Hill training

I'd run 50km in 2 days and decided that today I needed to ease off slightly. Not too much as I still want to do as much mileage as possible before Guerledan nesxt weekend, but not so much that I exhaust myself completely. Laurence was taking it easy today and running a flat route through town. I decided to head off in the opposite direction and to run Thursday's route or just under 20km.

I set off at a steady pace, feeling the tiredness in my legs from the previous 2 days. I headed out on the old road to St Simon and then headed up the hill on the southern side of the Jordanne valley. The trail leaves this road after a kilometre but since I was feeling adventurous and didn't want to repeat a run with so many other options available, I continued on up the hill towards Boussac. This hill was a killer and I climbed 300 metres in 4 kilometres of non-stop uphill. I told myself that this was good training for the trail combined with everything else I'd done over the last 3 days.

I got to the top of the hill at Salesse and then carried on to Boussac before turning left and running along the crest towards Velzic further up the valley. I knew this road from a mountain bike ride a couple of years ago and my only concern was that it winds its way uphill even further before heading back down the valley. I'd remembered seeing a mountain bike route off the left back down into the valley and I ran along looking for this. It was a lot further than I thought and I realised that my 20km run was going to be a little longer than initially planned.

I found the path off the road with a sigh of relief and headed down this into the valley. This was my slowest kilometre of the run with the distance run in 6:30 as I picked my way gingerly down the path trying to avoid slipping on the wet rocks and bashing my head open. I reached Velzic after 2 kilometres of downhill along some lovely paths towards the bottom of the valley and back onot the main road. I picked up the pace again now and was running at 4:30 pace as I knew I had to manage my energy to get back home. Having left with no water bottle or food bars, this was going to be a major worry.

I had to ease off even this average pace with the sun beginning to warm up the valley bottom considerably. I was hot, sweaty and tired and I was just gasping for water, in fact it was the only thing that I could think of now. I ran into St Simon and remembered that there are some public toilets beside the church where I could wash my face and drink some water. The relief was amazing and when I set off again, I felt like a new man. I ran back a long the old road now and even the last steep uphill stretches were not painful as I knew that I was almost home and dry. I last stretch downhill and I was back.

24.75km all up in 2:07 or an average of 5:09 per km. I'd probably run another 400 metres of uphill on this route too and my hill training is all over for this week as I'll take it easy tomorrow after running almost 75km in 3 days! Tired after these last few days but happy to have managed so much exercise.