Les 4 Chateaux - Chevreuse

One of the most enjoyable races that I've done in a while: a great course; good atmosphere and a fantastic organisation.

The worst part of the race was the early start, especially for a Sunday. I's almost criminal to start races this early on a Sunday. Laurence and I were both taking part and we turned up at the club at 7:30 am to meet with the others entered from the club. It was very cold (-3°C) going through the forest this morning, and the prospects of running at this temperature were not appealing.

We arrived at Chevreuse with plenty of time to spare as the women were setting off at 9:30am and the men 15 minutes later for the 18.5km course. We hang around as long as possible in the gym before braving the cold and crossing the playing fields to the start line in the centre of town. I wasn't taking any risks and had both my ski hat and my neck warmer on. Even with these on, it was still too chilly to hang around and we all eagerly set about our warm-up routines.

I gave Laurence a kiss for good luck as she lined up at the start, the gun went and the women's race set off; all 700 of them. The men lined up now and there was a lot of chatting and banter before we set off in turn , 15 minutes afterwards. The total field amounted to just over 2 400 runners and a good number had dressed up in fancy dress for the occasion. First prize to the "Joker" for his outfit, which was spot on, face paint and all.

I set off steadily, passing many runners since I was fairly back in the field when the gun went. I didn't want to tire myself out early so I used the same tactics as last week's race and sped up as the race went on. I didn't take any splits and didn't even look at my watch until 15 km had already gone. I even forgot to set the automatic lap marker after every km that Tom had explained how to do on his blog.

The course was very scenic with 60% on tracks and 40% on the road. The big hill was from 6km to 7.5km and this wasn't as bad as I had imagined. It was just a case of shortening my stride, not pushing it so hard that I was breathless and trying to hang on to my position. I had set off on this portion in about 85th place as a man was shouting out the positions as we went past. It must have been fairly complicated as we had begun to catch the last of the women's race at this point and there was a lot of mingling.

Having caught the tail end of the ladies race was very motivating as I was now chasing Laurence down. I knew that she was running well when I passed the 11 and 12 km markers and there was still no sign of her. I cheered on the other St Germain runners as I went past and their shouts of encouragement in return were most welcome. I finally caught Laurence at 13 km and wished her good luck as I ran past. 2 km later, I passed Muriel and Catherine and I looked at my watch at this point 1:01 for 15km, I was going well and very pleased.

The last 3 km were the hardest as we left the forest again and hit the open road, slightly uphill to finish. I concentrated on trying to catch a couple of men runners ahead of me at this point but I was too spent to make any more efforts. Past the 18km marker and a final burst to the finish: all up in 1:14:48 at an average speed of 14.5 km/h. This was a good performance when the uphill is also considered of almost 300m. 66th position and 23 V1 out of 1713 men.

Laurence finished in 1:35:47 in 120th position in the women's race. She was also pleased with her run and the race.

Profile of the course shown here: