La Pastourelle

It's been a busy week and I've only just got around now to writing up my running diary for the past week.

La Pastourelle was the big event of last weekend, with a 32 km race in the Cantal around a circuit comprising of over 1000m of uphill.

The profile of the course looked like this. The big challenge was between kilometres 3 and 11 with 8,5 km of climb and 850 metres height to be gained, so an average gradient of 10%.

The day turned out bright and hot. Laurence, Anne , Nick and I had all travelled down together and arrived at the start an hour before the off. Having picked up our bibs, we spent the next 10 minutes appltying the sun cream liberally to protect ourselves from the afternoon sun. It was about 22°C, so too hot for me and I promised myself that I would take it easy over the course.

The start was given and we were off. The beginning was easy enough with 3 kilometres of downhill and I coasted at around 3:46 per km. At the foot of the moutain, we left the road and starting heading up a small track. I ran for about 2 km before starting to walk for a while and then started running again. At this point I was overtaken by the first woman who ran up steadily with small paces, never pausing in her stride. Mentally, I couldn't keep this up as the effort and the heat was too intense. Only an hour and 20 minutes later was I finally at the top of Puy Violent and ready to run the 22 km back to Salers.

Unfortunately, this is where I made my second mistake. I had assumed, naively, that once on the top I would be able to pick up speed easily and run downhill at a regular sustained pace. The reality was totally different, with a narrow track, steep downhill sections with large boulders, and worst of all: more uphill ! The uphill sections proved to be too much and I ended up walking many of them, further slowing my average speed. The tiredness increased and the afternoon heat too. At least on top, the wind had cooled me down substantially whereas with the descent, the breeze dropped and I began overheating. I was very careful to avoid a repeat performance of the marathon, so I stopped at every feeding station to take on liquid and food. These were well organised and situated every 3 - 4 km along the route.

I finished by walking up the steep roads into Salers, applauded by the spectators. Even the thought of the finish line was not motivating enough to get me to run. Total time for the course was 3:14:32 in 62 position out of 556 finishers. Laurence and Anne finished in 4:40 and Nick had to be helicoptored off the mountain after his heart began racing (tachycardia).

Great scenery, lovely course but very demanding. I'll be back next year to improve on my time and will be better prepared mentally for the effort necessary.

Course du Sanglier

After last week's race, I was determined that this would be a better attempt at running a fell race. Last week, I set off too fast and paid the price in the second half of the race. Today was going to be an exercise in running at a consistent pace and feeling better for it. Simple plan, so did it work ?

We arrived at the race nice and early and Laurence, Christèle and I entered the event and changed into our running kit and waited for the rest of the club to appear. We were 8 from the club in total: Philippe and Catherine, Pascale, Christelle, Christiane and us three. I talked to Philippe before the race, explained the race strategy and lined up beside him at the start. Things were looking good for the race though: sun was completely obscured by clouds, temperature was 13°C and the course was very dry. The cannon was fired and we were off.

545 runners were lined up at the start and the going was fast to begin with. The path headed off across some fields on a gentle slope downhill. Despite my race plan, I ran the first kilometre in 3:58 and the second too for that matter. Nevertheless, I felt comfortable at this pace and was in a large group of 10 or so runners. The group soon stretched out as we went up the first hill and then doubled back on ourselves to cut back to where we had run 6 minutes earlier. I eased off down the hill in order to save my right knee from to many shocks as I didn't want it to weaken on me from the start.

The path left the fields after about 4 kilometres and headed into the woods. There were a series of hills up and down an escarpment that the path followed alternately going down to the bottom before pulling back up and then repeating the process. Each hill, seven in total, was numbered so that it was easy to recognise how many hills still had to be climbed. A little sign at the foot of each hill indicated the number assigned, the length of the hill and its steepness in %. This meant that in theory that you could judge the effort necessary and adjust your speed accordingly. In practice, I just kept my head down and grit my teeth, determined to run up each one. The advantage that I gained over those walking was minor.

At 5.5 km the path turned right for the 21km race while the 11km race went straight on. This was a shame since I'd been picking off the back runners from the 11 km race and it was helping my motivation no end. Nothing for it now, but to concentrate on the runners around me and to try and stay with them. This is what happened over a large part of the race since there wasn't much movement in the groups that had formed. Some runners were faster up the hills, other down them. I excelled on the flat and was able to pull back a few places every time the path flattened out a little.

The course was excellent: well marshalled, interesting terrain and countryside, through woods and fields, and plenty of up and downhill to break your rhythm. I ran steadily throughout. My slowest kilometre was 5:53 up the last hill of the course and the fastest 3:47 down a long hill with a tarmac section.

Final results can be seen on the '>official website. I finshed in 64 place in a time of 1:37 dead. This is an average of 4:34 per km for a total height gain of 432m over the course. I'm reconciled with fell running again and happy with my race.

Laurence struggled to finish in 2:18, suffering from a sore knee and a stitch. The pain in her knee still hasn't disappeared, despite a rest this week. We're both concerned that the symptoms today may imply a lot more time off. Visit to the sports specialist on Tuesday for the final verdict.
Thanks to Castor Fou for the photos from last year's race. Race is run in opposite directions from one year to the next, so uphills seen here are the downhills we ran today. I far prefer the course in this year's direction: next year will be a lot harder !

Hexham Hobble

Another cold day and despite the late starting time for the race, the sun hadn't had time to warm up the countryside around Allendale before the race began.

Dad and Laurence came to watch the start of the race, Laurence having decided that it was too much to take part after all of the recent races we have done. We arrived at 10:15 and found James already prepared with his race number attached to his running vest. I queued up inside the fire station to be handed my race number and became a mini-sensation as they found I was registered with a French club. "Oh, it'll be another international race this year" as last year some unwitting Spaniard had turned up to take part on his way through the region.

I went back outside and found Nigel too was already kitted up and that Will had just arrived. There were about 140 participants in the race and at 11:00 am sharp the word was given and we set off down to the road to the village centre. Unfortunately, the downhill only lasted about 300m before we took a sharp left-hand turn across the grass and back on to a road heading East out of town. This road was a killer right from the word go: an arrow on the OS maps meaning that it was steep and this slowed the pace down immediately. I was running with James at this point and managed to keep ahead to the top of the first hill, only to be really disappointed as I saw that another steep hill lay in wait just behind. As we reached the left turn off this road and onto the track that would take us over the moors, James had gained a couple of metres over me and was treading confidently over the ice covering the track heading slightly uphill.

It was from here on that things began to go wrong for me: the ice to begin with meaning that my strides had to be shortened; the heather lining the track if you tried to avoid the ice; and then the snow, the ruts and the mud to complete the picture. I never really managed to get back into my stride from this point on. The hills were steep, the paths were difficult to negociate and the going was tough. I watched as James built a lead over me and then was helpless to latch on to another half a dozen other runners as they came past. It wasn't as though I gave up: a number of times I pushed the pace as a runner came past and I would hold on to get past them again only to lose them completely as the path went steeply uphill once more and the strength in my legs faded.

Rachel, the first lady overtook me after 13km following the last really steep uphill across the final stretch of moorland before the road. I thought that the final stretch of road was longer and that I would have a chance to get back to her but it wasn't to be. She finished about 5 seconds and 20m in front of me after 16.8 km of race.

Total time: 1:22:20 or 4:53 per km and 23rd place. James finished 2 minutes ahead of me exactly in 1:20:20 and Nigel almost 4 minutes behind me in 1:26:08. Will finished in 1:35 and was disappointed with his time as it was exactly the same time as his practise run over the same route a couple of months ago. The conditions were hard today and the times for the course were slower than in previous years.

I'll be sticking to the road in future and challenging the others to a race on my home ground !!
Lovely scenery, great weather: cold but bright and a good course - but it's not my scene. Impossible to get into a rhythm and just too damn hard. It's a bit like the comparison between road cycling and mountain biking - I'm just the road cyclist of the running scene.

Great to see everyone, including Antony who was also out supporting us all.

Full results here: http://www.northumberlandfellrunners.co.uk/html/raceresults/2008/15thHexHobble08.pdf