Archive for trail running
Dawn on Wear [jatp]
Posted in pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags #ERCSyG, dawn, Durham, Durham university, ERC, jatp, Low Burnhall Woodlands, Northumberland, Oceanerc, River Browney, River Wear, sunrise, The North, trail running, Woodland Trust on September 4, 2026 by xi'an
trail de la Sainte Baume [4:02:17, 26.2km, 1700m⁺, 187/517, 172M/395M, 1M6/4M6]
Posted in Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Aubagne, Bouches du Rhône, Côte d'Azur, check-point, Cluges-les-Pins, Cuges-les-Pins, Fall, Marseille, massif de la Sainte-Baume, mountain race, Parc naturel régional de la Sainte-Baume, Ponte de la Liberta, poster, Provence, Sainte-Baume, Sud, trail, trail running, Venezia on March 16, 2026 by xi'an
A particularly tough first exposure to trail running! I had accumulated quite a decent volume in preparation for this race, with more than 400km in four weeks, but it proved of little impact as I hardly ran, given the nature of the terrain, where passing slower runners was near impossible and where steep slopes forced most participants to walk up (fast) and made me hyper-cautious on the way down. And periodically letting faster runners pass me. Especially after my first fall at kilometre 8 when I bumped into a rock and fell flat (with many scratches but nothing broken). As a result, I went from 141th to 161th to 187th at the successive check-points. The massive differential let me with sore tights the whole week, although not preventing me from jogging every morning. And still the weather was near perfect, cold with no wind, sunny most of the way and no rain till the finish line. The good side is that I did not suffer at all from the hindfoot tendinitis I had developed two weeks earlier. And which soon returned on flat, fast terrains like Ponte de la Liberta!
Particular & paternal congrats to my daughter Rachel, who finished less then 15mn after me and managed her race most strategically, gaining positions at each check-up and ending up 23rd woman! Great race, Ra’!!! And great views during the race that I mostly missed, tunnel visioning the track to avoid yet another fall…
a journal of the warmongering year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Black Plague, book reviews, cake, chocolate cake, chocolaterie, cocoa, COVID-19, cuisine, Daniel Defoe, dystopia, Guadeloupe, Journal of the Plague Year, Korean food, Marseille, oxen, Parc naturel régional de la Sainte-Baume, restaurant, rural fantasy, Russian invasion, Sainte-Baume, Stand Up To Trump, survivalists, trail running, Ukraine on March 14, 2026 by xi'an
Read the highly original Die Wand (The Invisible Wall) by Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer. A dystopia where a sole (?) woman find herself isolated from the rest of the World (and its fossilised beings) by a transparent wall. And learns bit by bit how to survive with an Austrian hunting lodge, a cow, a dog and a cat. This is a fantastic book in all senses of the term. From the survivalist aspects, which are always engaging!—and reasonably realistic, albeit I would have used the cow for carrying heavy loads, smoked the meat of the deer shot by the woman, made cheese out of the milk, rather than butter, and turned hazelnuts into flour—, to the psychological damage of loosing human contacts, to the erasure of the wall between this survivor and the animals (with a paradox that is the top spoiler of the book!).
Cooked a sweet potatoes and cocoa cake in preparation for my trail race on La Sainte-Baume, near Marseille. With cocoa made from the beans I had brought back from Guadeloupe last summer. Not particularly tasty, despite a large input of melted cocoa, since I only added a few eggs, no sugar, and no flour, but at least definitely healthy. And, no, it did not impact my speed in the least! And keeping up with cocoa I visited a chocolaterie in Marseille that solely uses Madagascar cocoa beans and offers workshops for making one own’s bars. As well as superlative pure, unsweetened, chocolate drinks.
Watched The Million-Follower Detective, a Taiwanese detective story combined with a superficial reflection on the impact and excesses of influencers. Very heavy going, with an omniscient villain and a cascade of convenient coïncidences.
trail de la Sainte Baume
Posted in Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags Aubagne, Côte d'Azur, Cuges-les-Pins, Marseille, massif de la Sainte-Baume, Sainte-Baume, South, tedinitis, trail running on March 1, 2026 by xi'an
a journal of the disruption year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life, Wines with tags Bengali food, Black Plague, book reviews, British Raj, Brussels sprouts, COVID-19, cuisine, curry, Daniel Defoe, dystopia, food delivery, forensics, His Dark Materials, Japan, Japanese TV series, Journal of the Plague Year, Kerala, Korean food, Leamington Spa, Philip Pullman, plastic waste, restaurant, roses, Russian invasion, Sainte-Baume, spoilers, Stand Up To Trump, The Book of Dust, trail running, training, Ukraine, US society on February 19, 2026 by xi'an
Read Philip Pullman’s The Rose Dust till the last and final page! The end of a long wait and the conclusion of the trilogy… I have mixed feelings about this ending. I enjoyed most of the book with its alternative 1930’s impressions and the chaotic trek through an imaginary Middle East, but the story itself is lacking structure and strength. Especially for the final hundred pages, where the pace changed, slowing down as if to delay the finale. Suddenly the style became heavy, the story unconvincing, the characters more and more verbose, and the pages overloaded with mostly meaningless info-dump. (Warning: spoilers!) The worst was during the passage of the main characters into one alternative world, with an even heavier go at conglomerates like TP and the destruction of the rose fields and the old ways. Now that I have finished the book, I have no clear understanding of the nature of “Dust”, the importance of the rose fields, and the reasons for the actions of most of the characters…
Cooked Brussels sprouts on 31 January, when else?! With hardly any bitterness left, once grilled! And a week-lasting vegetable curry with plenty of mushrooms and onions (and chili) while in Warwick, with the addition of a ready-made Jalfrezi sauce that proved way too mild (and originates from the British Raj, rather than genuine Bengali cuisine). As did an otherwise fantastic fish curry at Kayal, the reference Kerala cuisine in Leamington Spa and a favourite of mine in the area (along with the Korean barbecue in Coventry!). A week that also reached 100km of running, thanks to evening sessions, in preparation for the Sainte Baume trail. I also went through a scary NYT piece on the rise of food delivery in the US urban areas. With the disturbing impacts on health, budgets, pollution, socialisation, and the new Lumpenproletariat of delivery drivers. (The nadir being this story of a data analyst working a second job as a food delivery driver to pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery! Not the most efficient data analyst around, then!)
Watched the 2018 Japanese TV show Unnatural (for Unnatural Death Investigation Laboratory, UDI Lab), featuring a group of forensic scientists with enough personal issues to feed the ten episodes. Very light despite the setting, always far from realistic, but rather homely and pleasant for its (indirect) depiction of modern societal issues in Japan.
