Ultra Tour Monte Rosa Challenge August 2015 - by David Langrish

Ultra Tour Monte Rosa 20th - 22nd August 2015

UTMR is a new 3 day, multistage, mountain ultra race this year conceived and presented by Lizzy Hawker, 5 time winner of The North Face Ultra Trail Mont Blanc and an Athlete on the North Face Global Team.

A beautiful mountain ultra marathon circling Monte Rosa massif. From Cervinia at the foot of the Matterhorn to Grachen, high on an alp above Matter Vispa, a tributary of the Rhone via Gressoney and Macugnaga on high wild trails, a host of 4000m summits will be my companions. Total distance 110km, total ascent/descent 6000m, average altitude 2,000m from Italy to Switzerland. ultratourmonterosa.com/route-information-2015

I am a keen runner by the end of last summer I had completed 9 marathons, including The Swissalpine Davos K42 and C42, London and New York, since 2009, together with many half marathons, mainly in the endurancelife coastal trail series http://www.endurancelife.com/event-new.asp?series=85   and many shorter races. I am a reluctant road runner enjoying being in the mountains and other wild areas where I can chill out and be part of the environment.

On 22nd August my son James was killed in a road traffic accident 1 mile from my home; like me he enjoyed the outdoor life and as part of my coping and recovery, from what has probably been the most devastating event in my life, I decided to apply for entry into the UTMR, which would finish on the anniversary of his death. A maximum of 150 runners would be selected for the race, I decided to run a marathon a month, together with the appropriate training, so far I have run 4 marathons, Purbeck, San Sebastian, Dorset CTS, Anglesea CTS and 2 half marathons, Bournemouth and Benfleet 15 since September and have entered Northumberland CTS, Barcelona and Exmoor CTS marathons and The Classic Quarter 44m Ultra (Lizard Point to Lands End, Cornwall along the coastal path). The time on my own, in some beautiful environments, is helping me to come to terms with his loss and I can imagine that he is there with me enjoying the experience.

James had been accepted for a place at Sussex university to study Psychology; he was interested in helping people with autism and other disorders so I believe that he would have approved of my choice of https://supportdogs.org.uk/ , a national charity dedicated to increasing independence and quality of life for people with various medical conditions by providing, training and supporting specialist assistance dogs to achieve this, as one of his charities and also he shared my great love of horses so I will also be supporting http://spana.org an animal welfare charity for working animals of the world. In due course I will setup links to justgiving pages for these charities so that you can, should you wish to, make a contribution in memory of James.

Donating to Support Dogs  is easy - just follow this link and click Donate:

http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/David-Langrish1

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Support Dogs Ltd so it’s a quick and safe way to donate.

or to SPANA:

http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/David-Langrish2

JustGiving sends your donation straight to SPANA so it’s a quick and safe way to donate.

Thank you for your donation

This is the story of my journey; I have started to write this blog in February having learnt last week that I have been accepted for the race so all I have to now is up the training, without breaking my body, keep climbing and running and enjoy the journey...