First trail race of the year - done!

It's been an easy week from an exercise point of view, with just an 11km walk/run on Tuesday and a nice 62km spin out on the roadie on Wednesday. We have been enjoying gloriously warm springlike weather again and it was a shame not to have done more, but I was resting my body in anticipation of my first trail race of the season, the Trail des Pieds Cloutés from Ganac near Foix. It was billed as 19km with 1100m of ascent but I have been feeling good recently and was quite looking forward to the event and besides, dry weather for the past week would only have helped the conditions underfoot. The usual superfit, superlean blokes lingered around the start area but I refused to be fazed!

And then we were off! Too fast! There was no way was I going to be able to sustain that pace! So I went at my own pace and before we knew it, the first big climb was upon us. Ouch. Steep. I hope to goodness the photographer at the top doesn't put that photo of me on the interwebs as I wasn't a pretty sight!! But some lovely running followed and the descent down to Micou, the almost half way point, was fantastic fun. But then another climb hit us. My SIS liquid fuel needed supplementing with a gel as I was rapidly running out of energy. But then another lovely long, fast descent back down towards Ganac this time, which was pure joy to run. No pains or muscular problems yet! The organisers cruelly finished the race with a cheeky little 2km long uphill section which was pretty unfair. But I crossed the finishing line in 2h15m. I was pleased with that. Not exactly top ten, but it had been a surprisingly fast race! But I was more pleased with my physical state at the finish line. I wasn't crippled and had no pain. My daily stretching regime and Andy's work on the muscles around my knees are clearly working. Excellent! Full stats for the race are on the usual site. But in the meantime, here is the course profile. Now, what should be my next race!

On other matters, we are having another push to get Sadie into a state where we can finally go away in her. Still much to do, but we should see some good progress over the next week or two.