UTMB: Up close and personal at the biggest, wildest trail race in the world

The phenomenon that UTMB has become is a far cry from the low-key affair that was organised from a living room in 2003. Repeatedly pestered by a friend into creating a race around Mont Blanc, husband and wife Michel and Catherine Poletti eventually gave in.

Their daughter Isabelle built a website. Teenage son David was among the volunteers. Michel’s sisters and Isabelle’s father-in-law served as the medical team.

The Polettis expected 300 runners. In the end, 722 signed up. “That was emotional, the first start,” says Michel, who also ran the race. “At 4am in the morning, there was no crowd.”

Armed with a mobile phone, two radios and a laptop under a gazebo, Catherine and a handful of volunteers were race HQ. A mere 67 runners completed the circuit, less than a 10% finish rate in miserable conditions.

Michel ran part of the race with American Krissy Moehl, who was on her honeymoon – a wedding present from the sports shoe company she worked for. At the same time her new husband, Brandon Sybrowsky, was being welcomed over the finish line by Catherine as the joint second-place finisher.

“This was their honeymoon – me with Brandon and Michel with Krissy,” remembers Catherine. “It could be a movie,” chuckles Michel. Moehl, who was the first female finisher, says: “The French loved it. They went to town on the romantic couple.”

Thanks to Michel’s organising prowess and Catherine’s business savvy, UTMB grew exponentially. In 2006, when the race sold out in three weeks, the Polettis began adding events of varying distances to cope with demand. UTMB tickets were snapped up in nine minutes in 2008, a qualification process was introduced in 2009 and a lottery system the following year.

Catherine says as many as 9,000 people apply for a UTMB race bib each year. Michel reckons that, without the current system whereby hopefuls must collect ‘running stones’ by completing qualifying events, “it could be 100,000”.

“It has changed so much,” says Dawa Sherpa, winner of the men’s race in 2003 despite never having run more than 70 miles. “But that first race is like yesterday in my mind.”

Moehl, now 45 and a running coach, triumphed again in 2009. “UTMB has a special place in my running career. But it’s only in hindsight. I didn’t know it then,” she says.

The winner’s prize in 2003 was no more than a wooden trophy. Bragg, now 42, remembers scooping some sports vouchers in 2010 before returning to his job as a chartered surveyor.

Did life change in any way? “Not at all. You’re back in the lift on Tuesday morning, making small talk on the way into the office. I could never be bothered trying to explain to people because 90% just wouldn’t get it.”

Although this year’s winners will each collect 10,000 euros (£8,600), victory is worth much more in terms of sponsorship and profile.

“It makes it easier to explain to a sponsor that’s not totally inside the sport,” says 31-year-old Schide. “You can just say, ‘Hi, I’m Katie, I won UTMB’, and not, ‘Hi, I’m Katie, I was second at this race in Italy’.

“I live in a tiny village in France and it doesn’t change my life at all. It’s not like people are stopping us in the street.”