Bank holiday

Today is ascension day in France which is a bank holiday. Ascension day is, of course as everybody knows, the day that Christ is supposed to have risen to heaven, 40 days after Easter. I've always found it strange that for a country which prides itself on the separation of religion from the state that so many public holidays are based on the Catholic faith.

Anyway, I'm not complaining as it was a nice day off work and I was able to go runnig with the club in the morning instead. Miguel had planned a small pyramid session today, forgetting that it was a holiday and that we had more time than usual. Being the big-hearted bloke that he is, he decided that instead of a 2',4',6',4',2' session we would add another 8' minutes at the top of the pyramid just for fun.

The weather was very pleasant today: sunny and around 15°C when we started at 9:00 am. There was a good turnout with Nick, Anne and Laurence to begin with and then most of the club. I was concentrating on the runners towards the front with Thierry, Fred, Bruno, Fabrice, Régis, Yannick and Adrien all turning out. We warmed up along the wall at the St Germain terrasse to begin with, before heading towards Le Mesnil and the forest there. Laurence's knee is still playing up and she stopped there to jog home, while the rest of the group carried on towards Croix de Noailles.

I wanted to make the most of the session by pushing hard over the intervals and I certainly wasn't disappointed today. We started steadily on the first interval, mainly due to the terrain and the fact that it was single track only in most places. The four minute interval which followed was more sustained and this continued for the next 2 intervals too. I was leading at one point on the 8 minute interval before Miguel came past, but only gradually. The Garmin recorded maximum speeds of 17.4 and 17.6 km/h on both of these intervals and it certainly felt fast. On the 84 interval, I recorded one kilometre at 3:49 which is slightly below 16 km/h average but this included a slight slowdown as we turned around at the crossroads.

So, overall very steady and a good hard push. Most enjoyable and I really felt as though we'd tried hard at the end.

15.5 km all up in 1:24 or an average of 5:29 over the course. Will attack some hills tomorrow as the last preparation for the Pastourelle a week Saturday.