Corra alone

Nico deserted me this morning, pretexting some prior arrangement elsewhere so I was left to run Corra by myself. No worries, I thought, this was the ideal opportunity to run at my comfortable speed and not be forced along by my younger running mate, obliging me to follow or be cursed by a litany of accusations from his blog later on in the day.

I set off easily running up through town with the Garmin recording the first kilometre in 4:42 (it had played up and recorded at least 50 metres short of the official distance) and then the second in 4:50. This did feel good and I relaxed into my run. I was so relaxed that I sped up to my natural pace and was soon enough running at 4:25 / km. Still Nico wasn't alongside me to pick the pace up further was he? I could just relax now and preserve myself for my official pacing duties tomorrow.

I had volunteered with pleasure for a 10km race in Etampes to accompany François in his attempt to better his record of 39:22 and try and achieve the official McMillan equivalent time for a 3 hour marathon: 38:21. SO to run this pace, I didn't want to arrive shattered after a recovery run around Corra. I looked at the Garmin for kilometre 6 - 4:08. Ok so it wasn't just Nico who drives the pace around Corra. The next 3 were the same: 4:11, 4:04 then 4:09. I was on a roll. It was only the uphill to Pavillon de la Muette which slowed me down. I picked the pace up again back in town to finish.

15 km all up in 1:04 or an average pace of 4:16. Come back Nico - all is forgiven!