Chaseneuil 10km course à pied

It was 7am this morning and I’m going through the turmoil of shall I stay in bed or get up and go for a run? For the next 20 minutes or so I justified the various arguments for and against more rest or energy expenditure, then suddenly I’m up. What else was I going to do on a damp Sunday morning. I breakfasted and within an hour I’m in the car and on the road.

The plan for today was to take part in an organised 10km run, a kind of reliability trial for next months half marathon. The location ‘Chaseneuil sur Bonniere’ in the Charente. I arrived early but there were already many entrants already getting changed and beginning to warm up. Despite this being the first running event I’d taken part in there was a certain familiarity about the organisation. The French have an effective and simple formula for this type of event. Either in a church hall, a salle de fête or some other community building will be half a dozen tables, some for registration and some with beverages and normally one with a host of prizes for the eventual winners and runners up. Each weekend morning throughout the nation there would probably be a thousand or so other sporting events happening all organised in a similar way, apart from the location the only difference would be the sport. 

It seemed an age from arriving until setting off. I managed to kill the biggest part of this by doing a bit of people watching and warming up. I tried to predict the possible winners and stragglers, just glad I did put a bet on it or make my predictions public. Eventually with many others I made my way out of town to the start line. In addition to the 10k route, a half marathon option was available, for me soon it maybe, but not today.

Half marathon - first competitor home

The start was slightly downhill so made the warm up that bit easier. I found it difficult passing people the timing needs to be a bit more precise than on the bike when moving through a gap or your likely to get a kick in the balls! Wanting to keep my tackle in tact I was cautious and made my way to the roadside and risked only a kick from one side.

Each kilometer was marked and they soon passed. We made a right turn after a about 3K down into the town of Vitrac. Familiar with this route on the bike I was aware of steep exit climbing out of  town. I shortened my stride and increased the cadence. Normally on the bike I would gain a few places here, on foot I remained almost neutral, only one guy powered past me and a number of others too. We were soon back on the flat and turned right again heading back toward Chaseneuil - half way there!

Managed to slowly creep past a couple of guys during the final few ks. I was beginning to feel a little cooked and the last 1500 meters was tough. I struggled in and crossed the line in exactly 46 minutes.

I had no expectation of what time I could do but felt generally happy with the result. This would extrapolate up to about 1 hour 38 minutes for a half marathon, by my not so quick reckoning.  On that note, I went to watch the half marathon runners come home.

A fews weeks to build on this and hopefully remain injury free.

Knee holding up

Recent attempts to try and run more than a few metres have proved unsuccessful. But yesterday was last call day, either I could run a routine training route or not. If the latter, then I was giving up on training for the Stroud Half Marathon which is being held toward the ned of October.

So to give myself the best chance of making this reliability trial succesful I did some preparation. Firstly, I spent half an hour in a cold swimming pool to reduce any swelling, then secondly, some specific strength exercises to ensure all supporting muscles were pumped up and active and finally kept all stretching to the minimum.

Set off feeling OK, the biggest problem was with my brain. It took a while to train my mind to let me relax into a normal stride but eventually it came. I ran cautiously and what I felt was below normal pace for this route.

Three weeks without running it felt difficult aerobically. Normally on this route I run  4 or 5 intervals but this time I was just happy with slow and steady.

I walked the last 100 meters as much to cool down. I checked the time when I got back although I had not timed it to the second it was only a few minutes behind an average time. My knee felt good I went back in the pool as a precaution.

It’s maybe premature to say I’m definitely going to run next months event but for now I’m feeling positive.

Back on the bike

Since mid June I’ve hardly been on the bike. Even before then I had ramped down considerably from the early season. There were various  reasons why, but I kept the calories burning by running almost daily.

I love running but it doesn’t seem to love me. The regular pounding away gradually stiffens my back, to the point I become almost immobile. So this summer I was careful to do lots of specific exercise and stretching and maintain my core strength and flexibility, boy did it work!

In was able to improve my stride length and cadence and was soon running routes as fast as I did 5 years ago. I then signed up for a half marathon in October to focus the training, a few of my mates will be running too.

I even took my trainers on holiday to keep up the mileage, its a lot less hassle than taking the bike! We went down to Cap Ferret again this year. First day there on the beach walking on the soft sand I turned slightly, my foot rolled over and I felt this sharp pain in my knee. I hobbled about for a bit and it gradually eased and forgot all about it.

Next day set off on a 10k run all seemed fin, then about half way round a distinct and uncomfortable clicking started in my knee joint. I stretched the leg and continued running a few minutes later its started again, back to stretching. This was the pattern all the way back until I finally gave up and just walked.

That was 3 weeks ago I have tried running a couple of times since but each time the clicking comes back. Tomorrow I’ll ry once more and make a secsion whether quit training for the half marathon.

In the meantime to keep some sort of fitness I try my luck on the bike, take it easy on the hills, no probs. Like I said ‘running doesn’t like me’ !!

First Race 2009

Sunday I rode my first race of the year at Nieul, just out side Limoges. It’s a hard course, 8 laps of 6.5km with 150m climbing each lap. It didn’t go so great, but as mentioned in previous posts I wasn’t expecting too much. It was a fine day and it was the first race of the season, hence there was a lot of riders out - around 60 in my cat. For most it was probably the first ride of the year in shorts so there were a lot of untanned legs. Not only white mine were also unshaven! 

The race started fast, unfortunately I was quite near the back and had to fight frequent accelerations, riders were soon going off the back. I held on until the 4th lap when I was dropped on the longest climb of the circuit. If I had a plan, should this happen, its was to wait for the 4th cats to catch me the ride with them. For the remaining 4 laps I either rode on my own of with 1 or 2 others, the 4th cats never arrived.

Stats for thought – if I go out training alone I normally average about 300 meters climbing per hour. On a good run out with the club this may increase to about 370m/hr. On this ride it was 575m/hr and it would have been hired if I’d held the pace, so quite a lot higher than I’m conditioned too.

The race was a good benchmark in otherways, so to speak, if anything I think I fared better than expected considering the disruptions to my training schedule recently. My body needed a good kick, just like if a car is driven around town all the time it does the car good to get it out on some fast roads and have a bit of a burn up, to clean out the engine. I certainly got a good kick, can’t wait for the next week its the annual ROC cyclo race, hopefully I’ll manage a few more laps before being dropped.

Paris-Nice 2009 round up

I’ve enjoyed following this race over the last week, sometimes via the TV, other times by newspaper or the internet. A good field of riders, a historic race, some gutsy riding and a dash of controversy just to give in a bit of colour.

In summary the 2007 Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador, was the favourite after winning the prologue, albeit some would question how. Contador the lightweight, Spanish climber and a little below top form beat Olympic pursuit champion and time trialist specialist Bradley Wiggins, who had specifically trained to win this event, by seven seconds.

Contador held on to the yellow jersey for most of the week only to lose is in the closing kilometers of the penultimate stage to Luis León Sánchez losing three minutes overall. Contador needed help off his bike he tried so hard. In the final stage he gave it all. Attacking on the days first big climb it didn’t work for long. In the final kilometers two riders escaped and Contador gave chase. He gave it all on the last day to regain the golden fleece he’d lost but to no avail.

Luis León Sánchez won the general classification,  Fränk Schleck was second, then Sylvain Chavanel followed in fourth by Contador. Maybe he was a little under form after all…….