Montesson

I had a lovely night's sleep prior to the race today but that didn't stop me dreaming and fretting about how I was going to manage in the race. The race strategy was to set off with Bruno and to try and stay with him over the distance.

The veteran's race was the first race of the day and there was a good turnout for the club: Thierry, Bruno, Nick and I with Alex, Philippe, Régis, Patrick, Jean-Claude et al. Some other good runners turned up for the race that we don't usually see in training such as Eric and another Bruno.

The weather forecast had promised heavy winds and rain, but most of the storm had blown through during the night so the weather was a lot better than expected. We lined up for the start after a quick warm-up and we were off. I set off fast and quickly pulled ahead of Bruno with my race strategy flying out of the window from the word go. The ground was very heavy with the rain during the night but we set off fast nevertheless. I managed the first kilometre in 3:47. The rest of the race was downhill from then on. Well actually it was very varied in terms of terrain but I struggled until the finish despite the encouragements from Laurence and the rest of the club scattered around the course.

Somewhere around half-way on the second lap, someone was shouting out the positions and I was in 45th place. From then on home though, I just lost place after place as I struggled to find the strength to maintain my speed and to push off after each little hill and bend. The mud and water were hard going too and the effort to run was intense.

I finished 62 and qualified for the next level, the departmental cross-country in Franconville in 3 weeks time. I was 4th in the team and so helped the team to 7th place. Even if I had finished 10 places higher this wouldn't have changed anything to the team's result so that helped me feel a little better.

We went back in the afternoon for the women's race and by now the course was far muddier and harder. Laurence ran a cracker of a race, just finishing a few places behind Muriel, and beating Aude who normally finish well ahead of her. I was thrilled and running all around the course to cheer her on. She said that this helped although by then end I could tell that she was fed up with me !

By the way, I beat Bruno so was thrilled with that. The fact that he was suffering from an Achilles problem might explain this however. We'll see in the next round.

A few photos of the event attached: