Tuesday 5 February 2008

More mischief managed

I'd set the alarm for 5:30 but was awake ahead of it. All my kit was laid out the night before so I dressed quickly and headed for breakfast of porridge and coffee.

My family were coming too so as to kill two birds in one hit: we have relatives in the environs and, after seeing me off, they would visit with them till the end of the race.







It was an unexpectedly cold start at -3°c but with the sun rising I thought it may warm some. In fact it stayed around zero and I was glad of the layers I'd opted for, especially with my slow pace.



This was to be my first race in close to five years; I was really looking forward to being part of an event particularly one like this: local, friendly and directly befitting the local community.



I met a number of old friends and acquaintances and made more on the trail too.

Before the off there were refreshments to be had. I have never seen anything quite like what was on offer: this was truly a French paysan event in the heart of the terroir! Coffee, bread, foie gras, red wine and water...

Harbouring doubts about forefoot pain and overall fitness meant for a predictably slow start. Further, seeing this as something of a preparation for a longer trail I was to hold back until it clear I was out of danger before exiting the comfort zone.




The trail, after leaving the village was a mixture of wide earth compacted track, railway sleepers ( about 750m) and a good portion of narrow, technical, rock and stone strewn trail of variable ascent.

The terrain and pace was easy till 11 or 12k after that, for me, the run started. I'd been well hydrated at the start and kept topping up; I'd taken on some cake and chocolate at the aid station after 9k. From 12k I'd started to breath a little deeper and begun to work the climbs; I was pleased to feel the benefit of my training and found that despite being slow I was comfortable.




This really was valuable experience for the longer run in April and gives me confidence in my being able to continue my training to reach the start line for the 100k.




OK, to the business end of the run - the course was undulating for the most part, rarely steep, so I was able to run all but a very short, punchy climb. This will be different on a longer run - but not today!

I'd been running with a group on and off for about 5k and, realising I had it in me, I said 'au revoir' and pushed. Two things were evident. I'd been more cautious than necessary - hindsight is so cool, and I had better trail skills than the rest of the group. I am sure it was those skills rather than my reserves that opened the gaps in the last 10k. Some of these guys clearly hadn't trained on trails and it showed.

I pulled in 123rd from a field of 133 with a time of 3:06 (26.5km) The winner was under 2 hours - RESULTS. I expected being out more than 3 hours after looking at last year's results but am delighted to have run my first trail race, my first race in five years and to have had a taste of competition, comradery and some small amount of pain.











In conclusion, I had a strong finish, I recovered quickly after the race and even finishing well down the field I take a lot of positives into the next few month's training.

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