Sabrina Stanley Against the World at the 2019 Grand Raid, Diagonale des Fous.
by Chase Parnell — October 15, 2019.
La Diagonale des Fous (DdF) has lost a bit of its mass global appeal since it left the Ultra-Trail World Tour (UTWT) in 2018, but it remains without a doubt one of the most culturally rich, tough, and respected 100 milers in the world.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this race, a brief introduction should be appreciated. DdF began in 1989 and has evolved over the years into a 103 mile race with 32,000 feet of elevation gain that traverses the French territory, Reunion Island. The steep technical terrain and tropical heat and humidity make this one of the most difficult races out there. Going from sea-level up to over roughly 8,000 feet, the runners will pass through a variety of micro-environments, from palm trees in the lower elevations to pine forests on the higher slopes, and passing through the unenviable and exposed dry shrub-land on the more arid sections.
Before we get to the star of this article, as a quick aside, when UltraRunning Magazine asked UTWT director Marie Sammons earlier in 2019 if the UTWT would continue to make changes to the UTWT race calendar, she responded, “We can remove any events from our selection at any time. Take the Grand Raid de la Réunion, aka La Diagonale des Fous, for example. We selected it at the very beginning five years ago, but it disappeared in 2018. Why? Because we disagreed with them on a few important things. That doesn’t mean we’ll never work together again.” I sure would like to know what those important things were! I hope these two groups can work out their differences because DdF has the course and history that belongs on the UTWT if they are trying to create a representative tour of the world’s all-around best races.
Sabrina Stanley vs. The World
Curious about this year’s American contingent at DdF, I did some digging and discovered that there will be only ONE American runner in the entire race, men or women. Guess who. None other than the 2018 Hardrock Champion, Altra Running and Muir Energy pro, Sabrina Stanley.
DdF is a course that will suit Sabrina well. Mountainous, rugged, tough, and variable conditions. That’s her sweet spot. Living and training in Silverton, Colorado, the elevation on DdF will not be a factor. However, nor will the elevation be an advantage to Sabrina in that the athletes from lower elevations won’t have to deal with crippling altitude like they might in a race like Hardrock.
Sabrina’s 2019 Race Calendar
Sabrina picks her races wisely. In analyzing her 2019 race schedule, she didn’t overdo it. She took solid breaks after her big efforts and ramped up to DdF with progressively difficult tune-up races. Sabrina raced and won Hawaii’s HURT 100 in January. Then, she didn’t race again until May at the Cruel Jewel 50 (note: she won that too). A lot of professional runners never take 3-4 months off of racing so her ability to restrain herself after her HURT win is commendable. Three weeks after Cruel Jewel she won a fairly low-key race, the Fragrance Lake 50k, in Bellingham, Washington.
Six weeks after Fragrance Lake, Sabrina won the very tough, rugged, and remote Never Summer 100k in northern Colorado. She ran the second fastest time ever in the event’s five year history. In my mind, this is the keystone race in her build-up and she should draw a huge amount of confidence from that performance.
Finally, three weeks after Never Summer and five weeks before DdF, Sabrina raced one final time at a trail marathon in Taos, NM called the Bull of the Woods Trail Run. Finishing 2nd, she showed that perhaps her only vulnerability is on shorter courses before her grit over the long haul has a chance to kick in. Interestingly, when I asked her about her only loss of the season, she said her limiting factor was actually her climbing speed. Sabrina also said Bull of the Woods went poorly because, “I didn’t taper, that may have had something to do with it.” She has definitely tapered for DdF though, saying, “I am feeling fresh. I haven’t raced a 100-miler since HURT in January, so I’m hungry for some long painful miles!”
Training for Diagonale Des Fous
To remedy her perceived weakness, Sabrina said she buckled down for a three week block prior to DdF to focus on her climbing speed. She said her partner, well known ultra runner, Avery Collins, drafted up some workouts for her final training push. “I knew I would hold myself more accountable if I had him to answer to if I wasn’t hitting the goals he set out for me. I fell short of almost (not all) of the targets he outlined, but I did become a much better climber over those three weeks, which was the end goal.” When I asked what this training block looked like, Sabrina replied, “My mileage was 100-120 miles a week. I grabbed at least 3,500 ft of gain per run, but it wasn’t uncommon to get 5,000+.”
In my opinion, the X-factor for anyone living in a mountainous high-elevation shredtown in the USA will be the heat and humidity. When I asked Sabrina about this, she wasn’t phased, “I have always heard that this race is a combination of HURT and Hardrock. Having only been on small sections of the course, it is very similar to HURT. Maybe higher up in the mountains it turns more Hardrock-esque. I’m feeling very fortunate to have done HURT the past two years. I know how my body handles running long miles in the heat and humidity.” Sabrina will have been on Reunion Island for one week prior to the race, so there is some acclimatizing going on as we speak.
“Silverton, Colorado is where I’ve put in 90% of my training,” she said, “I don’t think there is a better training ground in the lower 48 for this race. I wasn’t getting the temps or humidity there, but I was getting plenty of technical vertical. I paired that with a couple sauna sessions before coming out to the island a week early.”
The Competition
Between the French and the local islanders, Sabrina will definitely have her hands full. It’s a bit difficult to predict because the race organization has not released a complete list of elites to cherrypick, so I spent a lot of time manually perusing the entrants to find the needles in the haystack.
The top returner from last year is local Reunion islander, Gilberte Libel, who was 4th place overall and first islander in last year’s race. She finished in 30h 31m behind three French women. Another challenger will be the Brit, Anna-Marie Watson, who won Oman by UTMB in 2018 and finished 7th at the actual UTMB in 2017. Sandrine Beranger (French) was third at the perennially stacked Salomon Gore-Tex MaXi long course race in Annecy France earlier this year. Marion Delespierre (French) won the MaXi short course 83k race this year as well as finishing 3rd at the uber-competitive Mont Blanc marathon in 2018. If anyone out there knows of other big names in the field, post in the comments below!
From everything we can tell, Sabrina is fit, healthy, and ready to roll. Just throwing this out there, if she is able to pull off a win at DdF, she has to be in the conversation for one of the top ultra runner of the year positions. Casting my unofficial vote now.
Win or Bust.
The race starts this Thursday, October 17th at 10pm Reunion Island time, which is 11am PST in the USA. A 10pm start sounds cruel but the race begins with essentially an 8,000 foot climb, so to avoid death-by-heat, I can see the wisdom in getting that climb done before the temperatures rise on Friday.
From the archived Hardrock splits from 2018, it appears Sabrina went out in the lead and stayed there for the entire race. I’m not sure that tactic will work at DdF because the Euros can go out, how should I put this, irresponsibly? I’ll be paying close attention to whether Sabrina is closing on leaders deeper in the race, say around the 100k mark. But who knows, maybe Sabrina is fully charged and ready to blast from the gun. If anyone could pull it off another wire-to-wire win, its her.
Going back more than 20 years, no American woman has ever finished in the top five at DdF. On the men’s side, Jason Schlarb is the only male to even crack the top 10 in the past decade, which he accomplished in 2014.
Sabrina isn’t shy about her intentions, “I didn’t travel (literally) half way around the world to finish in any other place but first. An American has never won this race. I plan on being the first.”
Drop the mic.
Sabrina has a chance to make history. She has the experience, pedigree and confidence to do it. Join us in rooting her on from afar.
It should prove to be one hell of a race.
More race information and live tracking available here: La Diagonale des Fous.
Check out Sabrina’s instagram feed for her latest pics – mostly cows in paradise.
Sabrina’s UltraSignup page.
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