PICKUP

September 11, 2023, Edited by Francesco Rigodanza 

 

Alessio is calling you…

“No!”

“Hey!”

“Forget it!”

“Don’t come to Champex-Lac. I’m stopping!”

“No way. I really need to pay 50 euros in roaming charges in Switzerland. Move it!”

“I feel terrible”

“Ah, why did you think you’d feel good after running 170 km? Come on! Where are you now?”

“I’m under Col Ferret, but my legs are locked. I’m turning back.”

“Don’t even try it! You have all the time in the world to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.”

“But I feel awful!!” Argh, Ow….” Sounds of fake whining in the background

“Great. If you really feel bad, you can only feel better, and if you really feel too bad, they’ll make you withdraw.”

“Whatever. Let’s see…”

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Silence. He knows what’s happening because it’s already happened. Alessio knows what’s happening because it’s already happened. Just like a year ago. In exactly the same race, in the same place. He knows it’s all about to end.

For ten hours, everything had gone well. He was running UTMB. The race he wanted so badly. Just run that much and that’s it. Yet, a little while ago, something changed. Locked legs. Unbearable fatigue. The abundant voices in his head suggest unhelpful ideas, the saddest of them all: withdrawing. He tried calling all the friends he had available to try to support his idea, but no one agreed with him. A few motivating kicks in the ass.

He keeps going.

“Try again!” “You can only keep going” “Good job, Alessio!” “Eat, walk, and take small steps!” “Hey, I’m at the top”

He’s convinced

“But there are still 70 km to go!” “I feel guilty walking downhill” “Good job, idiot!”

Less convinced

“Yes, but I’m in pain” “I can’t do it!”

Not convinced at all. No, he already knows. At the bottom of that descent, there in the middle of those little houses surrounded by those meadows that look too fake to be real, he will have to stop and say in a tiny voice, the one that sounds muffled by a little shame, “The drops!” “I’m withdrawing.”

His legs hurt a little as he keeps going. “Ow. Argh.” It’s not true. It’s not his legs. It’s the pain of a race that isn’t going the way he dreamed and planned it. And since he dreamed and planned it a whole year ago, it hurts a little. “Ow!”

Just get there. That beautiful wooden house at the beginning of the valley, La Fouly. And then it will all be over. He just has to go to a volunteer, report his withdrawal, and this damn UTMB will be over.

From Col Ferret to La Fouly is 10 km of descent. Theoretically beautiful, now an eternity. A slow, depressed march tormented by the worst thoughts that a mind exhausted by twelve hours of running can no longer hold back.

“Why?”

“What did I do wrong this time?” “It’s just a lot of talk” “It’s not for me” “How many sacrifices thrown to the wind…” “And yet here I am alone…” “You’re just like last year” “I was here to have fun” “You don’t deserve anything!”

They are ten very slow kilometers. Endless. And while the other athletes pass him, he cannot be kind to himself. One of the key moments of a withdrawal is convincing yourself that you suck to justify such a difficult choice. Maybe you don’t even really think it, but at that exact moment, it needs to be so.

 

Alessio is calling you…

“No!”

“Hey!”

“I’ve already withdrawn!”

“How are you?”

“Like shit”

“Try to get back somehow. See you later”

It’s a lie. He hasn’t really withdrawn. But he has decided, and he won’t turn back. To hell with those asshole friends who don’t understand him now.

He stops. Overtaken by careless and indifferent people. They don’t hear those thoughts. They’ll find plenty of “I give up.” Alessio is just one of the many who won’t make it. A future DNF.

There’s a beautiful sunrise, a beautiful path with beautiful mountains.

How awful.

It was a dream. His dream.

Alessio did his best to get to UTMB, but his best wasn’t the right best, and now he’s just a little man of flesh on the side of the path. He carries with him many whys in search of meaning that scream very loudly.

Still. Motionless.

“How dare you?” “Can’t you really make no mistakes?”

“Huh?…”

“Come on, if you want, one day you’ll finish it” “Accept it” “You don’t just want to reach the finish line as a finisher, do you?” “That’s why you feel bad, because with a medal that says - I did 100 miles - you wouldn’t be satisfied anyway, because in the end you’d want to do it the way you know you’re capable of! That’s why you feel bad now, but be kind to yourself, take some time for yourself, and go back to doing what you like!”

He starts again. Just a few more meters. A few minutes. Base life. A few grimaces to justify the pain. A few jokes.

“Ow. The drops!”

This time it happened again. The second year in a row. Another withdrawal at UTMB. Another withdrawal 55 km from the finish line.

He says it’s different from last year. That he is different from last year.

And what the hell, he’ll return to UTMB and run as he thinks he’s capable of.