Running the Col de la Madeleine, French Alps

With less than three weeks left to go before the Zermatt marathons, we’ve used the south side of the Col de la Madeleine this morning to do some of our hardest running to date (note – there are two, maybe more, Col de la Madeleine’s – the one we running up is on the D213 between La Chambre and Le Lechere). We’re parked in the motorhome aire at La Chambre (N45.36330, E6.29774), and ran from here up the road, a steady ascent of between 6% and 11% (mostly towards the latter – this is a hard hill to run up).

The top of the mountain pass is 20km away, a handy distance for me as up there and back is almost a full marathon. I ran up, went over the col and down for another km and back up to get up to the full distance. Ju did herself proud, running the furthest she’s ever run, and up and down a mountain pass at that – I’m so impressed. We crossed paths at one point as she climbed and I descended, and we had a wee celebration.

Here are the stats:

• Ju ran 14.92 miles in 3 hours and 32 minutes, with an elevation gain over 3000 feet
• Jay ran 26.33 miles in 4 hours and 23 minutes, 10 min mile average pace, with 1 vertical mile of ascent

These are good indicators for the races we’re doing in Switzerland, although those races take place another 1000m higher, so the air is a lot thinner so harder on the lungs. My race is 28 miles, with several long sections which are too steep for me to run. Ju is doing 13.1 miles, and will also face much steeper inclines than we’ve had today. It bodes well though, we’re both clearly in reasonable shape and stand a good chance of getting up the Zermatt valley in one piece!

We’re doing these runs for ourselves, for our physical and mental health, but are also hoping to raise money for the British Lung Foundation. My Dad’s long suffered from lung disease from 2 decades on the coal face and they’ve brilliantly supported him. If you want to sponsor us, any amount will do (if everyone who reads this donates a quid we’d smash our target). It’s easy to donate, just click on the link below to go to our justgiving.com page. Some folks say they donate to say ‘thanks’ for the blog, that works for us.

Our Just Giving Page for the British Lung Foundation

Some photos from our running today: this is one beautiful part of the world folks!

Right, I’ll leave you to your day folks! Thanks for reading, Jay