Sunday trailing

Met with the guys from the club at 9:00 am and the first word of welcome from Nico was that I looked tired. Charming - the young lad will go far in diplomacy. OK so Laurence and I stayed out late last night; and I probably did drink one whisky too many; and I did eat too much dessert; nut the last thing I wanted to be welcomed with first thing in the morning is how dreadful I look.

So, it was with no regrets that I left Jean-Marc, Nico, Bruno and Fabrice to go off and run their session around les Charmilles, while I set off with Laurence and a dozen trailers towards the woods of Marly le Roi.

Trailers are a breed apart. They don't run fast. I think that most of them take up trail running when they realise that they can't keep up with the pace anymore and pretend that they run only to enjoy the scenery and that speed doesn't matter. The first few kilometres of warm-up were very sedate and I had to do everything I could to rein myself in and not disappear into the distance.

We finally arrived at Marly Forest and it was then that I discovered another fact about trailers. Trailers only run at one speed. What was a very sedate speed along the flat became exhausting as you began to run uphill. These weren't just little slopes either: they went out of their way to find the steepest slopes possible with gradients of 33% fairly common.

The effort was considerable and with the lovely weather and sunshine and a very pleasant temperature on what is likely to prove to be one of the last days of summer, I was soon sweating buckets and dreading the next slope that loomed as we ran along.

Trailers don't care about speed. We were running at between 6:30 and 7:00 per km pace but the hills were unending. I managed to keep up with José and Laurent at the front of the group on the flat and at the start fo the hills, but towrads the top of the hill, they still seemed to have the energy to continue while I was shattered.

After 2 hours of non-stop hills, it was decided to call it a day and to head back home. José announced that we would run back at 'marathon speed' and promptly took off with Laurent on his heels. I stuck with them and since the going was mostly downhill and the paths were wider, I took the lead and stretched my legs a little. It was a great feeling and I'm definitely in shape at the moment. We were now running at about 18km/h down the hills and at 15km/h along the flat.

A great outing and they convinced Laurence and I to take part in the Imperial Trail in Fontainebleau in 2 weeks time. I'll run with Nathaniel and Laurence with Pascale. Should be good marathon training, both mentally and for the legs.

22.5 km all up in 2:20. It sounds pathetic in distance for the time taken but it was hard work. Almost forgot, the Garmin registered over 800m of uphill over the course this morning which is the equivalent of an extra 8km on the flat. This makes the time more reasonable.

85km this week and I'm still feeling good.