Archive for half-marathon
more of the Norman fog
Posted in Kids, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Argentan, farmhouse, fog, half-marathon, morning light, Normandy, Orne, Sévigny on October 15, 2013 by xi'an
Norman appletrees in the fog
Posted in Kids, pictures, Running with tags appletree, Argentan, fog, half-marathon, morning light, Normandy on October 9, 2013 by xi'an
Argentan half-marathon [split times]
Posted in R, Running with tags Argentan, background, half-marathon, Normandy, race, road races, running, splits on October 7, 2013 by xi'an
Argentan half-marathon [1 25′ 00″ – 31/552 – V2: 3/129 – 19°C]
Posted in pictures, Running with tags Argentan, half-marathon, Normandy, race, veteran (V2) on October 6, 2013 by xi'an
This race was a tough one, ending up with more than a minute lost from last year… Not so much because of the weather conditions (a bit too hot and too windy), but because of the lack of pack for much of the race that saw me running by myself with no-one near. I tried to keep with the 3rd woman from last year (Daria Furkalo who finished second in 1:23:50 this year) but I slowed down too much on the forest slopes and I had to fight hard to stay around 4mn per kilometre for the rest of the race, with hardly anyone in sight. There was about the same number of runners as last year, but I somehow fell into a gap with minutes between runners at the end of the race. The last two kilometres were a wee bit harder, maybe because of a lack of long distance runs, maybe because of a residual of the flu, maybe just because I am getting older!, and the runner in front of me seemed impossibly far. He actually ended up second in my V2 category. When I talked with him at the rewards ceremony [yet another ugly cup to store in my CREST office!], he told me he had spotted me by looking at the results of last year and seeing my Insee Paris Club red tank top, which prompted him to fight harder to keep ahead of me (while I had no idea of his age group!). I found this story quite funny in the planning it involved (while acknowledging trying to spot other V2’s on the race and asking one runner catching up with me at mid-race whether he was V2…) [Thanks again to the photographs of Normandiecourseapied for their free pictures!]
La Rochambelle 2013 [39’51” – 105th & 8th V2]
Posted in Kids, pictures, Running with tags 10k, breast cancer, Caen, Courants de la Liberté, D-Day beaches, half-marathon, Juno Beach, La Rochambelle, Normandy, Pegasus bridge on June 22, 2013 by xi'an
For the second time in a row, I ran the 10k that is one of the races of Courants de la Liberté, celebrating D-day anniversary from Juno Beach (marathon), Pegasus Bridge (half-marathon) and Mathieu British War Cemetery, all ending at the Caen Museum for Peace. The most important race is however “La Rochambelle“, which is a women-only race where, this year, 18,000 runners put on the same pink t-shirt and ran or walked the 5k circuit. The benefits all go to local breast cancer associations. (We had hopes to have my mother, my wife—that you may be able to spot in the above picture—and my daughter jointly in this race but my daughter preferred to stay home to prepare her finals. Instead, my mother-in-law picked the challenge and joined us.) As for last year La Rochambelle, the sight of this pink wave flowing down though the streets of Caen is a unique and highly emotional sight, where the community of spirit among the participantes and the complete lack of competition between them are obvious. (A lot of them run another race the day after.)
Despite my long break in training, and slow recovery, I decided to run the 10k, if only to check how much I had lost compared with last year (where I finished second V2). Contrary to last year, the weather was perfect: cool with neither (Norman) rain nor (Channel) wind. After a fairly quick start (3’34” on the first km!), I managed to keep with my 3’52” goal for a few kms and then inexorably had to give up seconds and positions to end up just under the 40mn barrier, more than one minute worse than last year. Not very surprising. I just hope I can get enough proper training this summer to recover in time for Argentan 1/2 marathon (to which the ‘Og is inextricably linked!) and maybe the Pont de Normandie 1/2 marathon…
