“Alongside the Race”
Andrea Benedetti’s guide to supporting runners at TOR330 – Tor des Géants®
TORX2025 - Valtournenche - Photo credits Nicola Biagetti - Zzam! Agency
You can experience the TOR330 – Tor des Géants® even without a bib, with an alarm set in the middle of the night and a backpack always ready in the car.
It is to this hidden side of the race that Andrea Benedetti dedicates
“A fianco della gara: l’arte dell’assistenza al Tor des Géants®. Strategie, regole e strumenti per accompagnare i Giganti nell’ultrarunning di montagna”, a book now available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions (only in Italian, for the moment).
Who is Andrea Benedetti
The book is written by Andrea Benedetti, a trail runner and race assistant who completed his first TOR in 2016 and in 2025 returned to the Alte Vie of the Aosta Valley at the side of the athletes, following the endurance trail of over 330 kilometres and 24,000 metres of positive elevation gain. The author’s stated goal is to fill a specific gap: not yet another guide for those who run, but a text designed for amateur athletes and for those who accompany them through a race that can last up to 150 hours, with several nights at altitude and constantly changing weather conditions.
A field-tested manual
Benedetti describes his book as “a volume to keep between training manuals and the art of racing”, built on direct assistance experience during TOR 2025, with a final chapter of statistics that recounts hours of sleep, kilometres travelled by car and on foot, and the number of points where it was possible to meet athletes along the route.
The structure follows a clear progression: after the introductory pages, which explain the target audience and aims of the book, come the chapters on the importance of being prepared, the TOR glossary, how the race works and the rules that guide an assistant’s choices between semi-self- sufficiency, cut-offs, regulatory constraints and the management of Life Bases.
At the heart of the book is the operational section: tools and data to build the “service sheet”, conscious use of live tracking, planning movements with offline maps, and reading the “Meteo
TORX” bulletin from the regional functional centre, which becomes the basis for deciding layers, gloves and nutritional autonomy between one point and the next.
TORX2024 - Cogne Base Vita - Photo credits Stefano Coletta - Zzam! Agency
Assistance as a system
A broad section is devoted to assistance protocols: from 10- or 20-minute pit stops to the 4F Scan (fuel, fluids, feet, feelings) to quickly check the athlete’s energy, hydration, feet and mental state, through to procedures for managing sleep crises, gastrointestinal problems and moments of impaired lucidity.
There is also a chapter on relations with the VolonTOR, described as the “backbone” of the race points, and on the need to stay out of the internal areas of the Life Bases, respecting the roles, routes and resources that the organisation reserves for those wearing a bib. The book also offers a sort of pocket guide clarifying the responsibilities of athletes, volunteers and assistants, to avoid overlap and intrusion, with particular attention to safety and go/no-go decisions in critical conditions.
From chapter 18 onwards, the text goes into detail on each individual Life Base, from the entry into Valgrisenche to the final stop in Ollomont, with fact sheets summarising context, typical athlete arrival patterns, frequent needs, recurring mistakes, 5- and 20-minute checklists, and the logistics of parking areas and waiting zones.
A guide for the TOR community
The book is intended for those who support one or more athletes, but it may also interest coaches, team members and enthusiasts who want to better understand what happens “behind the scenes” of TOR330 – Tor des Géants®, in that part of the race that unfolds away from the trails, among lines of cars on valley floors, crowded aid stations and nights spent juggling timings and weather. The author repeatedly stresses that assistance is not a holiday in the Aosta Valley and not an improvised job, but a real responsibility that requires specific preparation, clear agreements with the athlete before the start, and the ability to make lucid decisions when fatigue rises for everyone.
“Alongside the Race” is a practical, concrete book, deeply rooted in the local area, written for those who want to take seriously a role that is often underestimated. Rather than promising miracle solutions, it builds a method and a shared language that can help assistants, athletes and volunteers speak the same language along the TOR trails.
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