Archive for Caen
semi-marathon d’Argentan [30th year]
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel with tags Argentan, Argentan half-marathon, bocage, Caen, countryside, Courir en Normandie, forêt de Gouffern, half-marathon, Insee Paris Club, M6M, Orne, road race on October 3, 2026 by xi'an
Pegasus half-marathon meltdown [01:30:07 – 245/5176 – 2/59 M6M]
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel with tags Abbaye aux Hommes, Caen, Courants de la Liberté, Courir en Normandie, D-Day beaches, Guillaume le Concquérant, half-marathon, June 1944, La Rochambelle, M6M, Normandy, Pegasus bridge, PHOTO running, poster, Ranville, Saint-Lazare, training, watermarking on June 9, 2026 by xi'an
Huge disappointment with this favourite race of mine! It is unclear what caused my underperforming this time, since I had trained regularly for two months, with many long distance runs and several intensity ones, weekly. The temperature was mild, the constant wind none too strong, but I slowed down almost from the beginning… And could not keep up with the 1h30 pacers when they passed me 5km before the finish line (even though they were running faster than the 1h30 target!). Lack of rest the final week? A fast 12km bike ride to the Saint-Lazare train station the previous day (in order to avoid the nightmare of getting back to Caen train station on race day)? Too much weight loss the last two weeks? Too long a warm-up run the same morning? Need of gels mid-race? The most frustrating is that I would have ended first in the previous category (M5M).
off to Caen for the Pegasus half-marathon [39th edition]
Posted in Statistics with tags 21.1km, bagpipes, Battle of Normandy, Caen, Courants de la Liberté, D Day, half-marathon, La Rochambelle, Normandy Running Festival, Orne, Pegasus bridge on June 6, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the Aregenua years
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags affogato al caffè, archeology, Black Plague, boarding school, book reviews, Caen, Channel, conspiracy theories, Courseulle, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Dark Ages, FBI, Gallo-Roman culture, ghost story, gothic novels, half-marathon, Iranian regime, Islamic Republic of Iran, Journal of the Plague Year, museum, Roman Empire, Russian invasion, Stand Up To Trump, thriller, Ukraine, Vieux-la-Romain, Vieux-la-Romaine on May 10, 2026 by xi'an
Read The Moth Diaries, by Rachel Klein, presumably following a recommendation in The Guardian or on Tor’s Reactor blog. This is a 2002 book, labelled as gothic horror by the review I read then. However, there is little horror in the novel and much more of a diffracted snapshot of a perturbed pupil at a US boarding school, traumatised by the suicide of her father. As the story is told through and only through the diary of that pupil, most facts being reported second-hand and not always coherently, it becomes quickly impossible to separate truth from fantasy, especially the veracity of another pupil being a vampire. Or just the new best friend of the narrator’s former best friend. Which makes the book much more interesting, if unsettling. (Especially regarding how a sexual assault by a teacher on the pupil is not reported by her as such.)
During a May 01 trip to Caen, if not for the half-marathon, next month!, I visited the nearby fish market in Courseulle, where I tasted fantastic, local, oysters, possibly at the height of their growth, despite the warning to avoid oysters in months without R’s! I also taught a restaurant waiter how to make affogato! And visited the amazing archaeological site of Aregenua, in the tiny village of Vieux, of which I had never heard. This Gallo-Roman city was the centre of local power in the early centuries, when Caen hardly existed, with 5000 inhabitants, temples, a forum and a theatre. All of which gradually vanished in the Dark Ages… The site is now protected from pilfering, but a large fraction remains un-escavated. (Too bad the museum boutique was not selling garum!)
Watched some episodes of The Night Agent (2), rather efficient copycat of the Bourne movies, but also requiring a huge suspension of belief in its accumulation of coincidences and the ability of the agents to operate in completely new environments. With a completely implausible reception at the Iranian Embassy. (And a DGSE agent with an awful French.) But the tension in the cat & mouse “game” is there, to the point I had to split episodes when it got too intense!
just 39km/h faster…
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel with tags Abbaye aux Hommes, Caen, cycling, half-marathon, Les Courants de la Liberté, Normandie, Normandy, Pegasus bridge, Remco Evenepoel, road race, Saint-Etienne-le-Vieux, Tour de France, wheat fields under blue sky, yellow jersey on July 10, 2025 by xi'an
