A chance glance at a local newspaper, while checking for path conditions in the Zigzag Ranger station, made me aware of a local race taking place next to our vacation rental in Mount Hood Village! I first registered for the 5K then upgraded for the 10K, as the half-marathon sounded too much, esp. after an 18K fast training three days earlier… The route was nice, with two big hills and trees all around. I kept the first runner in my radar for the first seven kilometres but he then took off and won by almost two minutes. Very happy with the result, though, despite running the 5K and 10K more slowly than in Caen last month, where the altitude differential was much more modest. Too bad the tee-shirt is not that great! But the organising team was very friendly and excited at having an international participant to the races, for the very first time.
Archive for Grand Master
2024 Huckleberry Running Festival 10K [39:28, 2nd/97, +174m, 18⁰]
Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags 10k, Caen, Grand Master, half-marathon, hiking, huckleberry, JSM 2024, Les Courants de la Liberté, local race, Mount Hood, Oregon, podium, road race, tee-shirt, USA, vacations, Welches, Zigzag on August 16, 2024 by xi'anBoulogne half-marathon [1:25:23, 1078/10000, 7/178M5M, 3⁰]
Posted in Running with tags Boulogne-Billancourt, France, Grand Master, half-marathon, Hauts de Seine, M5M, road race, Seine on December 2, 2023 by xi'an
Argentan half-marathon [1:26:03, 22nd/329, 4th V2/63, 15⁰]
Posted in pictures, Running with tags Argentan, Argentan half-marathon, Grand Master, Normandie Course à Pied, Normandy, Orne, road race, road running, running, veteran (V2) on October 13, 2018 by xi'an
Despite failing to reach the podium this year in my V2 category, a predictable first as I get closer to move to the next category, V3, or “senior grandmaster”, and missing by a few seconds my 1:25 target, I was rather happy with this half-marathon, having run at my pace the whole race, with none of the low passages I had in previous races and instead feeling quite well in the last kilometers, where I left the first female runner. Weather was perfect, with no sun, no rain, and no wind in the second half. The three V2 runners in front of me were much faster (1:22, 1:24, and 1:25:21) than those of the previous years, an illustration of the law of small numbers found in these races…
La Rochambelle, 15000⁺ women in pink! [38:53, 118th & 8th V2…]
Posted in Kids, pictures, Running, Travel with tags 10k, Caen, D-Day beaches, Grand Master, La Prairie, La Rochambelle, Les Courants de la Liberté, Normandie Course à Pied, Normandy, road races, veteran (V2) on June 16, 2018 by xi'an
As essentially every year in the past decade, I have run the 10K in Caen for Courants de la Liberté, with 5000⁺ runners, on once again a new route, still completely intra muros in the city of Caen, and mostly flat, with highlights Guillaume’s medieval castle and Men Abbey, the gothic St. Pierre church, and a few other churches. It went reasonably well if not great (although I ran the first 5K’s in 19:02) as I ended up at a mediocre position (8th) in my category, which is not surprising with some runners now 9 years younger than I! (The runner next to me is the first V3.) Weather was much better than last year, if still too hot. I however primarily want to congratulate my mom and my mother in-law for walking the 6⁻ km Rochambelle the previous evening in great cheer despite the rain and the crowd. I could not spot them on the picture above…
semi-marathon d’Argentan [1:27:27, 22/356, 2/65]
Posted in Kids, Running, Travel with tags Argentan half-marathon, Grand Master, half-marathon, Insee Paris Club, Normandie Course à Pied, Normandy, road running, training, Yeovil Town Road Running Club on October 2, 2017 by xi'an
As a new anniversary of the beginning of this ‘og, here comes and goes my yearly half-marathon in Argentan, Normandy, which was the 33rd edition of the race and my 19th participation there…
“Ah, le fameux Robert de l’INSEE qui vient faire chier chaque année!”
This was not one of my best races, by far, and the [fake] news that this was going to be the last edition did not help. There were fewer runners than in the earlier races, meaning no protection on most of the route from what seemed like a constant headwind, as I ran by myself from the third kilometre. And I was tired from too much training (and not enough sleeping) the past week in Warwick. Or not enough training the previous week in Vienna. Anyway, this was not a great race and the local V2 [Grand Master] runner who greeted me with the above good-natured apostrophe when I passed him on the second km ended up one minute ahead of me. I could have even stopped at mid-race, were it not for a deficient watch operation, that kept me thinking I could keep with my earlier time [3:39 – 3:50 – 3:59 – 3:53 – 4:00 – 4:28 – 4:11 – 4:06 – 4:04 – 4:07 – 4:24 – 4:39 – 4:01 – 4:12 – 4:05 – 4:14 – 4:03 – 4:16 – 4:17 – 3:58 – 0:25] till the finish line when I found a 4mn difference with the official time! Despite the low participation of 356 runners, and with the support of runners from England, the town of Argentan has vowed to keep the race on for next years, calling for volunteers to man the route and the arrival hall. Till next time, then, hopefully!
