Bike and run

Struggling to find time to write up my training runs at the moment what with odd-jobs to be completed around the house and the workload for my job. However, this is no excuse for not keeping a track of what's been going on in the exciting world of running here in Le Mesnil.

Laurence is training hard, preparing for the big event in June when we head off to Britanny to run a 58km trail in Guerledan. She's been building up the mileage and mentally I've never ever seen her so strong. When we first started running, she'd prepare herself for a run by saying that she'd run for 20 minutes. If we weren't back at the house within those 20 minutes all hell would break loose. This evolved afterwards into running for 5km and then 10km and so on. If I dared suggest that we add in an extra loop or anything involving a little extra effort that she hadn't prepared for a week before mentally then she'd become furious with me and then sulk for the following week (there is a slight bit of literary exageration in this desciption - but believe me, it's minor).

Recently though, I've been noticing some major changes. A little extra loop to fit in a scenic detour? No problem. A few extra kilometres to keep up the mileage? Why not! It must be the three shredded wheat in the morning that are doing the job. Laurence has become seriously addicted to runnning and charts all of her mileage in copy books that are full of colours indicating different efforts, paces, weekly mileages and outings per week. She decided that it would be nice to go out together last Sunday for a long Sunday run. Since her biggest regret in life is not to be able to run a marathon in under 3 hours, we decided that the easiest way to spend time together on a long run and to enable both of us to obtain maximum benefit was to do a bike and run.

We packed a camelbak and planned my long 35km running route into sections of around 5km. Laurence ran the first section, beginning slowly and then building up the pace to 5:30 kilometres. I enjotyed the forest scenery, peddling easily beside her on the mountain bike. I ran the next section of 6 kilometres finishing at the top of Princess road after 2 kilometres of uphill achieved in in under 10 minutes (a good gauge of my fitness is to beat this time so I was well chuffed). Laurence set off on another 5 km section running faster than ever at around 5:15 - 5:20 pace. And then I took oever again.

The sun had risen by now and the morning that had started coolly was beginning to warm up considerably. Laurence was running faster and faster and I was wilting in the heat. I ran 5km to St Germain terrace and decided that 16km was enough for me. I finished at 4:40 pace along the flat, dehydrated and deprived of energy. Laurence took over and since her goal was to run 26 km in total she ran the last 11km back home in a convoluted loop from St Germain. Not only did she manage the distance far better than me, she was running at 5:20 pace at the end which she considers to be marathon pace. Impressed ? I would have been even more impressed but I was too busy feeling sorry for myself and my sore bum, unused to riding a bike for so far and for so long...

3h35 of effort in total to cover a marathon distance. I was well and truly beat.