The SaintéLyon, or the night as an inner landscape

Some races begin with the shot of a pistol.

And then there are races that begin much earlier...

With a slight apprehension. With a bag packed too soon. With a headlamp checked multiple times. With that question we don't always dare to ask: what am I really looking for, setting off to run all night between Saint-Étienne and Lyon?

The SaintéLyon belongs to this second family.

It's a night race. A winter race. A race of mud, cold, silence, of climbs we thought modest that become immense when our legs start to fail. A race where the city recedes, where headlamps light up, where the peloton becomes a long human constellation in the Monts du Lyonnais.

The SaintéLyon is often referred to as a monument of French trail running.

It's true.

But a monument, usually, remains still.

The SaintéLyon, on the other hand, has been moving for over seventy years.

It moves through the night. It moves through the snow, sometimes. It moves in the memory of the runners who finished it, in the memory of those who gave up, and in the memory of those who promise themselves every year never to return, only to sign up again.

Because some races don't quite leave you.

They hold a piece of you.

A bit of fatigue. An image of a white path under a headlamp. A refreshment stop appearing like an island. A descent towards Lyon where you're not sure if you're still running or just standing by pride, by friendship, by habit, by miracle.

The SaintéLyon was born in 1952, long before "trail" became a common word. Originally, it wasn't a foot race, but a timed hike conceived by Justin-Marie Cuzin, president of CT Lyon, to connect Lyon to Saint-Étienne across the Monts du Lyonnais. This first crossing took two days, with a break in Sainte-Catherine. There was snow. There were few participants. But the essential was already there...

A simple, almost crazy idea: to cross the winter on foot.

At that time, running was not yet the familiar act it has become today. Running long distances, running at night, running on trails, it was almost a happy marginality. People walked, endured, found their way, helped each other. They moved forward with what they had. Sometimes not much. A lamp. A jacket. Good legs. And that stubbornness that makes true stories.

Then the years passed.

Walking became a competition. Competition became a myth. And in the 70s, something shifted. Popular running spread. Jogging arrived. Bodies left the stadiums. Roads, parks, and trails began to belong to everyone.

This was also the era of Spiridon.

An era when running was not yet fully domesticated by brands, times, apps, training plans, and injunctions. Running was a freer, simpler act, sometimes more political than one might imagine. A way of saying that effort is not reserved for champions. That the body does not need permission to move. That everyone can take their place on the road, on the trails, in the night.

In 1957, the SaintéLyon even included a rule prohibiting running. Competitors caught running could be disqualified. The image is almost too perfect. The mythical French winter race was first an event where running was forbidden. Then, in 1977, competitors were finally allowed to run. The SaintéLyon then changed its nature without losing its soul.

It didn't just become faster.

It became freer.

This is where the connection with Spiridon particularly touches us.

Because Spiridon has always loved these places where running goes beyond the norm. These moments when a still marginal practice becomes popular. These transitions where one stops asking permission to run, to try, to leave, to return different.

The SaintéLyon is not a scenic race.

It doesn't need spectacular landscapes to impress. It's not there to offer a postcard. Its beauty is elsewhere. In that shared night. In that modest and terrible crossing at the same time. In those paths that one might not otherwise look at, but which, once traversed at two in the morning, take on an almost secret grandeur.

The SaintéLyon reminds us that adventure is not always at the ends of the earth.

It can begin between two cities.

Between a train station and an arrival hall.

Between a cold start and a light that finally appears.

Between what we thought we could do and what the night teaches us.

Over the decades, the event has changed. Formats have multiplied. Headlamps have replaced the old lamps. Shoes have become technical. Organization has professionalized. Bibs sell out quickly. The SaintéLyon now gathers thousands of runners, from solo to relay, from ultra to more accessible formats.

But despite this evolution, something remains.

This race retains a harshness. A modesty. A way of never giving everything easily. It is earned, not just by performance, but by the humility it imposes. You can arrive trained and be overcome by the cold. You can come confident and discover that the mud still has its say.

The SaintéLyon is also the race of volunteers. Those figures waiting in the night, offering a warm drink, pointing the way, encouraging without knowing how much their voice can matter.

And then it's also Michel Sorine's race, who holds a special place in it.

He is not the historical founder of the SaintéLyon, but he is one of those who gave it its modern breath. With Extra Sports, from 2001, he supported the rebirth of the event, its return to an annual rhythm, its opening to new formats, its gradual transformation into a great popular classic of trail running.

But Michel Sorine also touches us for another reason.

In 2014, a serious bicycle accident turned his life upside down. He, who had dedicated much of his energy to sports, events, movement, suddenly found himself confronted with immobility, disability, and a different way of inhabiting the world.

He then created a blog, Extropied, with this magnificent, terrible, and funny baseline all at once: "Giving the potato back to the vegetable."

And this blog is not just a news journal. It is a work of lucidity. A way of writing from the place where life has broken something, without trying to make it more acceptable than it needs to be. One finds black humor, anger, modesty, tenderness, violence sometimes, but also that rare intelligence that consists of facing reality without letting it take over completely.

There are inner journeys longer than all the December nights.

The SaintéLyon, ultimately, speaks of this.

It speaks of passage. Of a night to cross. Of cold to accept. Of a fatigue that strips you bare. Of a light slowly reached, sometimes without panache, sometimes without grace, but with that human stubbornness that is enough to make things beautiful.

One might think that a race is about knowing who is fastest.

The SaintéLyon tells another story.

It tells how you can start with many and have a deeply intimate experience. It tells how a popular event can become a ritual. It tells how the night, far from erasing runners, reveals them in a different way.

There is something in this race that fully belongs to the Spiridon spirit.

An ancient freedom.

A simple fraternity.

A taste for effort that is not confused with showing off.

The SaintéLyon is not just a diagonal between Saint-Étienne and Lyon.

It is a line stretched between two eras.

That of the pioneers who set off into the snow with almost nothing.

That of today's runners, equipped, connected, prepared, but always brought back by the night to the same truth: at some point, there's only oneself, the path, the cold, and that small light ahead that keeps moving.

Perhaps that's why this race remains mythical.

Because it doesn't just promise to arrive in Lyon.

It promises, if you truly let yourself go, to cross a part of yourself.

And perhaps that is, ultimately, the most beautiful definition of running.

To set off into the night.

Not to control everything.

To keep going anyway.

And to discover, in the morning, that something in us held on.