The course was well organised and Nick, Laurence and I set off about 15 - 20 minutes before the rollerbladers, to try and set some distance between us before they came charging past. Laurence set off at her own rhthym and it wasn't until the end of the race, having gone around the lake that we saw her again. Nick and I set off slowly with Eloïse, Nick's 7 year old girl, on her bike. We were running at 12.6 km/h to begin with but my natural pace soon got the better of us and our average rose steadily to around 13.5 km/h.
We were running around the lake, concentrating on getting from one feeding station to the next situated at kms 7, 17 and 26 with the final one at the end after 34 km. The first station we missed, as we started before the rollerbladers and I got confused between calories and kilometres on my Garmin !! I was just above 700 calories when I realised my mistake and we had already run almost 9 km.
We managed 13.4 km after 1 hour and we arrived at our first feeding station shortly after. We spent 5 minutes there, filling up with water and dry fruits before continuing on. I got a stitch not long after which was probably due to the excess of banana that I had taken on board. This disappeared after a couple of kilometres and I had settled into a steady pace at around 13.9 km/h by then. I left Nick a little way behind over the next couple of kilometres and ran with Eloïse still pedalling happily away. We reached the feeding station and waited for Nick who was only a couple of minutes behind. 26.5 km down and only 7.5km to go according to the map. I set off again with Nick and we decided to run the remainder at our own pace. I could see that Nick was tired and he said that he was happy at around 12 km/h. I maintained my pace thinking all the while that I would need to go faster for the marathon but even at this pace the distance hurt anyway !
The end of the course was less flat and there were plenty of little rises and descents. I focussed on catching the rollerbladers ahead of me which I eventually managed. It was a relief then to see the lake appearing having left the woods around it and to see the finishing point. However, the initial relief became a large frustration as it took an eternity to reach the lakeside and to run the last 2 kilometres over the dyke and back to the village.
I finshed in 2:45 on the garmin and 35.4 km after the start. This is an average of 12.8 km/h. If I take out the 11 miutes of stops at the feeding stations , the average increases to 13.8 km/h. Still under the speed I need to manage my marathon objective but not too far off. This last calculation boosted my morale incredibly as when I first looked at the Garmin and the average pace, I felt that with today's effort, it was out of my reach.
The best surprise of the day was seeing Laurence appear at the end having run the whole loop too. I was sure that she wouldn't manage and that she would stop at the 26 km feeding station. She wanted to prove me wrong and I was really impressed with her run as it's 10 farther than she's ever run before. I'll see if she's still able to walk tomorrow though !
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