Just a few weeks on from his epic 100km race in Czechia where he conquered 13,000ft of ascent, Patrick Kingston was back in the mountains again. This time it was the French Alps that was the venue for the Montagn’Hard Ultra Trail event and Patrick was featuring in the 27km Mini’Hard race.

That would net him another 5,500ft of climbing in the bank, with the route taking him up the inclines of La Teête du Truz at 1,253m, Mont d’Arbois at 1,839m and Mont Joux at 1,964m.

The climbs were super tough but Patrick was well adept at scaling the high mountains. He completed the 55km Nivolet-Revard last year, which was also in the French Alps and that one incorporated 9,700ft of ascent. Then earlier this year he did the 42km CxM Sierra Blanca ‘Destroyer’ in Marbella which saw him tackle 9,500ft of vertical.

In the week leading up to the Mini’Hard, Patrick did some running in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc which enabled him to acclimatise to the high altitude and testing terrain.

Taking him 3 hours 14 minutes and 33 seconds, Patrick negotiated the Mini’Hard course with no issues. That was enough to put him in 23rd place out of 298 finishers and there were more who started the race but didn’t manage to complete it.

It was a decent result for Patrick considering he could have been up against a lot of runners who were more experienced in the mountains than he would. There were five Americans finishing in the top 20 and aside from one Swiss runner who finished just ahead of him, all the others who placed higher than Patrick were French.

Colden Longley of the United States was the winner of the Mini’Hard race in 2 hours 28 minutes and 45 seconds. Jean-Marc Perriot was 2nd in 2:28:57 and another American athlete, Alex Mocarski took 3rd in 2:32:12.

That performance was also good enough to see Patrick finish 1st in the M2M category which was a brilliant result and one that he’ll feel very proud of when he reflects on his accomplishment.

The Montagn’Hard event also featured La Mi’Hard which is 50km, La Moins’Hard which is 70km and La Montagn’Hard which is 110km.

The week after the Mini’Hard, Patrick ran some of the 148km TDS route, which is a race in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. The TDS is said to be tougher than the actual UTMB race itself which is 176km with both races featuring a similar amount of ascent meaning the climbs in the TDS are steeper.

Patrick ran 33 miles on the first day, covering 8,500ft of ascent. Then he did  a further 7,600ft of climbing the next day in 15 miles before covering a further 39.4 miles the following day on a route that took him up 13,350ft of ascent. For that one he started during the night though, from 3am in the morning.

It was a great adventure for Patrick and the more mountain running he does, the more established he will become and the more comfortable he’ll be in those surroundings. The strength and stamina he’ll gain from doing these types of runs will certainly help him improve going forwards as well which is another plus point.

When you find something you love you want to just keep doing it, more and more, and certainly seems to be how it is for Patrick and running in the mountains. In fact, knowing him, he’s probably already planned his next expedition.