last year, which were obviously crowded, I wanted a more intimate race and also "just" a 100k. (That topic will probably have its own blog entry soon®).

I went for the Ultra des Maures, a 100 km race with 4700 meters of elevation, held in Collobrières, a wonderful village 45 minutes north of Toulon (South West of France).

There were 7 races (5, 12, 21, 30, 42, 60 and 100 kms) as well as a 12 kms hike spread across 2 days, with a total of 3,000 runners.

This is a rather old event, since it was the 17th edition, and it keeps growing: for instance, the Ultra went from 95 runners last year, to 230 this year!

Pre-Race

I went with my friend Matthieu, with whom I already ran the SaintéLyon 2.5 years ago - he is running the UTMB in August, so it was a good "prep" race for him (not to mention a good way to spend time together!).

We arrived on Friday evening, checked in at the Airbnb (which was conveniently located 200 meters from the start/finish line) and picked up our bibs on Saturday morning. We also bought a few "marrons glacés" (glazed chestnut) as well as "crème de marron" (chestnut cream), since it was a local specialty. We then went for a nap in the afternoon, since the race started at 10:30pm.

The Race

Goal

I'm specifically adding a Goal section as you will see this had an impact on my race; I wanted to run it in under 19 hours, meaning arriving before 5:30pm.
Based on my training load and my previous races, this was achievable.

Profile

As you can see below, the climbs were not extremely long, however some of them were pretty steep:

The first half of the race had 2700 meters of elevation, and (unsurprisingly) the other half 2000 meters.

Food and sport drinks I carried with me

I validated food and drinks during my 3-day trail camp mid-April, so I was rather confident.

It consisted of:

Sport drink:
- Maurten 320 (80g of carbs per 500 ml)
- Overstim's Hydrixir (45g of carbs per 500 ml)
Food:
- Naak bars
- Naak waffles
- Atlet energy compote (strawberry / apricot / banana)
- Cliff bars
- Overstim's gels

Start!

The crew told us that there would be a nice surprise just before the start, and indeed as we were waiting, fireworks were launched from an old church uphill! When you know how much this costs, this was really amazing and all the runners enjoyed it!

And of course, here goes the usual pica from the start line:

As usual, I'll be reporting on the race at every aid station: how much time it took me to go there, as well as my mood, how long I stayed, and any interesting moment I had in between aid stations.

I will also add if I was on-time, early or late compared to my predictions (w.r.t. the 19 hours goal).

Aid Station 1 (KM 10)

Arrived at 11:55pm (33 minutes before prediction)
Refilled water
Stayed ~2 minutes
Mood/shape: excellent
Moments:
- There were red smoke bombs in the village when we left, making the start a special moment

Aid Station 2 (KM 21)

Arrived at 01:49am (48 minutes before prediction)
Refilled water
Stayed ~6 minutes
Mood/shape: excellent
Moments:
- Back in Collobrières for this aid station, a bit special knowing that we'll do it again upon finishing the race (much) later in the day!
- I noticed my heart rate was a bit high, but since I felt good I didn't slow down

Aid Station 3 (KM 34)

Arrived at 04:28am (22 minutes before prediction)
Refilled water and had a soup
Stayed ~22 minutes (had to take a bio break at that aid station)
Mood/shape: average - I started having a hard time eating, which annoyed me as I was confident on this, since I validated it during my 3-days trail camp.
Moments:
- Glad to arrive at this aid station, as we had a pretty steep hill before

Aid Station 4 (KM 38)

Didn't stop at this aid station.

Aid Station 5 (KM 50)

Arrived at 8:13am (12 minutes before prediction)
Refilled water, changed t-shirt, socks and shoes.
Stayed ~40 minutes (including 15 minutes of rest), left being 33 minutes late on prediction.
Mood/shape: bad
Moments:
- The sunrise around 6:15am was just magic! As usual, it helped a lot leaving the night and stop using the headlamp :)
- We stopped for 20 minutes around km 40 to help a runner who felt on the head and was confused (called security staff and escorted him to the nearest road).
- Eating was still complicated

Aid Station 6 (KM 54)

Didn't plan to stop at this aid station
Stopped nonetheless for 3 minutes to refill water

Aid Station 7 and 7 (KM 61)

Arrived at 11:21am (51 minutes later than prediction)
Refilled water
Stayed ~3 minutes
Mood/shape: average
Moments:
- Felt slightly better but still difficulties with eating

Aid Station 8 (KM 73)

Arrived at 1:37pm (1h09 later than prediction)
Refilled water and for the first time I looked at what was available at the aid station: I had a glass of Coke, along with some slices of saucisson - surprisingly I felt like I needed it, and this helped a lot.
Stayed ~10 minutes
Mood/shape: better
Moments:
- This aid station was after a long downhill section and I was happy to reach it.
- Also, KM 73 meant that we were getting closer to the finish line!

Aid Station 9 (KM 84)

Arrived at 3:48pm (1h22 later than prediction)
Refilled water, had Coke and saucisson again, yum!
Stayed ~12 minutes
Mood/shape: better
Moments:
- My right knee was painful when running downhill, so I had to slow down when it was too steep.
- This was surprising, reminding me of the iliotibial bande syndrome I had a few years ago (and that disappeared when I transitioned to forefoot running). I'm sure this was it, and the only explanation I have now is that with the tiredness, I went back to a good ol' heel-strike stride.

Check Point 10 (KM 90)

Didn't plan to stop at this aid station
Stopped nonetheless for 5 minutes to refill water

Arrival (KM 100)

Arrived at 7:14pm (1h44 later than prediction)
Moments:
- As we got ~2 kms from Collobrières, we thought we were done, but of course there was yet another 150 meters of elevation to do
- trail runners who've been through that will easily relate: you really hate when this happens, as you'd rather cross the finish line and don't really enjoy the moment.

Wrap Up

Failure?

I completed the race almost 2 hours after my initial goal.

I knew since half the race that I would not make it, and very quickly my mindset shifted to "let's just finish the race, no matter what". While I'm glad I did that and managed to do it, I still spent (a lot of) time to understand what happened, and here's my analysis so far:

Pace/Cadence: I was much too high for the first 5 hours. When running an Ultra, you want to stay in the "steady" zone as much as possible. I knew it, I trained for it, but still I failed miserably for the 5 (FIVE!) first hours.
Why is that? Well, a few reasons I think:
- Excitement: even though Matthieu and I agreed on not pushing too much, and we did it, I had prepared for that race for a long time and I was excited, so instead of being careful, I let my body in control
- Feelings: I listened to my feelings, which told me "you're in good shape, everything's alright", whereas my heart-rate clearly disagreed
Food intake:
- I initially thought that I got disgusted of my Maurten 320 + Naak bars because that was too much carbs at a time. Granted, I tested it during my trail camp, but doing 3 x 33 kms (or 3 x 5 hours) over 3 days is not the same as doing 100 kms in one go!
- Also, being too high for 5 hours clearly did not help: I think I would have had this food intake issue at some point, but probably much later had I been wise and at a lower intensity during those 5 hours.

What went well

Still, even with the above, there's A LOT of things which went well during this race, and I want to stress it here:

Instinct backpack: I liked it a lot already, but I made a few adjustments with the lacing and it was perfect, it didn't move at all and I had no pain
Physical preparation: the plan I followed with my coach bore fruit, as running downhill/uphill went great, and I had no muscular pains at all
Leki poles: Matthieu showed me that I'd rather use the gloves that came with the poles (I was using a 2nd pair I bought, as I thought the first pair was dead). Turned out, placing the gloves on the poles for a few hours helped loosen the rope (aka the "trigger loop"). I used the poles during the whole race and had no issues.
Also, they didn't get stuck like during the Hivernale (I guess using some WD-40 lubricant helped a lot).
Talking about poles, the Instinct Reflex belt proved super useful and easy to use, much more comfortable than a quiver.
- I also used it to carry some stuff (although I could use it even more, as there are many pockets in that belt!)
- it also served as a bib holder, which avoided having to use my usual Oxsitis bib belt
Aid stations/planned schedule: I spent a lot more time on this, to estimate when I would arrive at aid stations. This had the nice benefit of knowing the aid stations in advance, and how much time/how many kilometers in between them, without having to look at my printed timetable
Underwear: I switched to SAXX for running boxer shorts, and they are super comfortable, what a difference this makes with my old BV Sports ones!
Arm sleeves: the forecast was ~10 degrees at start time, and a bit windy when on the ridges, so I wore my Salomon arm sleeves, instead of a long-sleeves shirt, and this was wonderful; I no longer had to stop to switch to a t-shirt, I just had to fold the sleeves on my wrists - and unfold them again when it was cold/windy.
Shoes: I ran with my Altra Timp 5, and I had a 2nd part of Timp 5 waiting for me at the 50k aid station.