After my first marathon trail in 2018 I wasn’t sure I wanted to do another one. But an afternoon borred at work following with one eye a conversation of friends on Whatsapp I felt into the rabbit hole, again… The one that lead to spend money on races registrations. There were talking about which trail race they want to do in September.

So I checked the haricana website - we are at the begninning of the Spring season - and registered for the second marathon on the list, the St-Simeon trail marathon as the classic was already fully booked.

Back to know, I did left Montreal last Friday, met a friend in Quebec in the evining and did finish my ride yesterday morning toward La Malbaie. Once in Mont Grand-Fonds I met a few runners from Montreal at the arrival of the many races 125K, 80K, 65K…

I see a continuous stream of trail runners arriving, covered in mud, it smells a lot, people look exhausted but happy to have finished.

Next for me is to eat some pasta - pizzagheti with a JF - build my tent without headlamp in the dark because I’m never really prepared.

During the race

Super early, around 5:00am a bus is picking us up from the camping toward St-Simeon where the race starts. From there we should be able to run back to Mont Grand-Fonds.

The 45min ride in a yellow shool bus is bumpy but the view on the sunrise over the St-Lawrence beautifull.

We start by waves, at 7:00 maybe, the first 5K are great. The rest another story.

The trail is classified as difficult on the race website. It’s true. Once I passed the first aid station, there will be two more, it’s mostly technical, single path in the woods, mud and roots and forget about enjoying the landscape, that’s only possible around 7km from the start when you look back toward the North and can see the St-Lawrence river for the last time.

I check my watch regularly, not being particularly exhausted I’m just not moving forward, 2h30 and not even 20K done…

The rest of the race will be a constant reevaluation of my arrival time. Quickly I realize it will be over 6h, then I will hope to stay under 7h and finally will cross the arrival line in 7h11min50sec.

So yes it was technical. A complete different experience from my first trail, I was prepared but probably not enough for this kind of surfaces.

After the race

Quick chat with Marty still at the arrival line. Some good food from the race organisation, very well organized by the way! I take a shower with cold water and wet towel, both not by choice, but I can still walk!

Back to the camping to unmount my tent. I rush to the brewery Menaud arriving there 10min before they close. Pfiouuuuu. Get some beers, meet one the runners I talked to in in the last hours and back to Montreal.

And I’m so hungry! At least 3 to 4 burgers during my road-trip back. Well deserved.

Will I do another trail race? At this moment I don’t know.

Map of the race

Using folium I managed to overlay the gps run traces on the top of a map, and you can interactively zoom in and out.