Club trot

Summer is over. Officially. I can tell you this with certainty because there were at least 40 runners at the club tonight all back from holiday looking tanned, fresh and eager to run hard. 

Obviously with any group there are always a few exceptions: Gérald is still whingeing on about being injured despite running at 4:30 pace without a bead of sweat on him. In fact he was spotted at the pond next to the club splashing water onto his face pretending that he'd been trying hard this evening; Nico is as pale as ever as unfortunately he is too poor to afford to go on holiday; Miguel the trainer was back from holiday and apparently had no intention of running hard as it might disturb the pot belly he is trying to build on at the moment...

Miguel stood up at the beginning of the session to announce the programme. He announced that the holidays were over and that he was delighted to see everyone back and looking healthy. To celebrate the reunion we were going to take it easy (to preserve the belly obviously) and an easy jog in the forest followed by stretching was on the menu. The large female contingent were all delighted by Miguel's programme.In fact, Laurence, Katia, Anne, Delphine and Aude amongst others had to be held back from running over and hugging him to death. Since I'm currently floating on my own purple running cloud at the moment, I wasn't bothered either way.

I ran with José, Bruno (back from injury at long last) and Mireille and caught up on their holiday news and training schedules for the next few months. Bruno is trying to turn himself into a triathlete and has taken up swimming. He's finally reached that satisfying situation where he doesn't need to be rescued from drowning 6 times every length he does. The ironman is still a little way off yet. José has taken up mountain biking in preparation for the Millau ultra-trail. Don't ask me how this helps unless he's planning on hiding his bike half-way up the first mountain on the circuit. Mireille has been taking it easy and is now aiming to smash the competition in the French half-marathon championships at the end of October. She gave me a few words of encouragement on how to beat that young whippersnapper Nico. Unfortunately, I can't mention them here as that would give the game away. Needless to say that I was enthusiastic before and now I'm utterly confident in my ability to whop his ass in the next race.

So a gentle jog it was until we got back to the track and since I only had 9.5km on the Garmin, I decided to run a few laps to achieve at least 11k before doing the stretching with the girls. I put on a little show just to show what shape I'm in and found myself running the next kilometre in 3:33 - amazing. It felt easy too.

It was relaxing to finish the session stretching in the grass doing a few sit-ups and listening to José and Nico grunting beside me as they struggled to manage 15 without regurgitating their mid-day meals. To cap the session, Delphine showed us all her recent poses achieved on her last club 18-30 holiday (sorry UCPA) involving lifting her buttocks some 50 cm off the ground. Just what do these youngsters get up to nowadays? No wonder Nico and José were grunting so much...

Recovery run - of sorts

I wanted to get out this morning to fit in a recovery run. Laurence tried to talk me out of it last night by telling me that I'd be better off spending an extra hour in bed, but I was hearing none of this. It's almost I though I had a litle devil on my shoulder telling me to take some time off, take it easy, relax it won't matter. I'm not convinced and my performance yesterday and the relative performances of the runners around me has only spurred me on to try harder.

When the alarm rang at 6:00 am I have to admit that I had second thoughts. It's all very well to be fired up, enthusisatic and positive about your running performance but when faced with the prospect of a run or an extra hour in bed when you're already sleep deprived... well, it's a bit like offering chocolate to an underfed youth.

Let it be noted that I went running nevertheless.

Now that I feel all virtuous I can also let you know what happened. I planned on my usual route around Maisons Laffitte as it's now dark again at this time in the morning. I told myself that I could wear my new Saucony Kinvara as I would be sticking to the roads. I told myself that I would just take it easy.

The weather outside was perfect. Dawn was still a few minutes away but there were few clouds and a temperature of around 10°C, no wind and ideal conditions for running.After only a few steps, I felt good. It often happens that after a race the previous day, I'm on a high and have a burst of energy. The fact that the race was only 5k probably helped in that I had more energy that lasted longer. Running was easy and I let myself go and enjoyed being outside. I didn't look at the watch for the first 4 km but knew that the pace was good. When the Garmin beeped for the next kilometre I snuck a look and the feelings were confirmed : 4:19 and not yet 22:30 for total time so an average under 4:30.

This further convinced me to fly and blast it. The shoes are excellent - lightweight and with excellent grip, they just suit my running style perfectly. I loooked at my splits now and all were around 4:16 - 4:20 so just slower than marathon pace. I pushed an extra loop in fornt of the castle and headed home, running the last kilometre in 3:46 just to show I could.

12,1km all up in 52:26 or an average of 4:20 per km. Why don't I feel like this every time I go out?

Triel - 5km

I lined up for this race thinking and hoping that I'd be able to beat one of the objectives set by Nick before year end. I have to achieve 4 of the 5 and so far, I've achieved nothing. With this in mind I picked up Nico and Nick this morning heading off to Triel for the 5 km race.

Nico and I had decided to enter the 5km race, as opposed to the 10km distance, since we're aiming to achieve a podium in our next relay race in Vincennes towards the end of next month. As a bonus, I thought that it would be good to get one of the objectives in the process, but several had warned me that this would be hard.

The course is not flat and after a 300m slope downhill from the start, things get serious immediately with a steep uphill that lasts for over a kilometre. This slope lessens in intensity after a kilometre before you turn a right-hand bend a find a real wall in fornt of you with 200m to climb to the top. From then on, there is a succession of downhills and slight uphills, punctuated with bends and sharp corners. This is Gérald's training ground and he'd told me that the likelihood of me beating 18:01 was approximately zero. Being an optimistic chap, I wasn't inclined to believe him.

The would be no excuse due to the weather today as it was a cool 13°C and the high clouds were only just disappearing as we lined up for the start. I stood just behind Nico and when the gun went I set off at what I felt was a moderate pace. The downhill was easy and having run a warm-up loop with Nico, I knew what to expect from the start. I settled into the long pull uphill and found a rhythm I was comfortable with, passing a few youngsters who'd set off like rockets and were quickly paying the price. Nico pulled away slightly but was only about 20 - 30 metres ahead as we finished the climb to the highest point of the course.

I had overtaken a few runners up the hill and was pleased to still be feeling relatively comfortable but I was overtaken now by a couple of runners, both veterans as we headed down the hill. We formed a small group and one of the runners shouted out to keep together and speed up. I was unable to latch on and let them go (which I regretted bitterly afterwards) and both began to gap me. The runner who'd called out dropped the other too and he almost caught Nico at the end. I was not able to push the pace on the downhill and not prepared to make any more effort on the uphill stretches.

I almost pulled back the runner who'd come past towards the end but he was still too strong and I finished in 18th place in 19:04, 30 seconds exactly after Nico who was 3 places ahead. A good run overall and pleased retrospectively to have managed this time. The runner who passed me and called out announced to me after the race that he runs 10km in 35:00 so I wasn't too bitter.

A good race in the 10km too when Régis just beat Robin on the line to mark his come-back to competition. I'm going to have to look out for Régis in future races.

Last week's training

Not much to report for last week but I did manage to get to both club sessions (despite the heavy workload - but I've already mentioned that ;) ). It's amazing how I can manage to slip out of work to go for a run but I have a lot more trouble sitting down to write the blog. Anyway, ...

It was good to see Nico at both sessions and on Tuesday there was some attempt to get people to run 4x8' at marathon speed (José's idea in preparation for the ultra-trails coming up soon). Nico and Tom set the pace at the front and José, Nat, Simon and I followed. I pushed on to catch Nico and Tom and was running around 3:50 pace for the first interval and then 3:55 pace for the second. I didn't run any more intervals after these first two as both Tom and Nico stopped at this point and with the heat and the exhaustion, this was enough to convince me to throw in the towel too.

Thursday was more relaxing with a block of 15 x 30/30 organised by Thierry. With the upcoming race on Sunday, neither Nico or I were very motivated to make any effort and Gérald was injured, so relaxing behind. We only put a little spurt on when we took a shortcut and caught Thierry and Simon at the front and pushed them for the last 4 reps.

Saturday saw me out with Laurence and a couple of her friends as we ran towards Cora at an easy pace (5:45 average) and managed 13km before breakfast.

A very easy week which I'll need to build on now to start my marathon training shortly.

Holidays

I'm back !

Actually I've been back from holidays for a week now, but work has been really busy so I haven't been able to update the blog this week. The business is currently in the process of being bought out, so this is a good enough excuse if ever one was needed.

The holidays were a much needed and welcome break. We were near to Carcassone and enjoyed discovering the countryside of the Aude and the wine that was on offer (and heaven knows there is plenty). I won't list all of the runs that we did, but just let you know that during the week they were based on 2 circuits that we discovered around the gîte where we were staying. If ever you're in this part of the world, check out Chateau de Cointes, a vineyard in the AOC de la Malepère.

The little track shown above led down from the Chateau and gîte to the first circuit, an artificial lake which was about 2 km away and just over 2km around. The second circuit was up the hill towards Lavalette and then along some tracks besides the vineyards to Roullens before heading back down the road to the gîte. This was my favourite circuit as over the 8 km there was a wide variety of terrain and some great steep little hills.

I managed to run 80 km during the week including a 25km run in Aurillac on Sunday morning to Saless and Boussac and Velzic before turning back (I did this one previously back in June in 2:07 and managed to do 2:02 for a slightly longer route this time). All of the runs had one thing in common: the heat. In Carcassonne, it would be between 28 - 30°C by the time we got up to go for a morning run and in Aurillac we arrived just in time for the heatwave (37°C).

I spent most of the week running with Laurence, so I wasn't too concerned about my speed, but I was pleased to maintain the mileage.

Some photos of the family relaxing on their hols...

 Laurence and the boys at Carcassonne

 Why I didn't lose any weight on holiday

 Laurence relaxing before the next run

Breathing in for the photo, having eaten too many ice creams!

Early morning recovery

Boy was it tough to get out of bed this morning when the alarm rang. Summer is coming to an end and it is now definitely twilight at 6:15 am. My body was telling me to go back to bed but I'd made a commitment (both written and oral) to go for a run this morning and so I went.

It felt bad from the beginning as my right knee almost buckled under me just going down the stairs this morning. I then went out and headed off in the direction of the town hall to make a change from the normal route and to start off with a comfortable downhill section.

I only just about managed to run this kilometre in under 5 minutes before I was heading back uphill towards the church and then on into the forest between Le Mesnil and Maisons Laffitte.

The going was tough all of the way despite the sedate pace and I could feel the tension in my right thigh and a definite weakness in the right knee. This gradually wore off as I got to 5 kilometres and I was able to run around 4:35 pace for the rest of the run. Last night's intervals and trying to follow Nico around the track had left their mark and my body was still feeling the after-effects. I ran into Avenue Albine in front of Maisons Laffitte castle and a loop of this avenue before heading back to Leader Price and the church at Le Mesnil and then home.

Arrived home decidedly tired, hot and sweaty. It began to rain just as I reached home so that's the Summer over for this year and one of the worst on record.

11.3 km all up in 52:30 or an average of 4:40 per km.

4 x 1000m

A samll turnout at the club session tonight and Michel Z was in charge and ecstatic about it. He'd organised a 'real' training session for the 20 runners who'd turned up : 2 x 10 minutes at threshold. Nico had other ideas and wanted to do a track session with some longer intervals. Between the track and a session with Michel: I chose the track and I wasn't complaining.

We waremed up with the others as they ran into the forest and then Nico, Simon and myself left them to head back around by the swimming pool and back to the clubhouse where the track was waiting for us. No PSG female stars tonight; no budding young female athletics starlets either. It was the track and the 3 of us.

A few strides for warm-ups and then Simon and I waited as Nico insisted on running a few more straights before we set off. I was eager to be going in order to get it over with and Simon felt the same way. Any more staights and we'd have been knackered before we started. Nico declared himself to be fully recovered from his very serious left calf cramping injury. Delphine wasn't anywhere in sight this evening as apparently there was some sort of girl's shower organised where she was said to be honing her new-found massage skills. Still something or someone had managed to put Nico right and he seemed to be satisfied with the arrangement even if he wasn't letting us into the secret of his recovery.

We were off and Nico headed straight to the front and Simon and I tried to follow. We would remain in touch for the first 400m and then he would gradually pull away and I'd be unable to respond. He ran all of his intervals in around 3:20 whereas I ran all of mine in 3:27 with the last in 3:28. I was pleased with my regularity and I felt far better than Tuesday while running. I was also chuffed to have managed all under 3:30 which was my initial target.

Laurence and Christelle joined us at the end and made a scene by drooling over this athlete sprinting down the back straight interspersing his sprints with push-ups, knee jerks and star jumps. He was showing off his torso and the girls were suitably impressed. What a w*nker!

11.8 km all up and a really good session in just over the hour. Another recovery run tomorrow morning and we're off on holiday for another week in the south of France. Looking forward to it.

Cramped my style

Work is quieter at the moment with many people on holiday and it even makes for pleasant driving now in and out of Paris with roughly a third of the traffic that I normally experience. As a result of this, even though I left just after my usual time, I was the first to arrive at the club session and able to get changed calmly as opposed to the normal rushed state of affairs. The others arrived slowly: Ephrem, Nico, Laurence, Anne and Delphine and then finally Ylies and Simon walked through the gate.

Young Nico's face lit up at this point as he was dead keen to do a track session this evening. He'd been hassling me as to what I fancied doing and frankly, I was just looking forward to taking it easy, feeling that I hadn't completely recovered from the morning's run. My answer didn't satisfy him so he was looking for further moral support from other youngsters. Seeing Simon and Ylies turning up just in time saved his evening. He ran up to them immediately and almost fell to his knees imploring them to do a track session and to his delight they acquiesced. A track session was on but what would it be ?

We warmed up together, leaving the other runners to head off towards St Germain and the equestrian centre on the western edge of the town, while we headed east towards the forest and the swimming pool. We chatted about the London riots and our solutions for dealing with the problems which were generally far more radical than anything I've heard from the British government so far. Rubber bullets weren't hard enough and some solutions involved lampposts, some strong rope and were enough to bring tears to your eyes simply with the thought of it. We all commented on how thin and fit Ylies was looking be he put this down to ramadan, rather than any serious training. The sly devil - having spent all summer on the track, turning around so many times that he was dizzy, the rest of us remained unconvinced. Nevertheless, it was Ylies's proposal for the session that was finally adopted. Nico wanted to run 500m intervals, I preferred 200m and Simon wasn't committing. Ylies suggested 500m then 200m off 100m recovery between each and we finally agreed on 5 blocks of these.

When we got back to the track young Nico almost changed his mind again about the session. The female PSG squad were out training and we had to pull him away from the trackside and stick his tongue back into his mouth before we could get him moving again. I have to admit that since the women have qualified for the champions league, they're far more talented than their male counterparts and it didn't cost € 85m recently to recruit them. A last few sprints down the home straight and we were ready to go for the first 500 metres.

Whether it was the excitement of seeing the women in their shorts or just happy to wear his new track shoes, young Nico shot off like a bullet, closely followed by Ylies. Simon and I trailed a few metres behind and I seriously worried about the pace if we were to do 5 series like this. However, after their initial fast start, neither of the front runners made up much ground on us over the last 200 metres and they finished just a couple of seconds ahead. I ensured that the recovery was jogged (and not walked) and I set off just ahead of Nico for the 200. I pushed hard for the first 100 and then eased off slightly as Nico passed me around the bend in the second 100. Another quick recovery and I was off again.

I ran the following intervals :
1:32 / 38
1:37 / 37
1:39 / 38
1:42 / 39
1:41 / 38
off 55 second recoveries on average with 51 seconds for the last 300m.

Young Nico and Simon finished almost a lap behind me as they couldn't take the pace and walked the 100 metre recoveries whereas I jogged each. Sure, they're both fast but they're lacking the mental strength to compete when it comes to stamina and endurance. This is a sad reflection of the youth of today who expect everything to come easily and be served on a plate.

We finished with a jog around the stadium on the grass until we were forced to stop this with Nico complaining of a little cramp in his left calf. The others had come back from their easy jog around St Germain by now and when Nico tried to impress Delphine by leaping over (actually struggling to straddle is more appropriate) the barrier, he fell to the ground, clutching his calf and screaming in agony. It was the most feable attempt to attract some female attention that I've ever seen. When I grabbed his foot to try and relieve the cramping, he just cried out further demanding an immediate massage from Delphine, stating that only this would solve his problems and release the tension... Pathetic ! Luckily, Delphine was having none of this and he had to struggle to a bench on his own to take the weight off his feet.

10.5 km all up in just under an hour and the only good that will come of this is that Nico should stop hassling us all for another track session in the near future.

Easy morning

 I woke up early to go on an easy morning run around the usual route in Maisons Laffitte just in case I wouldn't be able to make it to the club session this evening. I gave myself a 15 minute lie-in only setting out at 6:15 am and then being surprised as day had only just broken. So days are already drawing in again and we haven't seen any signs of Summer yet. Both July and August have been complete wash-outs so far and the temperature has struggled to get into the 20s° C. Still it wasn't raining today so I thanked my stars for small mercies and set out on the run.

It was easy from the word go: starting at 4:50 pace and then gradually building up the pace as I ran to hit 4:30 pace by the end  with a last kilometre in 4:11 down the hill. I thought about how I used to run this slightly smaller loop through the park of Maison Laffitte and I would always try and achieve a 4:10 pace over the distance. Nowadays, I've slowed the recovery pace to about 4:35 - 4:40 and I tend to achieve this after a slower warm-up around 4:50 pace., I haven't noticed a deterioration in my race speeds as I still put in some interval work with the club sessions which helps maintain the speed. I have moved on from trying to beat my PB for the course every time I go out and concentrate more on my running style and movements - not that I've noticed much improvement in this, just a tendency to reduce my foot lift when I'm running easily.

10.3 km all up in 47:11 or an average of 4:34 per km.

Sunday club session

I trundled off to the club for the morning session by myself this morning since Laurence was running with a friend. The sun had finally decided to come out and the temperature was far cooler than Saturday, so much that I was quite looking forward to the prospect of an easy Sunday run through the forest with the other guys from the club. Nico had promised to turn up so it was a bit of a surprise to see that he wasn't there when I turned up. In fact, there was not a large turnout with about just over 20 runners present and about half of them women. I was just beginning to wonder if I wasn't better off running by myself when Nico turned up, looking as though he'd had a rough night and needed a couple of matches to keep his eyes open.

I had a quick chat with Simon and Alex then ran towards the front and saw Nico with Vincent. So there were definitely some runners who were going to push the pace at some point today and the session was improving greatly until Michel Z announced that we were heading towards Cora. I don't have anything against this little lake but I would have preferred some other destination for a change. We were running at a gentle pace with Vincent, Nico, Ephrem and myself at the front chatting about Vincent's forthcoming move to the States and the impact fast food would have on his running. It might have been gentle (5:00 / km) but we soon distanced the others so we stopped at the cabin in the forest as per usual. Our front running tactics apparently cut no ice with Michel Z and when they caught up here, they continued straight on without stopping. Michel Z was showing us in no uncertain terms that it was he who'd be leading the session today.

Michel stopped the group about 10 minutes later and instantly a row started with another runner telling him that this wasn't warm-up speed and that he was exhausting the group etc., etc. I almost felt sorry for Michel with the fierceness of the attack and would have stepped in to add my tuppence worth but it was Michel after all who can be so annoying... We carried on and then stopped 10 minutes later for a pee stop but nobody was interested now as we'd stoped earlier. Michel was taking no chances though in upsetting anyone else now. We started again and headed towards Pavillon de la Muette: Vincent, Nico and Ephrem accelerating away from the rest of the group. I wasn't going to run by myself with Michel so I put on a burst myself to catch them and we headed off towards Achère for our 10 minutes acceleration as planned.

Nico clearly fancied his chances here but I wasn't going to let him have it easy so we pushed the pace until we were striding at 3:37 pace and sped to 3:32 pace now before a little hesitation as to where the path should go and then back up to 3:40 pace. I felt good about myself as to be able to hang on and Nico was only a couple of metres ahead, there was virtually nothing in it. Ephrem and Vincent fell off the back with Vincent really struggling with the pace, showing his lack of training since the marathon back in spring. We ran back to Achères and the railway before cutting into the forest on the Poissy side and along the tracks running parallel to the main road. We slowed now for Vincent to keep up and then cut back towards Croix de Noailles before crossing back over the main road and along back to the club. We caught the rest of the group here and pushed the pace again to catch the front runners, running at 15km/h. I found this hard and let Nico and Ephrem go at this point before catching them again just before the sprint finish at 16 km/h.

18.25 km all up in 1:31 or an average of 5:00 per km and a total of 66 km for the week.

The best part of the morning was heading back to Nico's for breakfast with Laurence and being looked after by his charming wife. The idea of a dip in the pool was tempting but we'd cooled off after the run now and the temperature was not hot enough to entice this time. Good morning all round.

Cora nice and easy

This was the intention at least: to enjoy a pleasant run to Cora, chatting with Nico who I hadn't seen in a few weeks about our usual subjects: wine, women and song, not forgetting PSG's performance.

Nico is a great fan of PSG and highly enthusiastic now that the Qataris have finally injected some cash into the club and spent €85m on transfers to boost the level of players. He is expecting some quality football and a return to European competition, which, quite frankly, quality is not the first word that springs to mind when discussing football in the Paris region. He was very hopeful that the tide had turned and that PSG was now on the right track to becoming the great club it used to be (personally I wasn't born when this was the case and so I don't know which pre-war era he was referring to). Nevertheless, as we set out Saturday morning I detected a spring in his stride and some optimism that had been missing a long time from the young lad's face (*).

Having exhausted the subject of PSG, we talked about other subjects including upcoming races and most notably Paris-Versailles and Marseille-Cassis. I sense that Nico is very worried about the hills on both of these courses and feels that my recent stay in the Alps has boosted me tremendously and I'm once again a force to be reckoned with. He's right of course, but I didn't want to undermine his confidence further so I told him that he'd come good on the day - the hill for Paris-Versailles is only 2km long albeit with a 16% gradient, and the hill for Marseille-Cassis is slightly under 10km of ascent, so he should manage this if he abstains from sex, alcohol and late-night poker parties for the next few months... I can't say that he looked entirely enthusiastic about the prospect, in fact he turned slightly pale but this might have been since we increased the pace to around 4:20 per km at this point.

Nico managed to catch a breather when we bumped into Olivier out for a long training run before attacking the TDS at the end of the month. This race is over 110km with over 7000m of ascent. Olivier was looking fine and revealed his secret weapon when it comes to training for long trail runs : Sex Pistols at full volume on the iPod. Apparently your brain turns to mush after a few minutes and the pain is unnoticeable thereafter. Just remember that you heard it here first. We set off again and Nico struggled to Cora and then begged to slow the pace down before we attacked the uphill section back to Pavillon de la Muette. It was actually hard enough getting him this far since we crossed a particularly attractive female runner heading in the opposite direction on the way and it took all the strength I could muster to hold onto his 20 year old Champion vest and stop him from jogging after her. I have to admit that Nico had made a special effort in his attire this morning and must have asked Michel Z for some tips on finding the most attractive running gear on the market. I really appreciated the faded look of the formerly blue top which after successive washes in what must have been a sewage pit was now a very attractive shade of grey.

We managed to get to Pavillon de la Muette with Nico still breathing and when we attacked the next section of uphill, I pushed the pace slightly harder, basking in the glory of having Nico behind me, breathing very heavily down my neck in what can only be described as a pant. He was suffering and when I took pity on the poor lad and eased off the pace slightly, he responded by overtaking me and leaving me in his wake. No sense of dignity whatsoever. Anyway we finally left the forest and ran the last road section through Le Mesnil together with a quick sprint finish to end in a very respectable time.

15km all up in 1:05:36 or an average pace of 4:25. Not bad going.

(*) Footnote: PSG lost miserably in a 1-0 defeat to Lorient at home that evening. Another €85m well spent !!

Thursday - new route

A change is as good as a rest - so the saying goes. Since I decided that I was in need of a rest, I changed my standard course for the early morning run and ran towards the town hall to begin with on leaving the house.

This was a good idea, for the first kilometre at least. I set out and took it easy, resting my knees and right thigh which is still causing me problems. The good idea turned sour at the end of the road when I had to turn right up the lane towards the church in Le Mesnil. This is a steep little slope and I dropped my pace to under 12km/h to get to the top of this uphill section before relaxing again and heading out to the forest at the edge of Maisons Laffitte / Le Mesnil.

I was back into familiar territory now and I relaxed downhill through the trees and crossed the railway line to get to Maisons Laffitte park in front of the castle. A quick loop of Avenue Albine towards the castle and back and I was back out of the park on my usual route home back over the railway, running towards Le Mesnil again up to Leader Price and along Blvd Pasteur to home.

It was a good route and made a change from the usual circuit which I know by heart now. I was very steady running every kilometre in 4:35 after the slow start. 11.3km all up in 52:12 or an average of 4:37 per km.

Evening club session

Manage to double up today and get out of work in sufficient time to get to the evening club session. When I turned up I saw Gérald but was disappointed he didn't have his running kit with him as he's managed to get himself injured during the holidays. I think personally that easing off the training has probably caused this and that a return to some hard marathon training will only be beneficial. Nico was also notably absent, having heard that I'd been doing so much hill training during the last couple of weeks, he decided to modify his training schedule and ran an early morning track session just to avoid me.

The turnout was fairly good considering it's the holidays and the weather is lousy. However, the rainstorm had just blown over and the temperature was around 23°C which is warmer than we've been experiencing for a while in what must be the worst Summer ever in France. Plenty of female runners all asking why Laurence wasn't there (bad knee after descending Pointe de Méribel) and Thierry, Simon, Robin, Ephrem and Alex the fastest guys at the session. The idea was to run into the forest for the warm-up and then do 2x10x 30"/30" with a 3 minute recovery between the blocks.

After our warm-up, I set off at the front with Thierry running the 30/30s. We were soon overtaken by Robin and Simon and on the second block, I could feel the lactate rising in my thighs after 5 or 6 intervals and had to ease off letting Ephrem pass me on the recoveries and just able to get in front of him on the sprints.

I suffered in the humidity and was sweating buckets by the end. Disappointed not to be closer to Thierry though as I should be sticking to him now.

10.3km all up in just under the hour. Tough going especially on top of the session in the morning.

Early morning jog

A jog is all that I was able to manage today at 6:20am. I'd given myself an extra quarter hour in bed but this was vastly insufficient to catch up on the fatigue of 2 weeks sport in the Alps.

I ran around the usual route and took it very steadily for the first 5 kilometres during which I woke up. These were run at 4:50 pace on average. I then began to feel a little better and increased the pace to 4:30 speed for the next 4 kilometres before a final effort for the last slight downhill section where I was able to dig into my depths to find some untapped energy and speed : 4:17 pace. Ok - so I was exagerating for the energy and speed but the intention was there.

Still feeling the effects of the week in the Alps and a short night's sleep didn't help matters much in the healing process.

10.9km all up in 49:30 or ana average pace of 4:33 per km.