Better recovery

I met Nico driving out of his house as he set off to work while I was setting off on my recovery run after last night's intervals. I was doing the usual route around Maisons Laffitte with a slight detour due to the letter I had to drop off en route.

I felt pretty lousy to begin with, mostly due to having eaten a large breakfast with Laurence prior to setting out. This lay heavy on my stomach and I wasn't comfortable in the slightest so it was a bit of a surprise to see the Garmin flash up 4:36 for the first kilometre. I thought that I'd been running slower than Monday as no effort was involved and it was a real boost to see that I was close to the magic 4:30 training speed.

The pace quickened kilometre after kilometre and I felt better after 5k when my stomach stopped aching and I was able to run more freely. I soon hit 4:20 pace and then 4:15 where I stayed until the end of the run. Even the uphill section through the forest was negotiated in 4:19.

A nice dry but cold day and a great recovery run. I felt a lot stronger in my legs during the run (if a little tired now afterwards). 14.5k in 1:01 or an average pace of 4:24 / km.

Forest run with club

It was an easy choice tonight: a track session with Miguel or an easy run in the forest with Michel and the girls. My ankle has not improved much from Tuesday and I decide that it's not wort risking further injury or prolonging the injury I have by running hard over a track session. This was a shame as José and  Jérémie were there and I'd been enjoying our regular track sessions these last few weeks.

I put on the headlamp and ran with Katia and Laurence after the usual warm-up run around St Germain. We set off and ran towards Poissy at the end of the cycle track, we waited for the slowest member of the group to catch up and then we set off again. And then we repeated the exercise. It wasn't as though we were running fast either. At an average pace of 6'45/km, we weren't exactly pushing it. So, I was basically very frustrated, regretting my choice of sessions for the evening, despite the fact that it was pleasant to chat with Katia and Laurence. The achilles felt alright and the dull pain that was present at the start of the session had virtually disappeared by the end. I did, however, have other niggles that started such as pain in my right knee and pain under the sole of my right foot.

A couple of laps around the outside of the track when we got back to the club with Katia and Laurence and we managed to complete 12.2 km in all. It just took us 1:22 to manage this though! I'll just count this as a very slow recovery run, helping the achilles back into shape.

Recovery run

I set out this morning with the intention of easing off the tightness in my thighs following the combination of last night and Sunday's session with a little recovery run. The idea was to head out into the forest and do a loop of the old circuit we used to run every Sunday. It has turned a little cooler here lately, so I put a cap and a buff on together with a windstopper and I headed out.

I ran up towards the church to begin with, clocking the first kilometre in 4"40 which pleased me. I could feel the ache in my thigh re-awaken and I just continued on waiting for this to wear off. It took me the best part of a loop to get the ache to fade and since I was in no hurry and it wasn't such a bad day after all, I decided that I'd do a second loop just to manage a little distance.

It was at the end of this first loop that I saw another couple of runners in the forest training too. I looked and saw that the second runner was a woman, dressed in blue and running very fast. I coldn't help wondering which club they were with and what they were doing there. I crossed them again in the opposite direction 20 minutes later as they were at full tilt. I understood a little better then as the woman was Christelle Daunay, out for a training run with her running partner. Her style and stride just looked so easy that I tried to improve my own over the next 4 minutes before I was exhausted!

The first 10km I ran in 45'28 so an average of 4"33/km. I was picking up the pace now for this second loop and every kilometre was managed in under 4"20. I went through 20k in just over 1'28 and felt good with my running if only a little hungry. Glad to get back home as I was just beginning to run out of energy.

22.8 km all up in 1'39 or an average pace of 4"21 /km over the distance. Not a great recovery run with such a relatively long distance but a good feeling to have completed this nonetheless.

Recovery run

A run around Maisons Laffitte this morning along the usual route to try and eliminate the toxins after yesterday's race. The breathing was easy enough but the legs were definitely tired.

I was running at just under 4:30 / km pace after the first kilometre down to the Seine and I managed to maintain this pace to the end. In fact, I felt as though I needed to run a little farther than usual to get the legs back to normal so I carried on down to the town hall and back along the main road to complete the circuit.

Lovely morning and wam for an autumn day. Legs are still suffering though with the thighs particularly tired. So much for a recovery run. I just seemed to have prolonged the agony.

14.3 km all up in 1:02.

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.

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 ;)

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.

Recovery and race preparation

Another business trip on Wednesday stopped me from going for a run and as I'd stupdily given in to the weekend challenge of running a race on Friday night and on Sunday morning, I didn't want to ite myself out by running a hard tempo run or interval session the day before a race.

I was a little ushed for time too, so I eventually deided on another variant of my usual morning run and cut out the section past the racecourse and ran straight into the park by the castle in Maisons Laffitte. A plod down the park tracks and then out and back through the forest to home. A very easy run and no accelerations to put any undue strain on the body.

9.3km all up in 43:23 or 4:41 per km. A nice morning and a few joggers out in the park.

More recovery

Pentecost is a public holiday in France. Well sort of - it's a very French thing. Whenver you can take something simple and make it extremely complicated then you can be sure that it's done in France.

Pentecost was made a public holiday in France in 1886. Everybody enjoyed a day off work, except under special conditions for jobs which require permanent presence (police, firemen, air-traffic controllers etc.) Then in 2004, after the summer of 2003 which extreme heat caused thousands of old people to die in the country, the french government decided to cancel the bank holiday and make everybody work this day. Companies were required to pay a special tax as a contribution for the elderly financed from the extra productivty gained from having an extra days labour from their employees (I won't go into how this doesn't work anyway following the amendments to the labour laws following the introduction of the 35 hour working week, as that's a different story ...). What a great idea - everybody agreed half-heartedly. This is when the confusion began. Some schools continued to not work on Pentecost meaning that many parents took the day off to look after their kids. Nobody knew whether it was a holiday or not anymore and so it has continued.

I was working today. But apparently, I was one of the rare people in France to be doing so. Driving into work was a real pleasure - 30 minutes instead of my usual 1h20 drive. We arranged to go for a run at 7:00pm at the club to recover from the Paris St Germain race for most. Laurence, Nico, François, Sandra, Pascal, Philippe, Catherine, Stéphanie, Christelle, Nabil and Nicoletta also turned up for our easy run.

I led the group through the woods towards Le Mesnil from the clubhouse and then wound our way back through the forest back to the clubhouse. It was 10km in total and an hour's leisurely run at a very easy pace for all. A lot of banter and joking went on and if only every day could be a bank holiday like this, life would be so much more pleasurable.

10km all up in 1 hour. I'll let you do the maths for the average pace!

Short recovery

The original idea had been to run 100km this week. Unfortunately, with business and late nights and early starts, this was proving to be impossible and today was no different. An early morning meeting meant that I couldn't fit the normal run in so I planned to cut it short and run a 10km loop instead.

This was my original 10km loop around Maisons Lafitte where I skip the loop in front of the castle which was a later modification. Having said this, I could resist the temptation to come back through the forest and enjoy the early morning temperatures in the shade of the trees.

11 km all up in 48:44 or 4:27 / km.

Recovery run

The normal tour of Maisons Laffitte for which I set off easily first thing in the morning and gradually sped up as I went around.

I made the most of the summertime to come back via the forest variant.

13.2 km all up in 58:17 or 4:26 / km average.

Easy Friday

Nico has planned a serious weekend, making the most of the bank holiday yesterday and the day off today to put in some miles and intervals. Today though was the rest day before the hard work begins again tomorrow. We planned to go for the usual route to Corra but with Laurence and Katia to ensure that no excess incurred in pace and natural competitiveness. Jean-Marc also agreed to come along and unfortunately Sandra is injured and François unavailable, otherwise it would have been the best part of the Florentine marathon expedition on the easy run today.

It was not exactly marvellous weather when we woke up: grey skies and threatening to rain. I put on a waterproof jacket and a cap to keep the rain off me, but this would prove to be a waste of time and just cause a little over-heating. We set off at an easy pace and had a good chat all of the way around. The girls were chatting plenty to start with but when the pace went below 5:00/km, it started getting a lot quieter at the front. The gentlemen that we are, we let the girls dictate the pace and made sure to stay behind them so as not to be accused of having to have forced them to run at speeds that they were uncomfortable with. Overall this worked fairly well over the circuit.

We set off at around 5:40 pace and then they sped up to 5:20 and then 5:00 and below before they realised that this was supposed to be a recovery run and not a tempo run. I could see that the effort was beginning to show on both of their faces on the far side of Corra at about the 8km mark. This didn't deter them from pushing on and we finished the whole loop of 15km in 1:17 with a 5:08 average pace.

A good way to start the day and we discussed the upcoming races, having signed on for Les Clayes (10km) on the Friday evening and then Orgerus (15km) on the Sunday. Quite looking forward to both of these now and a little stretch before I start the trails at the end of June.

Recovery run

I woke up with stiff thighs from the ekiden yesterday. I'm not used to racing the 10 km distance and I was paying for yesterday's efforts. Still, I needed to put some mileage in and a little run around town couldn't do any harm, could it ?

I ran the usual route around Maisons Laffitte kust taking it steady and forcing myself not to look at the Garmin as I ran. I really wanted to relax and enjoy myself and I knew that as soon as I looked at the splits on the watch, I would push myself just to run that little bit faster.

Beautiful morning again and a real pleasure to be out. I bumped into Sylvie in the park and she was looking good despite her injury so I ran a couple of kilometres with her before heading our different ways. I ran back through the forest to make a change and to enjoy the early morning daylight now that spring has arrived.

13.2 km all up in 57:24 or an average pace of 4:22 / km. Not bad for a recovery run without looking at the Garmin. Alright, so I might have had a peek every now and then, but who's watching...?

la Mare aux Canes

An easy run with Nico this morning as we were both down for the Ekiden the following day and didn't want to tire ourselves out. As we wanted a change from the usual Corra route and a slightly shorter run to keep fresh for Sunday and the ekiden we ran one of Nico's favourites: out to the Mare aux Canes and back through the forest.

It was a beautiful day and our run through the forest from Le Mesnil out to La Mare aux Canes was great. A slight uphill run heading out, before a slight downhill coming back.

We were also very reasonable in the pace we adopted, running around 4:45 pace out and around 4:25 pace back.

9.5km all up in 44:26 or an average pace of 4:40 per km. Good preparation for the race and feeling good again to come back from injury.

La Mare aux Canes

Belgium bis repetita

Another early morning run with Bruce and Jason around the Ardennes countryside. Beautiful scenery and it was considerably warmer this morning, making the run all the more enjoyable. The hills in this area are rolling but non-stop making the run either a relaxing jog downhill or a hard slog pulling oneself up the next.

We ran the same route as yesterday except instead of turning back to use the back entrance to the hotel, today we carried on using the route that I discovered at the end of yesterday's run making a full circuit of around 10km long. Bruce was in fine shape despite the fact that he almost broke his ankle in a quad accident yesterday when it turned over and fell on him.

I promised that I'd provide him with the splits so here goes:

5:34, 5:33, 5:10, 5:26, 5:28, 5:13, 5:29, 6:06, 5:37, 4:57

10 km all up in 54:38.

Wallonie - Belgium

In Belgium on business, staying in a fantastic hotel in the middle of nowhere: Chateau de la Poste. Plenty of hard work on the cards, but also the opportunity to go for an early morning run with Bruce and my new boss, Jason.

We set off at 6:00 am from the hotel and ran down the drive which lasts for almost 1 kilometre. I was already fully aware that I'd under-estimated how cold it gets in the Ardennes, and the frost in the fields only highlighted my inadequate level of clothing as we ran. It was cold and dark.

I followed the pace set by Bruce and Jason at about 5:30 / km which was very pleasant to run at but didn't help in getting me any warmer. We decided that we'd head away from Brussels direction and run along the small road that headed uphill, thinking that the road would be quiet at this time in the morning. It was actually surprisingly active and we had to take care not to be mown down by mad Belgian motorists starting their commute into Brussels.

We ran a large loop around back to the castle/hotel getting back their after a little more than 8 kilometres and several hills. I decided to carry on and did another loop in the opposite direction from the end of the drive, taking the total distance to just under 14 kilometres in 1:10. I ran the last few kilometres at 4:10 pace along the road, before climbing some pretty monster hills to get back to the hotel on top of the ridge.

Great run overall.

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.

Recovery (and praise...)

I tried to make the most of my performance over the weekend by turning up at the club for the Tuesday session to hear everyone wax lyrical about my Ecotrail run. I ended up getting caught in a jam, turning up 5 minutes late and missing everything.

I ran a few loops around the track, just taking it easy as I wasn't able to do anything more anyway. The pain in my thighs was still present and I didn't want to push it. Plenty of people cam up to me to congratulate me on a great run, which thrilled me to bits. It's always a pleasure to be cheered on by your peers who understand the pain and the efforts necessary to complete these events.

I ended up running 9.5 km around the edge of the track in just over 57 minutes or 6:00 / km. Faster than this was just not possible. I understand why they advise to stop running for a week after a race like this.

Recovery run

A recovery run around the normal route this morning to try and run some of the fatigue out of my legs. The other ambition was to get plenty of mileage in this week in preparation for the ecotrail in a couple of weeks time.

Legs felt considerably heavier than usual and I could feel how much yesterday's race had taken out of me. Just focused on making it around the course without looking at my watch.

12.8km all up in 57:40 or an average pace of 4:31 / km.

Recovery

This was hard, very hard. You run your socks off the night before, you come back, grab a bite to eat, go to bed and get up at 6:00 am to go running again. The motivation was there. The will to put in the mileage, to improve and to run the lactic out of the legs. But, and this is a big but, your body can only take so much.

I set off tired and close to exhaustion. It's been a busy, wearing week and I was feeling it this Friday. I set off running and decided immediately that there were to be no time objectives today. I would go around the course and be satisfied when I finished. Too bad if it took me 5 minutes per kilometre - I'd just have to have a shorter breakfast and a quicker shower.

My legs were heavy and still full of lactic. They felt as though somebody had poured molten lead into them during the night. I didn't run, I shuffled. I didn't bother looking at the Garmin after the first kilometre but when the second kilometre was beeped by the Garmin slightly too early I glanced at the time at the usual 2 kilometre mark - 9:40. At least I wouldn't have to cut the shower too short...

By the time I began running the 6th kilometre, I'd gotten into my stride. The legs were easing and I was feeling better again. I was running around 4:25/km pace now and I'd reached the favourite place of my run in the park towards Maisons Laffitte castle. The road stops and I'm running down the track alongside the road and the green. It's smoother underfoot with less pressure on the legs and I'm now lengthening my stride and enjoying the stretch. Finally I'm going to be able to enjoy breakfast too.

12.8 km all up in 56:50 or an average pace of 4:26/km. Good recovery.