Cora at speed

The gauntlet had been thrown, the challenge was public, the exploit had to be realised. Nico had announced that we were to beat the course record for the Saturday training run around Cora.

I slept badly. I knew it was going to be hard running around with Nico at close to 15 km/h and the prospect had the same effect on me as the thought of participating in a race. When I woke up it was yet another beautiful day and the temperature was already hovering around the 15°C mark. So not only was it going to be hard, it was going to be hot too. I went outside and waited for Nico.

Nico finally appeared a few minutes after the arranged time of 8:00am and claimed that he had been up since 7:30am. So what had he been doing geting up 15 minutes earlier than me and arriving 5 minutes later ? Obviously some secret preparation before the challenge and then when he does arrive, he's finishing some sort of energy gel just to ensure that he makes it to the finish line.

We set off from outside the house in order to validate the attempt on the record and I set off quickly, knowing that we needed to be well under 5 minutes for the first kilometre if we were going to have a reasonable chance. I think I took Nico by surprise as he struggled to remain in contact for the first kilometre which we ran in 4:08. After this it was into the woods and the pace picked up again in 4:01 then 3:59 for the next 2 kilometres. 

Nico was obviously already suffering at this point as he kept asking to slow down. I felt pretty good, well as good as could be expected at 15 km/h. The going was tough but it was bearable. I didn't want to upset Nico too much after this by telling him our kilometre splits as I could see he was suffering from the pace and he was unable to talk. We carried on until the far side of Cora at the same pace of between 4:00 and 4:09 per km.

I slowed down at this point as I was running out of energy. The lack of breakfast and proper sustenance was taking its toll and I had to ease off the pace. Nico, benefitting from the effects of his wonder gel, was still in good shape and capable of carrying on at the same pace. We slowed to 4:18 for this kilometre before hitting the uphill back to Pavillon de la Muette and our slowest kilometre around the course in 4:31. I picked up a little after the hill but it wasn't to last: 4:10 and then a series around 4:25 until we got back to Le Mesnil.

Highlight of the course was meeting my groupies out in the forest to encourage me on. Apparently, one of the comments made to Laurence by one of the other girls after seeing me was 'James wasn't smiling today'. I think that this just about sums it up! I struggled towards the end but knew that we had the record in the bag. A final acceleration through town and we finished in 1:02:29, a new record by over 1'30" for the course.

Nico looked easy and next time I'm having some of his magic gel before the run.

14.9 km all up in 1:02:29 for an average pace of 4:11 over the distance. Good going, but looking forward to next week when we can actually find enough breath to talk to each other.