“As I left Vallorcine, I had no idea what I was doing, No idea whatsoever”

“We were absolutely gobsmacked to see so many people lying on the trail asleep”

Kim Loane ran UTMB in 2023. I interviewed Kim back in May 2023 just before he started his specific UTMB training block. He was just coming off the back of five 100km races in 10 months, so he had plenty of strength and endurance which he was planning to build further.

As you will learn in this interview, his UTMB training block went well. He had three weeks pre-race in France to acclimatise to both the altitude and the time zone, so he should have been on track for the race of a lifetime. But . . . the race didn’t go according to plan. It didn’t even go close to plan.

He started feeling “a bit off” fairly early on in the race, and it went steadily down hill from there.

He spent the best part of 24 hours in a deep hallucination not really knowing what was going on. It is a miracle he finished. It is a miracle that the UTMB medical team didn’t pull him from the event, but they are used to seeing people deep into the hurt locker, and they didn’t know Kim well enough to realise just how “away with the fairies” he actually was.

This is a fascinating story to listen to, and will provide some insight into just h0w hard it can be to finish a 100 mile race. Especially one with 10,000m of climbing.

This interview might also help you to plan for your next Ultra. Perhaps a “sleep plan” should be included alongside your nutrition plan!

Happy listening. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.