When you think of a marathon, you might visualize bustling city streets teeming with runners and onlookers. For those who think a marathon is a bit too pedestrian, there’s a more challenging counterpart that takes place on rugged mountain trails and through dense forests: trail running.
The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) represents the zenith of trail running. For those athletes, they revere the UTMB like people revere the Stanley Cup in hockey. Set against the backdrop of the Alps, this race spans 171 kilometers. To offer some perspective, it’s akin to scaling Halifax’s Citadel Hill over 320 times or running from Fredericton to Moncton in difficult conditions. The UTMB race is one part of a week-long festival in Chamonix, France.
This festival includes the 157-kilometre course les Traces du Duc de Savoie (TDS). A staggering 1,649 runners who embarked on the TDS race this past August, all aiming to finish within 44 hours. Amid this field of elite athletes, Sussex’s own Christian Meier emerged victorious.
His finishing time of 19 hours, 36 minutes, and 35 seconds was considerably better than the runner-up, Simen Hjalmar Wästlund of Sweden, who clocked in at 19:57:41. Christian’s journey in sports includes participating in the 2014 Tour de France, after which he changed disciplines to trail running.
To understand the scale of Christian’s TDS accomplishment, consider this: a recreational runner would finish a marathon (42.2 km) in about four to five hours. In Christian’s TDS duration, that same runner could have completed nearly four consecutive marathons. Moreover, Christian wasn’t on flat terrain. The TDS presented 9,315 meters (or 30,577 feet) of elevation gain – almost 31 times the ascent of a city marathon. Christian – hailing from the serene confines of Sussex, New Brunswick – did all of that with a 21-minute lead over hundreds of world-class competitors.
Christian’s TDS win is about more than distance. It shows that even the most unassuming parts of our country can nurture outstanding talent on the world’s stage. Congratulations Christian, your tale urges us all to strive for our peaks.
The Radical Fabulatorium podcast hosted an interview with Christian Meier here –
Kurt Goddard is a human rights lawyer based in Fredericton, where he lives with his wife, Rebecca, and daughter, Abigail. An alumnus of Sussex Regional High School, he shares a hometown connection with ultramarathon champion Christian Meier. Kurt is also an avid trail runner and member of the Fredericton Trail Runners.