"Stay tuned, ‘cause we’ve got a show for you this weekend."
Jarick’s words get lost in the night. The Place du Triangle de l’Amitié in Chamonix is shrouded in darkness, with its white church standing as an impassive observer of what’s happening at its feet. It’s almost 2 a.m. on a late August night, and the steps of the famous square are filled with hundreds of silent figures, all waiting for one thing: the starting signal.
"Repeat after me. Today we run. One foot. Then the next foot. What’s pain? It’s temporary. I want it! I got it! It’s me, against me. Race! C’est parti!"
C’est parti. The square empties within seconds. The Speed Project CHX starts precisely at 2 a.m., with dozens of light, fast, and nervous shadows darting into the darkness. Ahead of them lie about 450 kilometers and 4,800 meters of elevation gain to cover. Thus, the most underground race in the United States, the DIY relay from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, has secretly made its way to its first European edition, on a route as intuitive as challenging: from the heart of the Mont Blanc massif to the end of the French Riviera.
The rules remain the same: no rules. You have to run from Chamonix to Marseille in the shortest time possible, and that’s it. Each team independently decides the route to follow, the race strategy, and the pace to maintain. The Speed Project is about experiencing running in its rawest form, an experience so undefined that it forces you to eliminate everything unnecessary. It pushes you to focus on teamwork and fully immerse yourself. If you don’t dive in, it’s unlikely
you’ll reach the finish line. It’s about performance, yes, but above all, it’s about the human experience. TSP doesn’t communicate competition as much as it does unity.
"And they are off! Did you see that? That was crazy. You should’ve been here."
The Speed Project is always unique. Whether it takes place in California, in the Atacama desert or in the Alps, this relay race requires a full commitment from its participants - but rewards everyone with emotions difficult to describe. The pace is relentless, the routes challenging, and rest definitely optional. Pain and fatigue experienced together, understood and felt in the same way, can become the most important aspect. For the runners, finding themselves at the starting line forces each person to confront not only their own thoughts but also those of others. When the group comes together, one person's focus becomes the focus of everyone, just as the nervousness that shows in every gesture, even behind the smiles. This time, we teamed up with Quatorze Running équipe. All these incredible people surely know how to run, but most importantly, they know how to share a journey like this with friends: never giving up, running their hearts out together, always pushing.
It will take forty hours to reach Marseille.
The stopwatch doesn’t really matter that much, nor does the importance of the finish line. What truly matters is the determination that brought you to the starting line and pushed you to cross it
with a simple step. The effort experienced during TSP is a unique one, so intense in a single moment, in an endless instant, that it transcends everything else—past, present, and future. Through this particular form of endurance, you can reach depths of thought otherwise inaccessible. And, tossed between exhaustion and excitement, you can find anything within. The essence of the soul is unveiled, along with its certainties and fears. An insurmountable fatigue may emerge, as well as an inexhaustible energy. You are alone, at night on a trail in the middle of the woods, or during the day on a hot, paved road, but you are also part of a mechanism that, second by second, meter by meter, moves closer to the goal thanks to the effort of all its components.
Time passes—though perhaps at different paces—for everyone, whether they’ve just started running, are trying to rest, or are waiting for their turn. The night quietly gives way to the first
light of dawn. The race goes on. The groups move forward. Occasionally, they cross paths with other teams. They share a few impressions, a few emotions. The police have stopped some runners, alarmed to find them on dangerous stretches of road. This too is The Speed Project: the challenge of the unknown, a bit of chaos, a rebellious spirit, the awareness that getting lost is inevitable, whether by the flickering light of a headlamp or with the sun in your eyes, mixed with fear and excitement. It’s a celebration of the exploratory nature of one of the simplest and most natural human movements: running. One step after another in a certain direction, towards a goal so distant it becomes a place with blurred and hazy boundaries somewhere in space and time. More important is the journey to get there. Or perhaps, the team with whom you arrive?
