Easy St Simon

I woke up after a bad night's sleep, having suffered from stomach cramps during the night. At first, I thought that I'd caught a stomach bug or some virus but by the end of the day I realised that it was a muscular pain. This was probably brought on by my swimming session with youngest son Paul on Wednesday at the pool in Aurillac where I swam 60 lengths of front crawl and then raced Paul for a few lengths of breastroke, backstroke and finally, butterfly. God knows what possessed me to try the butterfly, but since I was quite good when young, I thought I would show Paul how it's done. Well I'm not as young as I was and not half as supple. My stomach muscles are still aching today, 2 days later.

Anyway, since I was in no state to run hard, I suggested to Laurence to go for a run with her. She wanted to go on a loop of St Simon and I eagerly got prepared to accompany her. We set off steadily and Laurence told me that she wasn't feeling that enthusiastic. She was a little under the weather and lacking in energy. The first kilometre was steady enough and then the long, steep hill took its toll on the pace and we completed the kilometre in over 7 minutes.

Once at the top of the hill, I ecouraged Laurence to extend her stride down the hill and to let herself go. We ran into St Simon in this fashion without problems and maintained a decent rhythm over the first half of the course. This was marred in the second hlaf by Laurence contracting a stitch and where we normally be coasting away on the new road, down a slight incline, we were still running at the steady pace of around 5:40 per km.

9km all up in 53:25 or an average of 5:56 per km. Well outside Laurence's best time of 47 minutes over the same course.