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.