My Plain running mate, Nate, talked Gavin Woody and me into taking a stab at PTL in 2022. The PTL web site explains itself best:

"The PTL is run in teams of 2 or 3 athletes, without any official ranking. The teams progress in a rough and demanding mountain environment requiring a strong technical, physical and mental level."

The PTL, or Petite Trotte à Léon (Leon's Little Walk), is a one-of-a-kind event, and the adventure of a lifetime. The course changes every year, but is generally around 300km (186.4mi) with 25,000m (82,000') of elevation gain and loss. It follows a high route through the Alps, circumnavigating Mont Blanc through France, Italy, and Switzerland. The terrain is often technical, requiring equipment for via ferrata and glacier crossing. The cutoff time is usually six days and handful of hours, with most finishers making it in with little time to spare. The lack of competition draws out a sense of collaboration--the mountain spirit--with your fellow PTLers. It's a beautiful and unusual approach to mountain racing.

Gavin had to drop due to a career change. He had attempted it once before, so when Nate and I went as a two-person team without him, we went in blind. Nate and I started strong, taking down the first two massive, technical pushes on spicy terrain with effectively no sleep over a forty hour period. We were warned that the course is too demanding to spend time sleeping. Over a 142 hour period, we pushed hard, racking up fewer than six hours of rest. Halfway through, I came down with COVID and nearly dropped. We fought through epic highs and lows across some of the most brutal and wonderful terrain I'd ever traversed. Ultimately, we tapped out at the final checkpoint. There was a fatal accident on the course, where the approximate cause was a rough match to our situation: delirium on technical terrain with critical, objective hazards. I was ill, and we were too close to the cutoff to sleep it off, so we dropped.

Despite not closing the loop, it was the most incredible adventure I had ever been on in my life. We both learned numerous lessons from the experience, and would spend the next three years applying that learning towards our triumphant return in 2025.