Laufen in Deutschland

On business here in Frankfurt for a couple of days which is also preventing me from running with the club and the interval sessions which I really look forward too. As a form of consolation, I left the hotel here this morning and ran my planned route around the town.

I was worried that it would be dark at 6:45, like in Le Mesnil at this time so I had planned a route through the town rather than heading into the countryside. However, it is so much farther East than Le Mesnil that it was actually already daytime when I woke up and slipped on my running kit.

I set off steadily and the only company at that time of day was the airplanes coming into land at Frankfurt airport every 30 seconds a couple of hundred metres above my head - charming.

I managed an 8 km loop in 34:40 or an average of 4:20 per km. The slightly slower pace was due to the fact that despite planning the route on Gmap pedometer, I was always unsure of exactly which direction I should be heading in and whether I was on the correct street. They all Strasse something or other and I was pretty confused. Luckily I didn't get lost and have to use my schoolboy German or that could have been pretty embarassing.

Back to business

It is almost "La Rentrée". The special time of the year here in France when you are bombarded with adverts for buying your precious little cherubins all they need to go back to school and more. The government gets back to work and tries to resolve the issues of the day and thousands of employees return to work, sad faces all round as they quickly forget the happy times they have just had on holiday.

No sad face for me this morning, as my running "rentrée" was a confirmation of my return to shape after the efforts of last weekend. It was the standard rendition of the 11.1 km course around the town but as soon as I set off, I knew that my legs, my body, in fact everything felt so much easier than Tuesday. The strides were fluid, I wasn't pushing too hard, yet I felt great.

2 km in 8:35 in front of the POBS. The sun was just rising but unfortunately there were far too many clouds around for it to be visible. The weathermen having been getting it wrong regularly recently, since they been promising sunshine and a rise in temperatures for some days now. I maintained this pace into the park and felt so much better than recently. No aching legs, no sore shins, no swollen left ankle, so I increased my stride and carried on. I left the park in 27:55 and then thought that I saw Andy in front running towards the swimming pool. I put on a real burst to catch him up only to find that it wasn't him after all ! This helped me finish quickly over the last part of the run - 46:46 for the total course, so around 4:14 per km.

A few races coming up now in September, including 10km in Conflans, the Paris-Versailles and not forgetting the St Germain sprint triathlon. I think I'm ready for them now.

Normandy raid - Sunday (over and out)

The final morning of the raid and 3 more events to determine the winners of this year's edition. How would we do ?

We enjoyed slightly more sleep on Saturday night than the previous night, but as Laurence and I emerged from the tent, it was obvious that we were both suffering from "puffy eye" syndrome !! A clean of the bikes; some oiling of the chains; the replacement of Anne's rear tyre and we were as ready as we ever would be for the first event of the morning: the bike and run. This course started about 5km from Orbec and so all the teams cycled slowly to the start point to listen to the instructions. The teams were set off in reverse order of their overall position in the raid at this point with around 30 seconds intervals between teams and so team n° 105 set off about 8 teams back from the start.

We had decided on a simple strategy for the bike and run: the women would cycle and the blokes would run. We were given a roadbook for the course and told to start. It was a 10 km course over some varied terrain through the woods and fields with some fairly steep uphill and downhill sections. We set off at a good pace (I was running in my cycling shoes which wasn't easy) with Nick reading the instructions while I measured the distances on the Garmin. We set a good time and caught the teams in front of us one by one, despite their head-start. A small mistake in direction at the final corner which we soon rectified and we finished in 53:27. This was no mean feat since we had to push the bikes up the hardest hills too. We realised the 6th best time for this event of the 24 teams still participating (one team having pulled out on the first night following a sprained ankle). Admittedly, the fastest team managed a time of 46:40 over the same course but with a slightly better strategy on the bike management, I'm sure that we could get close to this.

Next event involved memorising a map showing where the next CP was situated. At this checkpoint, another map was present showing the situation of the next CP and so on ...

This was our best event as it involved map reading and running as a team. Apart from an unbelievable mistake where we missed a cardpunch (no idea how this happened), we ran well together and set a good time over the 4.5 km course. In fact, the error cost us 20 minutes as a time penalty, without which we would have been 4th team over this event.

Back on the bikes for the last event and a 9 km ride home, map-reading as we went. Plenty of confusion around the last CP with all of the teams missing a small turning indicated on the map. Lack of communication on my part meant that we lost a few minutes, but some of the other teams attitudes were pretty galling. You can be too competitive sometimes ...

Back to Orbec where we washed the bikes in the river and then a hot shower before lunch and the final results. Officially we finished in 18th position but there was a cock-up in the calculation of the points for the Bike and Run where they give us 15 points instead of the 6 we should have received. So all in all, we finished about half-way down the field, which was good for a first attempt. A brush-up in our map-reading skills and some canoe training and we'll be in the top 10 next year.

The organisation was fantastic. The whole event was exhausting with Saturday's combination of events particularly gruelling. But we all enjoyed it and Laurence and I are already planning next year's holidays around this !!

Over 80 km in 2 and a half days running, cycling and canoeing. Some amazing endurance training.

Normandy raid - Saturday

After a hesitant start on Friday, our team "Les Genoux Mouxx" got down to action on Saturday and showed the others what we were made of. Well almost ...

After breakfast at 7:00am and following what amounted to just over 5 hours sleep, we were on top form for a full day of events. Not.

First off was mountain biking using a map to guide us over the 12 km course. Anne's chain snapped before we set off, so it was my turn to impress everybody with my cycle repair skills and a new course record of 10 minutes to refit the chain. The MTB course was over fairly quickly thanks to Nick's map reading skills and it was down to the river for the next activity: canoeing.

Laurence and I got in our 2 man canoe following Nick and Anne down the river. We very quickly realised that we wouldn't be finishing first in this event. I sat at the front paddling for all my might and Laurence sat behind with responsibility for steering and keeping the back end in line. This role proved a little too much for Laurence whose boat skills are on a par with my knitting skills. After our fifth time of heading down the river backwards, I'd had enough and was ready for a divorce. Laurence had had enough too. My frantic paddling had sent waves of water over her and her lips had turned blue with the cold. One last stretch of white water and we'd finished the course and just had to drag the canoe out of the water. We'll need to practise our canoeing skills for next year.

It was with much relief that we were handed a map with 3 checkpoints on that had to be found back to the canoe start point. A nice run by all of the team and apart from a minor map reading error by yours truly, we made it back to the start in good time, overtaking another team along the way.

Lunch was a long affair, since we had to wait almost 2 hours before the last 2 teams made it back, having got seriously lost on the way. Back on the bikes again and a 10 km ride through some of the muddiest paths ever encountered. Morale in the team was low now, through lack of sleep and general exhaustion. We arrived at the final checkpoint to be given a list of instructions to find the next 3 checkpoints over a 1 km course.

Here precision was the name of the game: good compass bearings and measurement of the distances meant that the CP's could be found easily. However, after a first false start in our measuring skills, we quickly got the hang of this and posted a good time.

Back on the bikes and a final 7 km ride back to Orbec. We had all had enough by now but Laurence particularly was struggling both up and down the hills. A complaint from her that I wasn't doing enough to help almost provoked the second divorce of the day but our patience had grown thin by then and the outburst was understandable. We struggled down the final hill and checked in, finishing for the day.

The final test was still to come though as when we got back to the campsite, the hot water had run out and we had to take a cold shower.

Long session

Agreed with Laurence that we'd do a long run around a new route this morning through 6 villages. This course has now been christened, most orginally, the 6 village route !

Having run fast yesterday, I thought I would take it easy this morning and run with Laurence. She wasn't too keen on this idea as she finds that I stress her out too much. I ended up running ahead and then returning to her and running on again.

The route was lovely as we left Le Mesnil and ran towards Maisons Laffitte to begin with alongside the Seine. We crossed over the Seine in front of Maisons Laffitte castle and into Sartrouville. Back along the Seine in the other direction along the cycle paths towards Montesson and Le Pecq and then back over the Seine at Le Pecq. After this bridge is the long pull uphill into St Germain and then along the terrasse and back through the forest home.

I ran steadily and then left Laurence at St Germain having run up the hill twice: first by myself and then back down to run up again with Laurence.

The end result was 19.4 km in 1:31:37. So an average of 12.7 km/h - just sufficient having run a fast session yesterday but good to get some extra kilometres under the belt. Good week with a total of 61 km in 5 sessions.

Mad dogs and Englishmen ...

Very hot and humid here today at Onnion. Sun was shining and only a few clouds hanging over Mont Blanc visible to the horizon.

Set off on a training run up the valley past Megevette and along the course I did last Saturday. The climb up to Megevette went well since I told myself from the outset not to push the pace too hard since general fatigue was setting in with all the exercise that we've been doing since we arrived here. The road was mostly shady with a nice cool breeze coming up the valley channelling cool air for the first 2.5 km of the route. The valley then opened out before Megevette and the trees disappeared. The sun was beating down and the going became laboured despite the cap to protect my own personal solar panel !

I ran to the intersection with the main road for a distance of 6.3 km in 29:39 or an average speed of 4:41 per km and then set back along the main road towards Onnion.

The descent was obviously easier but the heat was getting worse and I was seriously tempted a number of times to stop running and walk instead. I soldiered on and struggled up the final hill before Les Chavannes, our holiday centre. The downhill was a total distance of 5.9 km which I managed in 24:37. So a total distance of almost 12.3km in 54:16 or an average of 4:26 per km.

Hard work in the sun. Roll on Winter for the improved performances !

New toy

I took my new toy for a run this morning: a Garmin 405 Forerunner. What a fantastic piece of technology.

Having had 2 days rest since running in Aurillac, I was very motivated this morning when the alarm rang at 7:00am and I leapt out of bed. I threw on my running gear, grabbed my new watch and ran outside. I had spent the previous night configuring my new toy so that it knew everything about me: my date of birth, my weight, my sex and even what I'd had for breakfast that morning. I'd studied the instructions very carefully, and already set the pace at 4:24 per km for my virtual training partner. It was therefore a little disappointing to wait for 2 minutes outside the house gates while the machine spoke to the 6 satellites in the sky necessary before I could set off. Fully synchronised, the watch informed me that it was ready and so off I trotted.

Having benefitted from 2 days rest, I was keen to see how well I'd progressed over a flat course following last week's hill training. A quick glance at the watch at the 2 km mark, as I pressed the lap time to record my position, showed that I was running at 4:09 pace and had been running for 8:30. The pace indicator was a little ambitious as my time showed. Others had already warned me that the speed or pace indicated is instantaneous and can vary significantly over a course due to the positioning error of up to 6 or 7m. I carried on regardless, just thinking that all of this technology was fantastic but that it actually didn't help my legs to move any faster.

I carried on through to the park and took my split at 6.5km: 27:45. I was feeling fairly good and the watch encouraged me to accelerate a little every time I thought I was slacking slightly. Next split at 8.3 km in 35:12 and I knew that I was a little behind my fastest time. Another acceleration and the downhill stretch before the final straight and the rise back home to finish in 46:39 for an average time per kilometre of 4:12 or speed of 14.2 km/h.

The watch is fabulous: 762 calories burned, height gained is wrong at 495m (I must need to set the parameters somewhere), splits with average speeds, etc. The options are limitless. I've even seen a section on setting up interval training with warm-up and warm-down, number of intervals and rest periods - just need to get the legs going to use the functions!

I'm now the running statistics king and have all the graphs to show you. What, you're not interested... some other time then.

Round and about

Beautiful blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. Still cold early morning though with the thermometer stubbornly stable at 7°C at 9:00 am.

Laurence had decided that she wanted to finish the 20km round that she hadn't managed the other day after our "discussion". We took the car out to the 10 km spot where we had split up the other day and started off from there. I stayed with Laurence to begin with as the route is not that well indicated. We did the first hills around Belbex easily and I was happy to run at a very easy pace, just ahead of Laurence. After about 2.5 km Laurence told me to leave her and to run at my own pace as I was stressing her. This was quite a shock as I hadn't said anything to her up until that point. No comments on the pace, on her objectives, even about the weather, but my sheer presence was enough to stress her; so I left.

This second half of the route is the hilliest section, with the roads going up and down interminably and it's very steep in places. So steep that the temptation to give up and walk is tremendous. I kept on (and so did Laurence as she told me afterwards) and I ran the first 10 km in about 52 minutes. Towards the end of this section the roads were flatter and I lengthened my stride to a pace that I still felt comfortable with but left me with an impression of "real" running.
The sun was now higher in the sky and the temperature had risen to around 22°C.

The second half was completed at a faster pace but the fatigue and the heat were taking their toll on me by the end. I kept thinking that this distance wasn't even a half-marathon and how would I cope having to carry on for double the distance. Obviously, these thoughts weren't very encouraging and I was happy to run through the park and by the stables to find the car after 20km. 1:39:03 all up for the distance so a little over 12 km/h for the whole route. Not bad considering the heat and the hills. I was pleased with my run.

Fête nationale

I ran a short route around St Simon this morning with the boys accompanying me on their bikes.

The road heads off East from Roger's house in Aurillac up the Jordanne valley and we followed this alongside the allotments before a steep rise up the valley side. I set off slowly still feeling the after-effects of yesterdays run up another hill and my legs were not so keen on this repetition this morning. The leg muscles only warmed up after St Simon about half-way around the course. I reached the bridge in St Simon in 20:00 having run just over 4km. Not impressive by any standards.

The road back was a lot faster and I sped up and stretched out along the main road. I extended the run to the roundabout at the end of Gué Bouliaga and finished the course in 43:33 for around 9.3km. A nice run to decompress after yesterday's efforts.

A swim in the afternoon to finish the day sportily. I swam 80 lengths doing 2km and felt better about my swimming prowess than my running.

Smoking kills

I'll explain about the title at the end of the blog. Having read some books on writing recently, the reader is supposed to be kept in suspense until the end. So here goes ...

Race day in Murat. Murat is a small town in the Cantal with a population of just over 2000 inhabitants. Situated in the Alagnon valley it is just East of the Plomb du Cantal, part of the massif central, the mountains that separate Aurillac from Murat. The town is at an altitude of 900 metres and overlooking the town is a large, white statue of the Virgin Mary some 140m above. The race was to run from the town centre to the statue.

I'd seen news of the race in the running magazines prior to coming down to Aurillac and I didn't know what to expect. How many people took part, what the times were to get to the top, nothing. So when I arrived with all the family in the town square, it was a relief to see plenty of other runners, some more serious than others. I signed on at the town hall and was told that I was 28th to start. The runners are set off at 30 second intervals, with the timing and places finally determined at the top. I did a little warm up through the streets of the town and my fears were confirmed: the roads were very steep around here.

I lined up with a real motley crew for the start. About half a dozen runners were dressed up as old women with brooms, shopping baskets, and feather dusters. A couple of men, dressed as ambulance men, were carrying a stretcher with a baby doll lying inside. I watched nervously as the crowd disappeared one by one at 30 second intervals and soon enough it was my turn to start.

The adrenaline had begun to flow and I set off briskly up through the streets of the town, winding between the few shops and bars situated there. It seemd that a large part of the poulation were in the streets, shouting and clapping as the "nutters" set off up the hill. This was a real boost and as I left the town, I had almost caught the runner who had set off before me. The lactic was also rising and now my speed reduced somewhat and it seemd like ages before I could pull alongside this first runner and noticed that 2 more runners were also within my grasp as the tarmac gave way to a gravel path up the hill.

"Ici commence l'enfer" - Hell starts here had been written in chalk on the last of the tarmac, but actually the slope felt easier here. I passed the 2, a father and daughter, who had set off a minute and 90 seconds before me respectively. As I left the trees on the first part of this slope more crowds were encouraging the runners, "Profitez du faux-plat". The incline eased and the path was flat for all of 50 metres before it turned sharply left and headed what felt like vertically up the final slope. My pace slowed, my stride shortened and it felt as though I was at walking speed now. In fact, my ungs and legs were aching and I walked 50m up the steepest section before breaking into a jog again. I could see the top now and hear Laurence and Paul encouraging me on up the final 100m. As I turned the last corner, I was caught in turn by 2 runners who had set off after me and I finished seconds after them. 1.37km and 130m higher than the start. I finally finished in 8:17 seconds according to my watch the slowest I've ever run over the distance at a speed of 6 minutes/km or 10 km/h. If I believe the fell-running adage then every 100m of height gained is equivalent to 1km. This would give me an equivalent time of 8:17 for 2.67km which equates to 3:06 per km. Slightly excessive perhaps, but it makes me feel a darn sight better.

I sat down at the top, my lungs were bursting and I felt sick. Luckily I hadn't eaten anything 6 hours prior to racing, or I am sure that it would have been covering the top of the Rocher de Bonnevie by now. To cap it all, my legs were like jelly. As I recovered on the top, the coughing began and I spent the next 2 hours coughing to sooth my lungs. I hadn't coughed like this for a good 20 years when I used to have to finish every training run by running up Causey Hill. So much for not smoking.

Lost in France

Tried a new route out today in order to increase my mileage. It worked as I got lost and ran farther than I initially intended.

As I wrote last week, I want to increase my mid-week training runs to around 10 km. I planned a new route using gmap through Maisons Laffitte in the park, extending my usual run into the park on the way out. It was perfectly planned but unfortunately badly executed and I ended up running a little further than intended.

I set out at 7:00 am this morning and the weather was perfect for an early morning run. The sun was already up and there wasn't a cloud in sight. The temperature was still cool enough to run without feeling uncomfortable with the heat. After the training at the weekend, I didn't have much energy in my legs when I left the house, so it was no surprise when I went through the first 2km in 8:46. And, as usual, the initial pace sets the tone for the whole run so when I finished after 48:12 minutes of effort later, I had completed an 11.1 km course.

It felt good to run at this speed (13.8km/h) and I came back having really enjoyed myself. That's all that counts really.