Skyline Trail Sugadaira Race Report by Eric Lebrasseur

Last weekend, Yuki and I were in Nagano prefecture for the Sugadaira Trail : 42km and 2500m of total elevation gain.

Our friend Taku, from my orienteering club, took us there in his car on Saturday. We did a little sightseeing (Zenkouji temple, Obuse) before going to Sugadaira Kougen, a ski station in winter. We met a herd of monkeys on the border of the road leading there.

I was just recovering from my left knee injury and I knew that I should not run this race but I was missing too much trail running. Especially, after reaching the top of the course (mont Neko, 2207m), there was 10km of downhill that was quite worrying.

Anyway, on Sunday, at 7:00 o'clock, Yuki, Taku and I were on the start line. It was raining a little bit, but it stopped soon. I started slowly and walked in the first uphill when everybody was still running. Yuki caught up with me and was worry that I was feeling bad, but I just trying to save some energy.

After 2km, there was a massive route miss. Everybody went in the wrong direction. Same as what happened in Nokogiri Trail last December. Same organizer...Anyway, everybody lost some time, so it was not a big problem. Actually, as I started slowly, I lost relatively less time then I would have at my "genki" pace, so I was almost pleased ;) We ran about 600m more than we should have.

At that moment, I was feeling good so I decided to increase my pace and passed many people in order not to be caught in potential traffic jam. Everything was OK until about 25km. I started to feel pain in my right knee. What? It was supposed to be the left that was injured... At that moment I really thought I should stop at the next aid station. While eating many delicious waffles, cakes and banana, I was considering retiring, but I could not resign to do so. The first woman passed me at that aid station.

So I continued. It was a steep slope to Mont Neko : about +600m in 2.5km. Going up was not a problem up to now. However, the first half of the climb, I was not feeling good; because my stomach had to assimilate all I gulped down (I have a tendency to eat too much...). Second half was better. Then came what I was worrying the most: the long downhill to the goal. I was resigned to go slowly and that's what I did. Both legs were painful, but the worst was the right knee. Than after few km, the right knee was feeling better but the left took over. What a team ;) I was passed by so many people, both from the 21km and the 42km courses, so I don't know how many places I lost exactly, but I guess about 20. Anyway I managed to reach the goal after 6h29s. Yuki arrived only 10min later.

Results:

Winner: time 4:44:51

Taku: time 6:14:36 and position 27/300

Eric: time 6:29:36 and position 38/300

Yuki: time 6:39:31 and position 41/300 (4/27 females and first of her age group)

Last: 9:33:11

49 DNF

By the way, from my gps, the distance was 46km rather than 42km.

I suffered a lot at the end, but I enjoyed the first part, and I'm almost happy because I think that my pain was mainly due to lack of training (I ran only 40km in the last 5 weeks...) and I think I have almost recovered from my injury now. I will check that soon, when I will try to run again after few days of rest.

The mountain was beautiful. Unfortunately, we could not see the view far away because of the cloudy weather, but at a moment there was a beautiful half snow covered mountain range. It reminded me the French Alps.

It’s a very nice race that I would recommend to anybody who likes running in the mountain.

Next race: Kitatanzawa 12h adventure race on july 7 (44km)