It’s a sunny August day in Chamonix. This exclusive but fairly small Alp village is flooded with people. Some are here for the hiking, some for the challenging summit climbs, but most are here for the UTMB. The Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc. A series of excruciating races involving severe altitude variation, long distances, and some of the most difficult terrain to run in. Rémi is here for the CCC (Courmayeur/Champex/Chamonix). A 100-kilometer race through three different countries and a total elevation gain of + 6000 meters. The max allowed race time to finish is 26 hours and 30 minutes. One person made it under 10 hours.

This race is not for everyone. Besides the obvious peak physical aspects there’s a mental stamina needed that might require more than just exercising.

Before the start of the race all the runners have their own warm-up routines. There’s stretching, light jogging and even meditation exercises

All race participants circle around a café of their choice, competing for the title of ‘Last one to go to the bathroom’. This might be their last chance of the day (or longer).

Of the (close to) 2000 runners at the starting line, a majority of these won’t even finish the race. No matter how much you prepare for this there are so many factors that can take you out. It it’s not the mere distance itself, it’s the terrain or the altitude. This type of elevation variation has taken out rookies as well as professionals throughout the years. The idea of a race more than twice the length of a normal marathon and placing it in the Alps is just as silly as it sounds. For the next 13 hours, Rémi will go through stages of physical pain and mental torment worthy of a Dante Alighieri novel.

The race starts off with a pleasant little stroll through Italy and a quick 2500-meter climb, before heading over to Switzerland and a visit to La Fouly at the foot of the Tour Noir in the Mont Blanc massif. About half-way into the race, it’s time to visit France and the Vallons des Chezerys with its incredible scenery. In fact, all these places are probably the most breathtaking locations in the world. If you’d visit them in a normal way like on a two-week holiday. Instead, you’re forced to take in the astonishing views and impressions between inhales and dizziness caused by hypoxia.

For 13 hours we try to keep up with Rémi by car, until the constant change of cell phone operators is the only indicator of which country we’ve entered. During this, we are taken through all sick, twisted stages of a live re-enactment of a Devine comedy.

It is this Dantesque journey that makes these Ultra-endurance races almost mythological. They are in a clearly theatrical way, divided up in acts. Both for spectators as well as stage “performers”. This acting on the other hand is indeed towards an internal audience. There’s no better drama than finding out your own potentials, limitations or even insides.

At the finish line, Rémi looks surprisingly fresh. But his tormented poor foot soles and inability to stand straight tells a different story. Each hindrance is a poem about the visits to all these different places of running. Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.