Back to business

It is almost "La Rentrée". The special time of the year here in France when you are bombarded with adverts for buying your precious little cherubins all they need to go back to school and more. The government gets back to work and tries to resolve the issues of the day and thousands of employees return to work, sad faces all round as they quickly forget the happy times they have just had on holiday.

No sad face for me this morning, as my running "rentrée" was a confirmation of my return to shape after the efforts of last weekend. It was the standard rendition of the 11.1 km course around the town but as soon as I set off, I knew that my legs, my body, in fact everything felt so much easier than Tuesday. The strides were fluid, I wasn't pushing too hard, yet I felt great.

2 km in 8:35 in front of the POBS. The sun was just rising but unfortunately there were far too many clouds around for it to be visible. The weathermen having been getting it wrong regularly recently, since they been promising sunshine and a rise in temperatures for some days now. I maintained this pace into the park and felt so much better than recently. No aching legs, no sore shins, no swollen left ankle, so I increased my stride and carried on. I left the park in 27:55 and then thought that I saw Andy in front running towards the swimming pool. I put on a real burst to catch him up only to find that it wasn't him after all ! This helped me finish quickly over the last part of the run - 46:46 for the total course, so around 4:14 per km.

A few races coming up now in September, including 10km in Conflans, the Paris-Versailles and not forgetting the St Germain sprint triathlon. I think I'm ready for them now.