Antonio Takes on Tour of Giants

Last month our R&D Chemistry Manager Antonio Codina took on another huge race challenge. Antonio has worked for Palintest as R&D Chemistry Manager for over 6 years now and in that time has completed a number of extreme race challenges including the Dragons Back Race in 2021, where he raised a huge amount of money for our Water for Life campaign.

Considered one of the hardest mountain races in the world, Antonio’s latest challenge was the Tor des Geants which tours the Aosta valley in the Italian Alps. With a distance of nearly 350km and about 30,000m of elevation it is both physically and mentally gruelling. The name in the local dialect means Tour of Giants because the route runs on the flanks of the 4 giant mountains of the Alps: Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn and Gran Paradiso.

Discussing the race and the result Antonio said, “My biggest problem is that I train in the hills of Northumberland that hardly reach 800m of altitude this race reaches 3000m high multiple times, so it was hard to know if my legs and lungs would work at that altitude and on those huge mountains. The race actually went very well, I finished in 117h, in 140th position out of 960 starters. I was surprised with my time, I did not have a reference to guide me so I did not know beforehand how long it was going to take me. The time limit is 150 hours and I would have been happy just finishing. My legs were fine after the race, my main problem was catching up with sleep, as I slept less than 10 hours during the race.”

Reflecting on the experience Antonio added, “It was such a wonderful experience, to spend nearly 5 days and nights in the most wonderful mountains. It’s very hard to come back to everyday reality when you have an experience like that! The best is that the tradition says when you finish this race you are a giant. For life. Which is very handy for a little lad like me!”

Everyone at Palintest would agree that this is a huge achievement and something to be very proud of. Congratulations Antonio and a massive well done for taking part in such a phenomenal experience.

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Antonio Takes on Tour of Giants

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