Aurillac round

Since I'm still trying to increase my mileage this week, I set out with Laurence to run the 20 km around Aurillac early this morning. In order to avoid all discussions, we decided that we would run it in different directions.

I set out slowly, suffering from tired legs after last night's run and a sore right foot from my new running shoes (Mizuno Wave Impulse bought for €10 - a bargain I couldn't resist!). The hills at the beginning a re killers - no I'll correct that - all the hills are killers around here. In the Paris area, I would run 10 km races and found that I was relatively strong on the hills. I run here in Aurillac, and I suffer every time I go out, with the steepness to go up (even down hurts sometimes!) and the sheer length of the climbs.

I maintained my plod and carried on at a fairly steady pace until I crossed paths with Laurence after about 10.5 km, just after the park. I had done all the hard work by then and the second half of the course was a lot easier. The sun was out and it was a beautiful blue sky. I was glad that we had made the effort to get out early as the temperature was still very comfortable.

I made good progress for the remainder of the run until the final hill pulling out of Aurillac town centre. This hill must be at least 20% gradient and I ran up it but at a walking pace. What a relief to get to the top and then pull away along the top and descend to run in hard for the last 400m.

A good run to complete the efforts for this week. All up in 1:42:26 so no records today but this wasn't surprising after yesterday's blast.