A turn for the worse

Well, the weather this weekend has been truely appalling. The Ariege, along with the Aude and Herault departments of the Languedoc have been on orange alert on Meteo France, with warnings of floods and dire driving conditions. We haven't had it as severe as the Gard and the Var departments further along the Med Coast but it has still been impressive and I can't wait for the return of clear skies again. Here is a short video that Andy took yesterday of the River Arac down the hill between Massat and Biert


Whilst the weather is poor, we decided to have a trip up to Ikea Toulouse today to pick up couple of rugs and additional bookcase to house our ever-increasing quantity of books. It was good use of the day.

Before the weather turned, I had a trip over the Col de Port on Friday for my final appointment at the dentist. Whilst over there, I headed over to Lavelanet in order to stock up on food from the market. It really is the best market in the area and is well worth the detour. I came away with pigeon, rabbit, chicken and tons of locally grown veg. While I was over that way, I was hoping to be able to meet up with my old mucker Pat, but unfortunately our plans didn't coincide. I wanted, no, I needed to do a good, hard run while I was over there and set my mind on the Foret de Belesta circuit, but from Fougax which equates to 20kms and around 700m of ascent. I pushed hard from the start, determined to run as much of the uphill as I was capable of running. I know the route well now which made for a good fluid run and the paths and tracks were superb with only the descent back down into Belesta giving me problems, thanks to slippery fallen leaves on top of loose stones and rocks. I was spent by the time I finished the circuit but I was chuffed to bits to get back in just under 2h20m - that's an average pace of 7.00mins/km and an ave speed of 8.60km/h, much better than I have ever achieved on a circuit of similar length and ascent before! Here is the profile;

Full stats on the usual site. I have committed myself to doing the 40km/2000m+ Trail des Citadelles in April 2012 and really want to start running even longer distances in the course of next year. The training has to continue through the winter. Somebody please give me a kick up the bum if I start slacking?! ;-)