“My experience running a 100k” by Alexandre Variengien

The SVP100 route.

On the 3rd of August last year, I woke up early. I stood nervously with a hundred other runners in a hall in the city of Newmarket, near Cambridge in the UK. I felt intimidated as I looked at the calves, the size of champagne bottles, of the other participants. Only a few runners were starting their first 100k that morning. For many, this was not even the peak of their season. This route was long but almost flat, with only 1,000 meters of cumulative elevation. The real ultras were happening in the Alps, where long distances were combined with a crazy amount of ups and downs.

I was almost startled when the race gun fired. I had been chatting for a few moments with a runner I recognized from the 50k I completed the year before. I started running at 7 am, and I would not stop until 15 hours later, finishing the race in the dark with my headlamp guiding me.

As I took my first steps on the path, almost delighted to stretch my legs in the fresh summer morning, I thought about how this would never have happened without Adam.

Why did I do that?

[...]

---

First published:
December 9th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4tfeyu5xsubg6wDdH/my-experience-running-a-100k

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---