Meryl Cooper’s badly blistered feet paint an all too clear picture of how painful it is to run 101 kilometres over dusty mountainous trails in the high-altitude Swiss, Italian and French Alps.
The Oldmedrum athlete is now enjoying a well-earned break after finishing sixth in the CCC race at the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc running festival.
And her sorely battered feet may need some time to recover from the punishment they endured during one of Europe’s most demanding races.
The CCC course, which includes a staggering 6,100m of climbing, starts in the Italian community of Courmayeur, passes through Champex in Switzerland and finishes at Chamonix in France.
It took Cooper 14hours 18min 49secs to complete the challenge, giving her sixth position in the women’s division of the race won by Spain’s Marta Molist Codina in 12:50:48.
The British trail running champion was pleased with the outcome, which marked a significant improvement on her 13th place finish in the same event two years ago, but she admits not everything went to plan.
Cooper said: “I had a very challenging and painful day, so I am proud of my performance.
“About three hours into the run, I got really bad blisters on my feet. I’ve never had anything like it before.
“I stopped a couple of times, because I thought I might have some stones in my shoes, but it wasn’t that. I kept going, but the pain was continuous and it got worse. It certainly slowed me down.
“I have no idea what caused the problem, but it might have been dust. The trails were very dusty and at the end of the race my legs, from the feet up to the knees, were blackened by it, so I can only assume that was the problem.
“Most of my training was done on rocky trails, so maybe I just wasn’t used to the dusty paths.”
Cooper also admits she was affected by the thin air on the loftier parts of the course, which were more than four times higher than Ben Nevis.
She said: “I struggled with the altitude at the highest points.
“I was working hard, but my chest felt so heavy. When I ran here two years ago, I’d the benefit of having trained at altitude at Font Romeu in France, so I was probably missing that on this occasion.”
And the challenges kept on coming when Cooper’s nutritional refuelling strategy began to unravel.
She said: “As I was running slower than planned, I began to run out of energy gels. You have to carry all your own stuff for the first 55k and I hadn’t packed enough.
“I had carb powder in my pack, but the top had come off the container and it spilled all over the place so I couldn’t use it.
“I had to take some bananas at an aid station, which is not something I’d normally do, and shortly afterwards I developed stomach problems.”
But that wasn’t the end of it as a small technical hitch then caused Cooper more difficulties.
The race started at 9am, which meant the closing stages were run in darkness, requiring the use of a head torch to navigate the trails.
Cooper said: “For some reason my head torch went into flash mode on the last climb and I couldn’t see properly, so I had to slow down again.
“Then, towards the end, I nearly got passed by an Italian girl. We were racing each other in the dark, but it helped to keep me focussed. I got away from her as we came into Chamonix and I finished seven secs ahead.
“Given everything that happened, I am more than satisfied. But I know I can do a better time if I was to treat this as my A race for the year. So, I may well be back.”
Cooper has been selected to represent Great Britain in the next world ultra distance trail running championships, which were originally to be held in Thailand in November.
However, the event has been postponed until next February, giving the north-east athlete more time to prepare.
Understandably, she is in no immediate rush to get back into training until fully recovered from the CCC.
And when she does, she is looking forward to tackling an event at the other end of the distance spectrum.
She said: “I’m going to do a 5k parkrun. I’ve never done one, but I’d love to get involved as they are such wonderful social events.”
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