Home Is Where The Trails Are

Created By Like The Wind In Partnership With New Balance

They come from different worlds – one from a mountain village in the Beaufortain, the other from a town in the Vosges. One grows potatoes between training sessions; the other manages to fit in two runs around work. Alice Bausseron and Benjamin Polin are not your typical sponsored athletes. Which, for New Balance, is precisely the point.

A Different Kind Of Athlete

Alice is 25 and lives in Arêches-Beaufort, high in the Savoyard Alps. She grew up near Albertville, but the mountains pulled her upward – first into a job as a ski patrol officer in winter, then into work as a mountain hut warden through the summer season. More recently, she has taken on a small potato-growing operation in her village, where she also works part-time in a café, keeping her mornings free for training.

Alice is a semi-professional athlete in the truest sense; not quite making a living from running but also not remotely casual. She navigates the gap between the two with a pragmatism that feels entirely authentic to the mountains she comes from. “Even if one day I have the chance to go fully professional,” she says, “I think I’d always keep some kind of work alongside it. I need that rhythm. A thread running through the week.”

Alice’s competitive edge is real, though. She ran the 2025 Marathon du Mont Blanc 23km and came away knowing exactly where she’d left time on the course. She was stronger on the ascents than the fast, rolling opening sections. She trained specifically to try to close that gap for the race this year, which happened on the last weekend in June. “I knew I could significantly improve on last year’s time,” she says. “That was the real objective. And I knew that if the start list was stronger this year and I finished lower in the rankings but ran faster – that just means the race got better.”

Bruno Laroque, Senior Marketing Director EMEA at New Balance, is clear about what the brand is looking for in its trail team. “At New Balance, we believe trail running is, above all, a deeply human story, one built around people, shared values and all woven into the fabric of nature.” Alice Bausseron is, in her own way, exactly that kind of story.

“What Holds [The Team] Together, According To Both Alice And Benjamin, Is Less The Brand And More The Place. Chamonix Does Something To People”

The Ones Who Still Have Day Jobs

Benjamin Polin, 31, represents a different kind of profile. He’s from the Vosges, works full time for a local authority in the energy transition sector and trains twice a day around his responsibilities – often fitting in a lunchtime run and a longer session in the evening. He has been selected twice for the French 100km road team, yet still thinks of himself, with some amusement, as an amateur. “Most people don’t know I have a full-time job,” he says. “If you only look at the results, you wouldn’t guess.”

Trail running, for Benjamin, has always been a passion first – something he has built a life around rather than built a career from. Joining the New Balance team this year felt less like turning professional and more like finding his people.

Benjamin’s first week at the Chamonix chalet during the May camp left an impression. “It was genuinely exceptional – not because of anything fancy, but because of the people. You have athletes from across the world, all living the same thing, all completely invested. And me, I turn up like an excited kid because for one week I’m just training, no work, surrounded by people who get it.” He laughs. “I keep joking that I’m an amateur because I’ve been training 20 hours a week for 10 years. But the joy is still there. That matters.”

The contrast between Alice and Benjamin – one shaped entirely by mountain life, the other discovering high-altitude running as a student and returning to it every year from the rolling hills of the Vosges – reflects something fundamental about the New Balance team as a whole. It spans nationalities, disciplines, ages and circumstances. What holds it together, according to both Alice and Benjamin, is less the brand and more the place. Chamonix does something to people.

Chamonix As A Home Base

Part of what makes the New Balance approach distinctive is the athlete house. The brand takes over a cluster of three interconnected chalets in Chamonix – not just for the official May training camp, but for athletes to use throughout the season, according to their own schedule. The idea is that Chamonix becomes something more than a race venue: it becomes a base, a reference point, a place to return to. Less organised retreat, more open-door summer camp. The kind of place where what matters is who shows up, not what’s on offer when they do.

For Alice, Marathon du Mont-Blanc race weekend itself, with its huge crowds, is almost overwhelming for someone from a small mountain village. The chalets are a different matter. “It’s a real opportunity,” she says. “I’m genuinely grateful to be able to live that experience.” What she values most is the group dynamic: athletes from different countries and disciplines, training together, cooking together, cheering each other on during races. “Everyone pulls everyone else upwards. Even if we’re running the same race with similar targets, we all want each other to do well.”

Chamonix means something specific to Alice. She says it would be too big to live in full time. But it’s magnetic in the way that only places with real mountain credentials can be. “It’s the capital of alpinism,” she says. “And now it’s becoming a capital of trail too. It’s a different world from where I live. But when you’re there, you make the most of it.” Part of what keeps drawing her back is that she has never quite finished exploring it. Every visit, she takes a different route – the steep, lung-burning Kilomètre Vertical course one time, the gentler balcony trails the next. “I don’t think I’ve ever done the same trail twice,” she says. “Each time I go, it’s a pure discovery. There’s always more.”

Benjamin’s relationship with Chamonix runs deeper than might be expected for someone from the Vosges. He first discovered high-altitude running there as a student, on training camps that took him above the treeline for the first time. His favourite loop climbs from Chamonix through Merlet up to the Brévent, returning via Planpraz. He does it every time he visits. “In 90min you move through seasons. You leave the town, pass through the vegetation and suddenly you’re in another universe – rocks, space, the feeling that everything goes on forever. And then you go back to the Vosges and everything looks flat for a week.”

Running Back To The Same Valley

For Alice and Benjamin, authenticity isn’t a communications strategy – it’s just how they live. This past June, for Marathon du Mont-Blanc, one arrived in Chamonix having spent the morning on her farm. The other took a day’s leave from the office.

On that weekend, the valley was full again. The rhododendrons were in flower. The chalets were busy. And somewhere on the trails above Chamonix, a part-time potato farmer from the Beaufortain Alps and a full-time civil servant from the Vosges raced in the shadow of Mont Blanc as part of a team that considers Chamonix home.

“You Leave The Town, Pass Through The Vegetation And Suddenly You’re In Another Universe – Rocks, Space, The Feeling That Everything Goes On Forever”

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