Marly - X country training

It was decided Thursday evening after a discussion on Tuesday at the club that we'd organise a last cross country training at Marly park for Saturday morning. The cross country season starts next weekend for me with the departmental challenge in Verneuil. It was the last possibility to get some hills in before the weekend as I'd missed most of the x-country training sessions with the marathon preparation. Nico was off skiing and little chance of him attending, but a last minute sms from the train coming back from the Alps and he was on too, despite being apprehensive following a week of no running and feasting on tartiflette.

The plan was great. The execution was slightly more difficult. A night on the town with Nick and Paul, a slight excess of alcohol and a distinct lack of sleep all conspired to make the exercise harder than initially envisaged. After the first lap of the park for the warm-up, I really wondered what I was doing there and why I hadn't accepted Nico's first suggestion of an easy run to Corra. There was going to be no respite either as there were only 6 of us: Nico, Ilyes, Jean-Marc, José, Jean-François and me.

We set off up the first hill and I started the Garmin. My legs failed me towards the top and I let Jean-Marc, Ilyes and Nico gap me. 1:59 was the verdict by the end of the slope so 5 seconds slower than last time I was here. The rest of the session went the same way. My legs were too tired still suffering from Thursday's session and an excess of beer. Although we'd said from the outset that we'd run 3 laps of the park, Jean-Marc stopped first on the second slope, Nico next after his second lap and only Ilyes, José and I completed the plan. I wasn't proud though as my times up the slope that I use as a reference suffered: 1:59, 2:03, 2:02 some 10 seconds slower than usual.

15.4 km all up in 1:18. Tough session and it firmed up my New Year's resolution to reduce my alcohol consumption.