Identity Crisis

It was a situation that could have been amusing. The sort of situation that they make films about or at least a 12 series sitcom. Delphine has been confusing Nick with Nico or vice versa, it all depends on your point of view. It all started because Nico (the Frenchman) and I ran to Cora and discussed runners at the club. Since I usually run to Cora with Nick (the Englishman) admittedly there was some scope for confusion but all my attentive readers out there realised the difference immediately. Delphine please pay attention! As a result, there have been some fairly confusing conversations at the club recently with Nico making references to the blog and Delphine thinking that he was talking about soemthing else etc., etc.

Anyway, none of this got in the way of our Saturday run, which following a discussion with Nico on Thursday night, started from the clubhouse with Miguel invited to join us. Nick is still injured and somewhere in the Alps at present watching his wife ski, run and generally exercise, while he is presumably propping up some bar, exercising his right arm and abusing the mulled wine.

It had snowed during the night and Saturday morning saw me arriving at the clubhouse in the car, only to miss the entrance to the car park and to skid 20 metres beyond, narrowly missing the kerb (which I'd already hit the previous night). I decided to park beside the road, giving up the carpark as a bad loss. Miguel arrived at the same time and Nico turned up 5 minutes later and, judging by the look of him, he'd only just made it out of bed.

After a quick discussion as to where we should run to, we set off in the general direction of Cora at an easy pace completing the first kilometre in 5:14. After this first kilometre warm-up, we crossed the St Germain road and ran through the forest on the Poissy side, upping the pace to 4:30 in the process. Miguel complained that he wasn't used to running at this speed and had been expecting a jog with us both. Nico knows better by now, having run a few times with me at this speed. I thought that running at between 13 and 14 km/h is normal training pace for standard sessions as nobody has ever told me different, but apparently this is a bit of an exception. Tom mentioned as much in his blog.

We carried on until Croix de Noailles and then crossed back over the road into the forest towards Maisons Laffitte. As official route finder, I got slightly confused at this point and we ended up at Croix de St Simon. I realised that apart from the main road, the only way to cross the railway line was to back track towards the bridge opposite Pavillon de la Muette and so it was in this direction that we now headed. The forest was absolutely fantastic in this weather. We were running in fresh snow that was between 5 - 10 cm deep. It was not so deep that it hindered your movement or running style but quietened the forest, and left everything looking clean and white. The effort was easy with the conversation and notably Miguel chatting about his race experiences and professional runners he'd known from the past. I chatted less, concentrating on the route and the paths we were taking.

We ended up at Pavillon de la Muette and having run 7.5km now, we decided by general consent to head back, leaving Cora for another day. I took them back via the usual Saturday route from Cora, heading in the direction of Maisons Laffitte. We slowed slightly at this point going from around 4:25 pace to 4:40 pace and it was only when we arrived at the outskirts of Maisons Laffitte that I realised that we still had another good 5km to run and we'd already done 11. This was going to be longer than expected.

Miguel began to tire now and fell off the pace slightly at this point. Nico and I pushed on for home as both Nico and Miguel recognised the more familiar paths in the forest around St Germain and there was no longer any risk of losing somebody in the forest. We both eased up at the end to wait for Miguel after La Mare aux Cannes having picked up the pace again slightly to 4:30 speed.

16.7 km all up in 1:19 or an average of 4:45 per km. This was slow since I didn't stop the Garmin for either of Nico nor Miguel's toilet stops that they both pretexted to catch their breath. Great run and lovely in the forest.

Funniest part was seeing Miguel limp down the steps from the clubhouse restaurant (thanks Nico for the coffee!) as if he'd just completed a marathon. He definitely needs to get out more often!