Red Bull Female Summit Quest-In My Mind Forever

Myriam Guillot Boisset, edited by Anne-Marie Dunhill. / 07.06.2016

Once again, a few minutes are missing for me to be the real "Champion”, once again I'm 2nd! I know that it's awesome because even I would never have predicted a time of under three hours to be at the top of the Mount Yuzhu Summit (6178m) and to be back at the base camp at 5000m in 12kms! But a time of 2h47min was not fast enough because Stevie Kremer did it in 2h43min. Dammed!

Anyway, this race was amazing. In life, everyday is an experience but some days impact more, and I can promise you this one will stay for a long time in my mind.

All the concept of this race is incredible. I know that many athletes try to break records and be the fastest at the top of different mountains, but it was the first time that a race was organized at such altitude. We were only 5 lucky women to be selected. The organisation promised a 24h live feed during all of the acclimatization and the race day, with videos...but in reality, the altitude impacted everyone and more so the staff than the athletes. Also at this altitude the climatic conditions are extreme, so didn't help the batteries to stay alive. So, 1,000 excuses for the lack of news...

Let's go to talking about the race.

After a long briefing about the safety on the glacier in the evening with the last advise from the guides. So we knew all compulsory gear until CP1, but after we needed harness, 2 slings, crampons, gloves and hat. They recommended warm clothes; this was easy to believe because we knew that at the summit it's freezing. Two rules were very clear:
-We had to be attached all the time to the safety rope on the glacier; 600m of elevation in 2kms with only ice for surface.
- 5 guides on the way with oxygen in case it was needed, but if we used it, we were DNF.

The start was planned at 9am, but we were advised that it could be changed in function of the weather.
My last night at 5000m was not the best one; too many parameters...the race, the summit, the altitude, the cold, the excitation.
Jacky had to wake up earlier because he planned that he would be at CP1 to help all the women for the transition.

During breakfast we learned that the start would be later, but in the end we started at 9am.
A start on June 5th; it was so relaxed, everybody had enough space even with the quantity of medias present. Two seconds after the starting gun shot, I understood that it would be a real competition. Stevie Kremer is living in the US at 3000m altitude; she arrived 2 days before the race and she didn't do the acclimatization.

We were all thinking that it was crazy, but now I can promise you that to live in altitude gives to the body some adaptation. She had no headache, no MAM, she was totally fine and ran like normal. But to be honest when we arrived together at CP1 I was dreaming she would “pay the bill” soon. I did a faster transition than her and attacked the glacier in the position of leader with a big smile. But midway up the glacier, she caught me. I was lacking oxygen, I was missing motivation, I was sweating too much in my big down-jacket and did a big mess with my slings so in few meters she dropped me.

My plan was to keep going but every 10 steps I needed to take a little break to breathe, and Stevie was climbing without pause. I punched at the summit with a 7min delay on her, and I don't know why but my motivation came back. On the summit I started to run like crazy and I attacked the downhill very fast. I was very organized with my slings this time to be super fast in each rope transitions. I felt really strangely my body, another fact of the altitude but I caught a few precious minutes: to be exact 3min30 on this portion.

 Now we had just a long, rocky and steep downhill, my new Altra Olympus shoes were the perfect shoes to go crazy again to try to catch her but we did the same timing in this section and arrived with the same time gap! I was so sad and so happy to cross the finish line.

With Stevie we waited 30 minutes at the finish to see Ruth Croft arrive, and we both had difficulty realizing that we were under 3 hours...we were so proud at the same time! It was really exciting to race against Stevie, we were so close but it's me who didn't have the happy end. We were so busy with the medias, so happy to have done it, that my ranking didn't impact me but later my mind started to see everything dark. The sun disappeared and it was snowing; the organisation was afraid of the extreme conditions so they tried to close and pack everything quickly just before the road closed again.

I'm a racer and I like to win and I'm sad to be the number 2. We were so close but so far on paper.  I'm honest, I wanted this $10,000 for Jacky and our training center because we need it, I wanted this precious victory for me because this race was incredible, because this Mount Yuzhu is magic, because...because… but it didn't happen.

Now with more oxygen, more rest, more of Jacky Boisset 's words and my coach Matthias Fesel’s reassurance I can accept. One month ago I had no idea about this race, I'm not a famous trail runner and I was so lucky to be chosen and to compete against the best in the world. It was an amazing experience, really deep in all kinds of emotions and I'm really proud to be part of this project.

Thanks a lot Wei Evan for giving us this chance to know a little bit of the high mountain world and see you soon at the top of an other big mountain!

Thanks to all the guides, cooks, sherpas, drivers and cameramen for treating us like 5 little princesses!
Good job Ruth Croft, Camila Nicolau, Stevie Kremer and Dong Li, we did it!

We are on the way to our next raw adventure, so you’ll need to wait for more pictures and videos but soon I will update.
There are no more seats by flight so we have to go back to Beijing by train!

Thanks to my sponsors....
@CHIRU Bikes @X-Socks International @Altra Running @Sidas Sport France @Skinfit International @Aloe Vera Fresca-Tenerife South Shops @Iswari France @Gorillas & Butterflies @Hope Technology Ltd @TIME SPORT INTERNATIONAL