Keep on running

I love it when one of those wonderful winter high pressure systems decides to plonk itself bang on top of us ... and not move! We have had clear blue skies, crisp mornings but warm sunny afternoons for the past few days and the situation is not set to change until well into next week. Glorious. (My apologies if you are currently experiencing quite the opposite kind of weather and my opening few lines are making you seethe ... I'm sorry, truely I am )

With such wonderful weather, running has been very much on the agenda. It is just over 13 weeks until the Trail des Citadelles on Easter Sunday. The 40kms/2100m+ race is going to be hard - really hard. I need to up my mileage and the amount of ascent I am doing if I am going to be strong and fit enough to complete the event. My running mileage for the first week of January was 34kms with 1250m of ascent. Not a bad start to the year. The second week of the year has a day yet to go, but already I have covered 48kms and 1800m of ascent, spread over 3 runs. It's going in the right direction.

Today's run was a reccy of part of the 2nd half of the Citadelles circuit. The route took me (and the pooch) up onto the ridge on which the Chateau de Roquefixade is perched.... a breathtaking spot!

The climb up was hard. OK, if I had found it 'easy' there would be something wrong! But at least now I know what to expect. The fun descents also confirmed what I already knew which is that my super-grippy Salomon XAPro 3 shoes will be required for the event - by 'eck it was slippy in parts! My route covered 22.5kms in total which was plenty on top of the other two runs that I have done this week. This is the profile of today's circuit;

So now, stretching and more stretching. The old bod is holding up OK so far and I need to ensure that doesn't change.

On other news, house-hunting continues but the market is terribly quiet at the moment. It appears that people are holding off putting their properties on the market until 'la crise' eases off somewhat. ... which is a bit of a blighter. So the search continues.