LIFA Cross country - Aulnay sous Bois

This was the moment I'd been dreading: arriving at the Parc Départemental at Aulnay to see plenty of runners, loads of mud and hills galore. I wandered around to begin with looking for the St Germain tent, in vain, and it was only when I thought that the others hadn't yet arrived that Miguel came up to me and showed me the base camp, hidden behind the sausage and chips wagon !

The smell of a good sausage and chips was far more tempting than undressing and getting my running kit on, so I hung around, waiting for the race to be cancelled so that I could go home. Unfortunately, this wasn't to be so I chatted with the others from the club: Eric, Bruno W, Thierry, José and Régis. We all knew that this was to be our last race of the cross-country season as none of us were talented enough to get through this round and onto the nationals afterwards.

After a short warm-up with Régis, we lined up at the start, in starting block number 3, all 6 of us, joking around and waiting for the gun. The marshalls checked that nobody's toes were over the start line and then the gun went. The gun went again - false start !! Marvellous, just when I hoped it was going to be all over with, back we went again to line up in our box. The gun went again, for good this time, and we were off.

I settled into an easy rhythm, not wanting to tire too early, knowing that I would be towards the back of the race anyway. The course was well mapped and involved a large circuit of the park (3km around each loop) to be run 3 times. There were 2 large hills to be negotiated on each lap and we hit the first at the end of the sprint start. I was about 30th from the back of the race and a couple of runners ahead of Régis. I could see José just ahead and Miguel was there on the side of the course to tell me that I'd made a good start and to keep it up.

After the initial burst at the start, the race settled down quickly and there wasn't much changing of places as we went around the first lap. I was listening to the breathing of the runners around me and I could tell that they were suffering as much as I was. This continued into the second lap and then towards the end of the second, Régis came past, just before the second hill of the lap. I couldn't match his speed up the hill and having made the break I wasn't able to get back to him again. My motivation dropped at this point and I only wanted to finish, but there was still a lap to do.

Miguel encouraged me as I passed him again. He told me to chase the 2 runners ahead and to take them before the end. I focused on this task and closed them down and overtook them and on the back straight of the third lap and then I just concentrated on running hard until the finish.

I sprinted to the line and finished in 37:11 in 163rd position (out of 189 finishers). Régis had made almost 30 seconds on me and Thierry was only 6 seconds in front of him. Overall I was pleased with my race and my performance was in line with expectations. Régis just showed again what a great cross-country runner he is. Thank God all of that is over until next year now.