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.

Paris Marathon

I was assuming pacing duties for the girls today around the Paris marathon course. I had arranged to meet them just before the 5 km marker and run the rest of the marathon with them. A modified photocopy of Laurence's bib would hopefully ensure that I wouldn't be ejected from the end of the circuit by the marshals and would allow us all to finish together.

I stood waiting in the cold (6°C) just before Bastille watching the elite go past and then searching hopefully for François and Benj on their quest to beat 3 hours. No sign of them at all but it's so hard to spot individuals in the mass of runners and if you don't concentrate really hard, all you notice is a blur of bright shoes and running gear passing in front of your nose. For Laurence and the girls, we'd specified the spot where I'd be but it was still a relief when I saw Laurence in her Florence marathon running top and Katia and Sandra beside her. I left the pavement and dropped in behind them.

The aim was simple 4'58 per km for 42.2 kilometres and they were slightly ahead of schedule when I met them. I was happy to just sit in behind them to start with and chat easily while they focused on the race. I would act as the gofer at every feeding station, picking up 4 water bottles at each and then sharing out the Gu chomps that were appreciaed by all. We went through 10km in 44:33 and the pace was steady and all of them looked pretty fresh.

We were joined by Stéphanie at this point, who was recovering from an injury with sore ribs (don't ask!) and was looking to run a marathon easily with her girlfriends. A capable runner, she has the potential to run a good 10 - 15 minutes faster than the objective for today. We headed into Vincennes and admired the staging set up for François Hollande's presidential rally in the afternoon. Both he and Nicolas Sarkozy had chosen today to hold their Paris meetings, with the marathon too it wasn't the best day to be in town if you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry.

We had been running for over an hour now and Laurence and Katia were slightly red in the face, whereas Sandra still looked very composed and relaxed. She was suffering from a bad hip but this didn't show at all in her stride or her running today. There was a glimpse of sun from between the clouds and I was happy that the temperature was beginnning to rise as I was feeling the cold. This feeling wasn't shared by all as the girls were obviously more strained and looked slightly warm now. I proposed to share a sponge at the next sponge station situated every 5km but no sponges were to be found. You had to carry them from the beginning or find an alternative. Mine was a piece of cotton cloth I found beside a bucket which I dampened and passed to Laurence to cool her down.

We left Vincennes and through the 20km mark in 1:38 so still slightly ahead of schedule but nothing outrageous compared to the pace fixed for the race. Sandra would shout out every now and then to slow Laurence or Katia down if she thought that they were pushing the pace too hard. I was happy tyo sit at the back of the group and watch as they ran. They had plenty of admirers in the field too. Several male runners would come and latch onto the group, passing on encouraging remarks to the girls. I told one bloke to stop chatting up the women as they were my groupies!

The group held together until 30km when Laurence who had complained of a stitch just before fell back slightly, and Katia who had suffered herself just before, pushed on in Sandra and Stéphanie's wake. Pascal accompanied Sandra from the 22km mark and I dropped back now just to accompany Laurence through her wall and to get her to the end. The pace dropped as we left the Seine, heading up to Porte d'Auteil, and whereas we'd been running at under 5'00 per km until then, we now ran at 5'07. The marathon starts at this point and I could see that Laurence was going to find the end hard. The road rose before getting to Roland Garros and we slowed to a 5'30 pace before picking it up again as the road flattened out.


The last 7 kilometres were a case of gritting your teeth and getting on with it. Katia had disappeared from sight now too, accompanied by Michel the girls' coach. I encouraged Laurence onwards, telling her that it was only 3km to go, a short track session before the finishing line. We passed this point in 3h16 and I knew that we wouldn't go under 3h30 but we wouldn't be far off. It was only a case of hanging on in there which Laurence did admirably, passing literally hundreds of runners in these last kilometres as they were racked with cramps and crying out in pain. The last roundabout appeared and I told her that there was 300m left to run. We managed to accelerate slightly, recovering the 5'00 pace to end the course in a time of 3:33:29. Once over the finishing line, she burst into tears and told Katia, who we saw limping a few metres past the line, that she couldn't breathe.

A great race by all, capped by the news that François had beaten the 3h00 barrier to finish in 2:59:23. Benj missed out by a couple of minutes having suffered from cramps after the 35km mark. Marvellous race for all overall. Sandra and Stéphanie managed to beat 3h30 by a handful of seconds, with Katia finishing a minute ahead of Laurence.

37.6 km for me in an average time of 5'03 per km, completing a good week for mileage with 92km on the clock. Congratulations to all on an excellent marathon and looking forward to Amsterdam now to take part myself and share in the record-breaking attempts.

Marathon training with the girls

Still feeling pretty tired after the race but decided that an easy session would do me the world of good so I settled on a marathon training session with the girls in preparation for Paris marathon in a few weeks time. They had a couple of 30 minute intervals to do at future marathon pace (marathon pace - 10 seconds per kilometre) and that suited me fine.

Turned up with Laurence at the designated starting point in the forest close to St Nom la Breteche waiting for the others to turn up. There was Katia, Sandra, Catherine, Laurence (of course) and Philippe who had turned up to accompany Catherine. We set off at an easy pace for 10 minutes before starting to run at 4:50 pace. In fact, we managed to average around 4:45 pace for the first 30 minutes and then enjoy a 5 minute recovery before the second 30 minutes which were completed at just faster than 4:50 pace. Considering that the target pace was 4:50 and they all looked fairly comfortable in achieving this, I was most impressed. They have been very serious in their preparation and in following the marathon training plan, and without any major meteorological incident or injury, they should all be very close to achieving the 3:30 objective.

It's a really nice group and I thoroughly enjoyed accompanying them over the distance. I was able to relax and recover and yet participate in a tough session for them and encourage them at the same time. The only disappointment was Philippe feeling a pain in his achilles tendon (which was later confirmed as tendinitis) thus forcing him to pull out of the Paris marathon.

13.8 km all up in 1:08 or an average pace of 4:56 / km.

10k race almost

We had all registered for the 10km race in Vincennes this morning. I'd picked up a spare bib from Régis who was injured and the intention was to run with François, taking him under 39 minutes for the first time. Laurence, Sandra and Katia were all aiming to beat their records over the distance and with their recent training, this was looking very feasible.

We woke up to a layer of white. It was still snowing and at -8°C the snow was showing no intention of disappearing immediately. We decided we'd meet up at the carpark at St Germain before making a decision, but by the time that Laurence and I arrived there having slipped our way through the forest in the car, it was clear that we wouldn't be able to make it as conditions were just too dangerous. We transformed our race into a session in the snow and at this point Nico rang to say that his race in the Yvelines had been cancelled and that he'd join us for a training run too.

We headed from the club to the Croix de Noailles through the forest on the Poissy side of the road before heading down to Pavillon de la Muette and then on to Corra in the snow. The conditions were lovely with the fresh snow crunching beneath our feet and the sky gradually brightening as the snow stopped falling. There was a good layer of between 5 and 10 cm of snow and although we were running easily, it wasn't too long before we could feel the extra effort necessary with each stride in our calves.

The garmin ran out of battery on me just before the end but I'd covered 18.5 km at this point and the whole run was probably just under 20km. So with the total time for the run at 1:45 this implied an average pace of 5:15 over the distance. Laurence and Sandra finished a little behind with Sandra running on empty for the last 10km.

Shame for the race as François had been looking forward to it aswell as the girls, but a nice run in the snow for the start of the season.

Paris XIV - 10km

I really thought that I would beat my record over the distance today. McMillan was forecasting a 36:06 and I was hoping to break the 36 minute barrier for the first time ever. I'd even announced this to Nico, Laurence and others so there was no hiding my ambition but how would it go?

I first ran this race 3 years ago and it was the first time that I managed to go under 40 minutes over the distance. I remember my feeling afterwards, elated by my race and with the distinct impression that there was more downhill than uphill despite it being 2 loops of 5 kilometres with the finish line just next to the start. Laurence was running this year too and had convinced Sandra and François to take part aswell. François was aiming to beat 40 minutes in his first ever 10km race. He was totally convinced that he would do it as McMillan predicted a 39:40 for him off the back of his marathon performance in Florence (3:06). McMillan is now his running bible and if he sees it there then it's the gospel truth.

We drove into Paris and my first disappointment was to see that the swimming pool changing rooms were no longer used to get changed and to store your clothes in. There were 2000 runners taking part this year some 800 more than when I last ran. So a quick inspection of the site and then we dropped all of our stuff off and ran a warm-up around the 5km course. The weather was quite clement with the temperature around 7°C and after the warm-up we went immediately to the start area and jumped over the barriers to push in near the front.

Despite these efforts, it still took me almost 10 seconds to get over the start line and to begin to run. I spent the next 1.5km weaving in and out of other runners while François was less lucky and tripped over a stray leg falling down and cutting his hand open. Unfortunately McMillan couldn't predict this sort of event. I focused on getting into a stride, looking at the Garmin that showed the first km in 3:33 and then the second in 3:25. The third kilometre takes you past the only big tower in Paris (beside Eiffel's of course), Montparnasse. I struggled after this point as there was a slight uphill follwed by a flat to end the fourth kilometre and then a long slight uphill back to the start point and the end of the first loop. I only managed these in 3:40, 3:35 and then 3:49.

I began the second loop and my heart wasn't really in it. It was exactly like the cross country last weekend where I went through the motions but I was preserving myself. I could feel the tiredness and I just told myself to ease off and that the pain would go away. So too much thinking and not enough racing really. During the sixth and seventh kilometres, I suffered from a slight stitch in my right-hand side and told myself that it couldn't be as bad as the runner 15 metres in front who kept holding his right hand to his side. A funny way to run but I still couldn't catch him and a couple of runners passed me at this point.

Back past Montparnasse and the 8 kilometre marker. 3:35 again for the kilometre but that was after having benefitted from the downhill. The last hard work was to come but I had already eased. I could see from the virtual partner that I was 21 seconds behind schedule putting me on course for a 36:21 but I knew that I wouldn't be able to hold it up the hill as I was supposed to be running 3:35 pace. I was right and the seconds ticked by. At the end, I didn't even bother to sprint completing the tenth kilometre in 3:54, my slowest over the course.

I just managed to hold on to 36:57 on the official clock and a real time of 36:48 as there was a timing mat at the start. François finished in 39:22 qualifying for the French nationals in the process (under 40:00 for V2), I qualified for V1 (under 37:00) and both Sandra and Laurence qualified with their times of 35:00 and 36:12 respectively (under 48:00 for V1 women). Satisfaction all round for everybody who beat their PB except me. I was relatively satisfied as it's my second fastest time ever and I can't state truthfully that I bust a gut in the process. I know that there's more yet to come.

At least there was hot soup at the finish line so some of the traditions hadn't died out. We've created our own traditions by declaring that every time a personal record is broken, we celebrate with a meal out. I think it's going to be an expensive year.