Race day report!

Ran a 10.5k mountain trail race today in a small village near Grenoble. It was absolutely awesome!! We got some rain last night, but the skies were clear blue by this morning and warm enough to run in shorts and t-shirt  (a little chilly in the beginning but we warmed up quickly).

I think the official positive altitude was 260 meters but my phone recorded 293. Hmm, that’s a pretty big difference but that’s how it looked.

Doing some warm up moves before the start! 

Ok not looking too bad here! Number 67 is a friend that I ran with the entire course; I finished 5 seconds behind her.

Ok. Right? Left? Shimmy? Shuffle? Hop? Lol no idea!?

The organisation for this race was awesome and so much fun. The volunteers were dressed up in 70s style disco outfits and played music at several points along the race. I will add more pictures from the official site when they pop up, all of these were taken by a friend who was unfortunately sidelined due to a pulled muscle. Hopefully she will be ready for the next race! 

One of the organisers was a student of mine who biked around the course taking pictures and everytime she saw me she would shout out “allez Benjamin!” That made me so happy!!! 

There was a pit stop at about the halfway point so I grabbed a drink and the volunteers were like ok, now it gets hard! I looked at my friend and we were like “you mean it wasn’t already hard!?”.

You must admit that is a pretty beautiful setting for a race! 

My secret objective for the race was to come in under 1 hour. I made it at 59’55” woot! Success! Considering the technical terrain that was a good time for me so I am very happy. This put me in 11th place for my age category and 89th overall, I think there were some 250 runners doing the 10.5k so a very respectable finish.

There was that inevitable moment during the final climb where I thought I was going to die, but I kept telling myself pain is temporary and race times are forever! It seems to have worked.

Favourite running picture ever!!! I really wanted to get in under an hour and I could hear the times being called out so I made a last mad dash for the finish line. Look at those feet, they are both in the air! And of course the hat is on backwards for optimum aerodynamics!

Great race, lots of fun and a wonderful organisation! What more can you ask for. Afterwards the three of us had lunch at 67’s place, we decided on raclette yesterday and boy was it good! If you don’t know it…potatoes, melted cheese and assorted charcuterie. Yeah. It’s good. Even though I have been cutting back on meat for the past several months I just couldn’t pass this up. Delicious beer and wine helped us wash it all down, but I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures. Oh yes, there was ice cream as well! No dinner tonight! 

Now I need rest, tea and cat company. No energy for anything else. Next week I am running a 22k road race that I have been looking forward to for a long time. 

Have a great week!