From 100 kgto 300 miles
Alexander theNot-So-Great
It all begins with a hundred kilos on the scale. 104 kilos, out of breath: Alexander the Not-So-Great was, above all, the Way-Too-Fat.
February 2018, the United States. I throw myself into the gloriously absurd Krispy Kreme Challenge: 5 miles, with a dozen donuts to inhale somewhere along the way. I sign up for the joke, mostly, and because the bib comes with a second dozen on top. But those 8 km feel like a real mountain to climb, and honestly, I'm not sure I'll make it to the end.
So when I finally cross the line, proud of my small victory, I can't wait to tell my father about the "feat". He was training for his first long trail race at the time. I was fishing for congratulations. What came back was a sentence I've never forgotten:
"Well done, son. So, what now?"
Stung, I shot back that I could just go and train for the UTMB 2024. His reply, dry as ever: "Then I'll be on that start line with you." What began as a throwaway joke became the most unlikely source of motivation.
That one question turned into an obsession, and into the first chapter of the project that would change my life: from 100 kilos to 100 miles.
Year after year, I stuck to the timeline I'd set myself: lose the weight, learn to run, run farther, and keep going until, in 2024, I reached the Place du Triangle de l'Amitié. He'd promised to line up with me if I ever made it. He had just turned 70, and there he was at my side on the UTMB start line. Sharing that moment with him meant sharing a pride I couldn't put into words, and an emotion that ran deep: a joke made real, become one of the most meaningful challenges of our lives.
If I owe one thing to this whole adventure, it's him. From day one he's been there, never once letting me feel a flicker of doubt. And it was my father, too, who planted the seed of the Tor in me… back when I was still new to trail running and only dreaming of a first 100 miles. The idea took root over the years, fed by every step, every challenge I took on.
That seed worked on me like a slow poison, a parasite that haunted me with dark visions whenever hope seemed lost out on the trail. And yet, with every finish line I crossed, I gave it a little more ground, until I gave in to it completely in Chamonix…
The Tor des Géants isn't a challenge you can crudely write off as two UTMBs back to back. Twice the distance, more than double the climbing, and still it's no simple out-and-back. It's a different beast entirely, and one I choose to give myself over to.
September 2025: here's my chance to measure myself against the 4 giants of the Alps, Gran Paradiso, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa and, at last, Mont Blanc. Four guardians of a valley where the passes climb past 3,000 metres and the altitude reminds you you're mortal. 150 hours, self-sufficient between life bases, just you and one stubborn question: what happens when you've run out of excuses?
The real challenge is no longer taming the beast, it's seeing how far it can go. Fear? That settled in early, and not the fear of the effort, but of the moment your legs quit and all that's left is your head. The same head that, six years ago, was staring down at a hundred kilos on the scale. Alexander the Not-So-Great, turned Way-Too-Fat: he tags along everywhere, whispering his doubts. At kilometre 317, once night has swallowed the Col Malatra, what will be left of the man I think I've become?
Five days, five nights. 116 hours of non-stop effort to see off those 330 kilometres and 24,000 metres of climbing. Three trips up Everest, just to dare call myself a giant. 450,000 steps to learn that the only giants here are them.
In the end I beat none of them. The mountain simply let me through; all I brought was enough humility to find my way around. That 116-hour finish didn't earn me the status of a giant, but something far finer, and more absurd still than the challenge itself: an invitation to walk among them, to toe the start line of a brand-new adventure, to set foot on their glaciers.
The UTMB carried me round to the far side of Mont Blanc, all the way to Courmayeur, and showed me what was hiding there: the Tor des Géants. And that, it turned out, was only a doorway. Beyond it, longer and higher, where almost no one ventures: its big brother, the Tor des Glaciers.
This is the next step. If I'm heading back up there, it isn't for the miles; it's to keep answering that question. Because at heart, this was never really a story about ultra-trail. It's the story of a father and a son, of the people you meet along the way, and of a question that keeps us all moving forward.
So, what now?
There's only one way onto this start line: a qualifying time on the Tor des Géants. I come to it with a single ambition, to make eight years of relentless work count, not for the ranking, but for the sheer consistency of it, by becoming one of the first 450 finishers in the history of this legend.
A before, an after
Everything lives in the gap between these two photographs: the things given up, the nights cut short, the starts before dawn and all the stories in between. A character in motion, fallible and stubborn, the kind plenty of people will see themselves in. Rare, honest material for a story we can't wait to tell.
The TOR is just the excuse
This film goes beyond one of the toughest races on earth. It distils eight years of stubborn reinvention, the journey of a 100-kilo body to the finish lines of the legendary 100 and 200 milers. It's the story of a father and a son, of one man standing before the Giants of the mountains.
This film isn't an end in itself: it's the bedrock of a new professional direction. Our first editorial chapter.
2026
raced
Roadmap
AOSTA VALLEY · IT
Two perspectives,
one story
The athlete who lives the race, the eye that turns it into images, and the people who make the adventure possible.
