Trail des 3 Pucelles

Based in Seyssins, France, on the western edge of Grenoble at the foot of the Vercors massif, the Trail des 3 Pucelles is a two-day event with three race distances. 

Les 3 Pucelles is 23km long with 1,100m of climbing from the Parc François Mitterrand to the Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte ski jump, which was built for the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics. 

The Tour sans Venin covers 15km with 680m of climbing, and Saturday’s Montée Sèche is a pure uphill challenge of 12km with 1,130m of vert, following the old tramway route that once linked Grenoble to Villard-de-Lans, between 1911 and 1947. 

Both the 3 Pucelles and Tour sans Venin courses can be run as two-person relays. Children’s races as well as an adapted course using joëlettes — single-wheeled trail wheelchairs carried by volunteer teams — run alongside the main events, making it an inclusive weekend for participants of all abilities. 

Seyssins sits immediately west of Grenoble, France, itself about an hour from Lyon and reachable by TGV, France’s high speed railway that runs throughout the country. 

The race series takes its name from the three rocky spires visible from the city, which, according to local legend, are the three daughters of the Lord of Naves, who were turned to stone by Charlemagne. The event draws on a long tradition of competitive mountain running on these slopes, tracing its lineage to a Grenoble-Saint-Nizier road race that first ran in 1977.