Hill training

Encouraged by my brother's comments, I got up early (well just after 8:00 am when you're on holiday feels pretty early to me) and ran the route that the boys and I did on the bikes the other day.

The route involves running up the crest road, "la route de crêtes" from Aurillac towards St Jean de Dône. Once you're on the top you carry on until the next crossroads and then drop down back into the Jordanne valley to run back in along the main road from St Simon.

I Gmapped the route just to get an idea of the profile. You can see it here : http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2086880.
So just over 220m of uphill between 1.5 km to 6 km so over 4.5km. This makes an average gradient of 5%; so not really steep but a long slog. I managed the total 12.8km in 1:01:46 so I'm fairly pleased considering the height gain and the slow pace at which I set out this morning.

When I got back, I had a quick bite to eat and then went out with the boys and Roger on the bikes. We cycled along the old road to St Simon and then up the long hill to Boussac. Henry showed us again his hill-climbing prowess and I stayed behind with Paul to encourage him up to the top. They really enjoyed it along the top once the height had been gained and before too long it was a fantastic descent into Velzic and then back along the main road to St Simon and then Aurillac. Route was gmapped for a total of 28km . The hills on this side of the valley are higher than on the North side, so we actually climbed for over 300m. I'm tempted to run this route before the end of the week.

Off to play golf now with the boys before going to the restaurant this evening. What sport packed days these are !