Walking Beside Giants
What it means to Support at the Tor des Géants
The Giant’s Tour
Right now, as I type these words, Lisa and I are sitting in Courmayeur. Our friend Juliane is still out there, two hours from the finish line of the Tor des Géants (TOR). One of the most unreal foot races on this planet, though the word “race” barely does it justice.
The TOR is 330 kilometers long, with over 24.000 meters of vertical gain. The race circumnavigates the Aosta Valley in northern Italy, crossing 25 mountain passes, many higher than 3.000 meters. For most, the TOR is not about racing others. It’s about surviving the mountains and oneself.
Juliane’s journey will be shared in detail on her own terms at Alles-Laufbar.de soon. On their Instagram you can already find story highlights, documenting her TOR step by step. What I want to share here is not her race, but our perspective as supporters.
The Supporter Paradox
To support at the TOR is to walk a razor’s edge. You committed to care deeply for someone, to watch them crumble physically and emotionally, and yet to push them back out into the storm. Every instinct screams: protect, comfort, let them rest. But your task is the opposite.
This paradox is brutal. I felt it even more intensely in 2021, when Lisa herself ran the TOR and I had to send the woman I love back into the cold, into the suffering, again and again.
Before the start, you need absolute clarity: How far am I willing to go to keep this runner moving? Both Juliane and Lisa were willing to go to extreme lengths. To witness that resolve is humbling. To support it, without unhelpful pity, is the hardest part.
Inside a Life Base
The bigger aid stations at the TOR are not “aid stations.” They are called Life Bases. And that name is no accident. Roughly every 50 kilometers, runners collapse into these strange halfway worlds, located deeply in the Italian back country. Life Bases are part refugee camp, part intensive care unit, part Formula 1 pit stop.
As a supporter, you never really know what awaits you when your runner comes in. Out there, they’ve lived 15 to 20 hours on the move. Days without proper sleep. Nights under a sky full of stars. Pain, cold, hunger, hallucinations. They live in another dimension, stripped of the everyday noise we call “normal life.”
And you have maybe an hour or two to figure it out. Where is the crack? Physical? Emotional? Psychological? You patch it, stabilize them, and send them back out. It feels merciless. But it’s the only way. It’s the job you took.
Hunger, Pain, Meaning
At its core, the TOR is not about gear, strategy, or pace charts. It’s about the most primal themes: hunger, thirst, pain, cold, heat, altitude, exhaustion. And above all: the search for meaning.
A friend asked me yesterday whether there’s still joy or pleasure left in such a race. I thought long about it. My answer: No, there isn’t. Not in the way we usually define it.
What remains is deeper. It’s self-revelation. A kind of truth you cannot buy, cannot simulate, cannot shortcut. The TOR breaks you open, strips you down, and shows you a version of yourself you didn’t know existed. Or one that was just born. That is not joy. It is transformation.
And maybe that’s why the TOR attracts those who are not chasing happiness, but something purer, something more essential. People ready to confront themselves at the edge of the possible.
Bearing Witness to Becoming
In the end, supporting at the TOR is as much a journey as running it. You stand at the thin line between care and cruelty, between love and letting go. You learn that the most powerful form of support is not to shield someone from suffering, but to walk beside them as they choose it, embrace it, and transcend it. To witness that transformation — raw, painful, unfiltered — is to be reminded of what it means to be alive.
Everything Not Running
To be honest, my whole last week revolved around nothing but running. Even though I only ran a few kilometres along the TOR route, I found myself immersed in a world where running had evolved from a casual hobby to a transformative lifestyle. In the truest sense of the word. So this week, 'Everything Not Running' becomes 'All About Running'.
On Repeat
Do you remember last week's music recommendation, Get Dead? Well, Get Dead's singer, Sam King, has been playing in another band since 2021 that has instantly made it into my 'On Repeat' playlist: Codefendants.
Founded by punk legend Fat Mike, Codefendants break down every genre barrier. They're a wild mix of punk rock, reggae, new wave, hip hop and folk.
The song 'Bad Business' is a prime example of this eclectic blend. However, the whole album, “This is Crime Wave”, is worth listening to. Every song is a crazy listening pleasure!
Just an incomplete note here: I listened to the podcast in which Juliane touched on the importance and quality of your (Lisa and you) support through this. And I have an image of what that means and the support = love in all this. Love for nature, the sport, the challenges, the ups and downs ... nerding into it, not judging, being here and now // I have dozens of associations around this. I feel it. And this type of human connection is something I value (and look for in sports, in the mountains, in life).
I was also out in the Aosta Valley last week, supporting my husband as he completed his 9th Tor. I agree with your observations about the ways that endeavors such as this are so much more than races — they are, to fall back on the old cliche, vision quests. I understand their value, but I've also been conflicted about these sorts of endeavors for a long time. My own pursuits have nearly broken me more than once, and I've been dealing with the physical and mental repercussions of these near-breaking incidents for 10 years. But I struggle to walk away, and the person I love the most remains all-in, so I continue to move like a shadow in this world. Your piece gives me more to think about as I process my recent experience in Aosta. Through it all, I remain in awe of the people who can finish this race.