Out and about

I spent most of the week travelling on business and as alaways I packed my running kit and trainers and made the most of the places and hotels where I was staying.

This week was mostly Lyons and Marseille :

Tuesday 12th June: my favourite run to Dardilly and back in the evening. Since I had no pressing obligation I was able to get to the very top of the hill in Dardilly beyond the church and admire the view. 15km all up and a very fast return which saw me completing the last kilometre in 3:24. Wish I could keep this up for 10km.

Thursday 14 th June : Marseill next to the airport and a very disappointing run where I struggled to find a decent road away from the traffic to run. I spent most of my time beside the airport running down the side of the runway. I'm sure there are better places to run around Vitrolles. 11 km all up in the early hours of the morning.

Friday 15th June: Headed back up to Dardilly and then explored slightly to the west getting lost in the fields and forest between Dardilly and Charbonnières. Lovely run and some steep hill training. 11 km all up at 6:00 am.

Saturday 16th June : trail training again with Nico, Pascal, Laurence, Katia and Sandra. Same route as last week up around Joyenval and along the golf course having passed under the A13. 25 km all up at a very steady pace.

Sunday 17th June: dopped Laurence off for her trip to the Auvergne and met up with Nico and his family and friends in Creteil for the marathon relay. Weather was milder than previous years and I managed to run a 8.5 leg in 31:29 before finishing with the others. A lovely meal and great fun chatting and messing around with the group. 16km in total for the day.

A total of 80 km for the week.

Catching up

It's been a busy time and I've found it hard to wite my blog these last few weeks. Whenever I'm not working or running I'm sleeping and trying to recover from work and running. It's definitely a Catch 22 situation. Joseph Heller eat your heart out!

Main objective at the moment is putting in the distance for the CCC at the end of August. The second objective is doing well in the club outing and beating Nico in the process. In order to achieve both of these I've been trying to complete 100 km weeks and this was the first.

Friday 8th June was on my own around town for 11km.

Saturday 9th June was running with Laurence around a long trail route around Marly forest that I'd run with François a week earlier. 25 km all up as I couldn't be bothered to run back this time

Sunday 10th June was the club event and I'd volunteered to cycle ahead of the race. To get my kilometres in I ran 19km early Sunday morning and then hopped on the bike to the St Germain terrasse where the race was set. I cycled ahead of Mustapha as he ran to victory in 30:34. A very pleasant pace to cycle at !

100 km all up for the week.

Photos

Just a couple of photos taken at the races recently in Orgerus.

First one, a photo of the team from St Germain with Mustapha (1st), Anis (4th), Ilyes, Eric, Nico and me last of the 6th but in 18th position. The standard is definitely increasing within the club !

 

A nice photo of Sandra, Katia and Laurence after the race, cramming in the calories to recover!

Short recovery

I was short for time so I just ran a shortened version of the Maisons Laffitte loop cutting up after the castle into the park rather than running along to the racecourse.

I refused to look at the Garmin this morning as I was suffering in the legs after yesterday's efforts. I just enjoyed the early morning run and the peace and quiet, cutting back through the forest just to prolong the pleasure of the tranquility of the morning.

9.1km in 41:17 or an average pace of 4:31 / km.

Doubling up

Got a good morning run in this morning around Maisons Laffitte town course. Felt good all of the way around and the kilometres went by quickly. I put this down to the race training and the speed that this brings just afterwards.
13.4 km in 55:08 so an average of 4:07 / km.

To make my day, I also managed to get out of work in time to get to the evening session. Well almost. I was a bit late but then found Michel and his group in the forest doing a 4', 6', 8', 4', 2' pyramid session. This was the group without the fastest runners from the club so I thught I would just take it easy after this morning's session. I couldn't help myself and ran to the front encouraging Philippe and Benoit over the intervals. I blasted the last couple running at 3:35 then 3:25 pace to finish.

A good session too especially with the humidity in the forest which made the effort particularly hard. 11km in 58:00 bringing the total distance to 24km for the day.

Porridge

This was what it felt like to run around town first thing this morning. My legs were heavy and I was still tired despite taking it easy all yesterday afternoon. It felt like running through porridge.

It was a lot cooler than of late and the temperature was hovering around 13°C with grey skies. Ideal conditions to be running really with no wind but when your body's had enough, it doesn't matter what the conditions are like, it's just tough moving your legs full stop.

I ran around town towards the racecourse and then through the park and back through the forest to home. I decided not to do a loop around the park to extend the run but kept it short and sweet. The pace started at 4:45/km and I finished at 4:20/km by the time my legs had eased slightly and overcome the heaviness of the start.

11km all up in 50:20 or 4:35/km on average. Thought about yesterday's race and realised that it was a new PB for a 15km course so cheered me up considerably ;)

Orgerus - 15 km

My prayers had been answered. God exists.

It rained last night. It rained and rained and rained and then it rained some more. When we went to bed last night it was 21°C and we left the window open all evening. When we got up it was 16°C and a lot fresher in the atmosphere. The one downside was that with the window open, the sound of the rain had kept me awake most of the night and I'd slept quite fitfully. The whiskies, wine and cider after our evening out hadn't helped either and I was definitely a little rough around the edges when I woke up this morning. Still given a choice of running in 24°C, which has been the average temperature recently and 16°C, I would chose the latter anyday.

We drove to Orgerus with Nico and Ilyes and met up with François, Katia, Pascal and Sandra before heading off all together for a warm-up around the start of the course. It was fairly ideal conditions with a cool temperature but a stiff breeze that might prove to be difficult to manage on some of the more exposed parts of the course. As we warmed up, we noticed some of the other good runners taking part. Already from our club we had Mustapha, Anis, Ilyes, Nico and Eric - it didn't look as though I would be even part of the first 5 members of the club home.

I lined up at the start with Nico and Fleg who suggested that we run together. I didn't know what sort of shape he was in in but I thought that we would be closely matched. The gun went and it was soon obvious that I wouldn't be able to stay close to Nico today. He was running well ahead and was just behind Eric on the initial downhill section of the course. I ran with Fleg and we shouted out 3:30 as we went through the first kilometre. After 1.5km we head right and start up a muddy track and I picked up a few places here and felt very good in my legs. I saw that I had closed on Nico and Eric and I began to feel that perhaps if I maintained this pace that I would be in for a shouting chance at the finish.

Unfortunately, all too soon I was running by myself. I stuck with a runner for a while but he moved ahead and I saw him catch Eric who'd now been left behind by Nico.

The kilometres went by as follows:

3:31, 3:45, 3:53, 3:46, 3:47, 3:48, 3:59, 3:57, 3:53, 3:53, 3:50, 3:52, 3:53, 3:50, 3:38

I tired at the half-way point as the continuous hills took their toll and I began to look over my shoulder just before 10km to see where Fleg was behind me. There was a good gap at 10km but this had narrowed rapidly by 12km and I was convinced that the group of 4 runners that he was with would catch me and overtake me. I prepared myself for the worst but it never happened and I was able to maintain a pace to hold them off.

I could see Nico and Eric in front all of the way around but they never came back to me and Nico, particularly, ran a great race finishing 2 minutes ahead of me in 55:41 while I crossed the line in 57:39, my best time ever for the course. Fleg finished only 12 seconds behind so I was grateful that I had the energy and guts to push until the end.

François had a good race beating Jean-François home with Pascal finishing not too long afterwards. I ran back to see how the women were doing and Katia beat Sandra in a final sprint to finish in 1:11:24 and 1:11:25 with Laurence finishing 30 seconds behind in 1:11:53.

Pleased with the run overall as I felt good at the start if a little drained by the finish in the legs from Les Clayes on Friday and lack of sleep. I checked some previous year's results and saw that I beat Eric's times from 2 and 3 years ago so I can still hope to improve in the next couple of years.

Recovery run

Despite racing last night with another race tomorrow, a recovery run was in order and I set off in the direction of the forest to enjoy some shade and an easy run.

It was very peasant in the forest and my legs had not suffered too much from the race last night. I had a little twinge in my right knee but nothing too painful. A good regular rhythm running through the forest at about 4:40 pace but gaining a little speed towards the end.

12.75 km all up in 58:22 or an average pace of 4:35 over the circuit. Felt great to be out and a good start to the day.

Les Clayes sous Bois - 10km

Piecing it all together afterwards, I still can't figure out why I was down to run this race. I can't remember who started the discussion about doing 2 races in the same weekend and how we managed to be 5 friends (Laurence, Katia, Nico, François and myself) with our names down on both lists for participation in Les Clayes on Friday night and then Orgerus on Sunday morning. Whatever the reason I spent most of Friday ruing the decision and wondering what on earth was going to happen.

When I drove into town at 7:30pm for the 8:30pm start I already had a load of excuses ready: it was too hot (23°C), I was tired after a tough week at work, I was lacking sleep. Meeting the others and then warming up around town only confimed what I already feared that the heat was going to be the main issue. We ran just under 3km as a warm-up and I was dripping with sweat already. The good news was that the course had been modified from previous years and instead of doing 3 loops with a bugger of a hill to manage, there were 2 longer loops this year.

I lined up at the start with the rest of the gang and when the gun went I made a mental resolution not to set off like a looney. I was surprised to see François ahead of me for the first 200m when he finally saw reason and Nico and I ran past in a small group of 4. We ran the first kilometre downhill together and then turned and ran up a long slope for the next 500m before turning into a little park for some greenery and views of the old part of town. This was the little respite before pulling up 2 more steeper hills albeit shorter, and then the road flattens out and heads downhill with some long flat straights to complete the circuit.

Nico had taken the lead on our little group heading up to the second kilometre marker and I concentrated on getting past the other 2 runners and not losing touch with Nico. The steeper hills killed me though and with the heat, Nico made some good ground on me here and I would never be able to get back in touch after this. I was now focussed on losing my adversary from Gally who was getting a lot of local support. He came past me at the 4km marker and I hung onto him going through the end of the first lap and then on the downhill section of the second loop.

As we ran back up the slope to the park, I put in a little effort and came past him again. I just concentrated now on maintaining the best pace I could manage as the heat had drained all motivation from my body. I could see Nico about 100 - 150 metres ahead now and knew that I had no chance of catching him. I slowed even further on the steeper hills, putting in a kilometre in 4:04 and I was just praying that the runner behind wasn't feeling any fresher than I was. I could hear him just behind and didn't dare turn to see where he was as I didn't want to encourage him. Instead, I tried to accelerate away on the flat and put some distance in to discourage him if he thought of attacking again.

I was by myself now and watched Nico turn at the 8 km marker and spot me 150 metres behind. I saw him ease off the pace and smiled to myself as he had nothing to race for now. I wasn't going ot catch him and there was no chance of a time in this heat and on this course. I couldn't ease off as I had my Gally runner behind still and he hadn't given up the chase just yet. I pushed on until the final bend and then had the last 150 metres of uphill to the finish line which I sprinted as hard as I could. If he was going to beat me now, he'd have to put the effort in with the crowds cheering him on. He finished 2 seconds behind me. Relief.

I finished in 37:16 in 7th place and 2nd vet with Nico one place ahead in 36:48. François finished in a slightly disappointing 41:18 as he's capable of beating 40 minutes regularly now - too much cycling and not enough running recently. Katia finished just ahead of Laurence in 46:52 and 47:06 respectively with them picking up 1st and 2nd place in the female vet category. Another podium and this one is becoming a regular in their racing calendar.

Good to have a meal all together afterwards after an interminable wait with one of the most verbose presenters ever encountered for the prize winners.