Last weekend, in a failed attempt to defend my title as "bringer home of bacon", I placed third in the annual Trail des Balcons Sud de Chartreuse. It is the same race that I somehow managed to score a first place finish in last year (and, in so doing, winning the infamous 6kg ham--see post from last May), but much to my dismay, the level of competition was a bit higher this year and I was only able to sprint myself into a third-place finish behind two extremely capable and fit women.
At the same time, my dear franco-american friend Emilie, who I initiated to the world of trail running last fall at a woefully un-documented 10km, ran the 9km version. As you will see in the photo at the bottom, she was certainly the prettiest and happiest looking participant, and reports that despite a lack of training as compared with last year, she found the race to be fun, and not that hard. Bring on the tougher races!
The race followed nearly the same course as last year, with only a slight detour caused by several weeks of rain and intense mud. We ran 24km with 1200m of up, starting and finishing in the town of Quaix en Chartreuse not far from Grenoble.
Despite being very far behind on my training schedule for the Grand Duc, I managed to finish only 1 minute behind my time from last year, at 2 hours and 44 minutes. The ladies decked out in "Ski Mountaineering World Cup" gear got in nearly 10 minutes before me, and #4 trailed me by 6 minutes.
In one month's time, I am hoping to be, once again, super-fit and ready to run 49km with 3500m of vertical as a member of the team "Tough Bunnies". My new team member (Brad has opted out this year), Marianne, has already logged a marathon this spring, and is training up a storm, so I have to hold up my end of the deal. Late-season snow makes the training difficult, and motivation lacks, as I know there is no longer a ham in my future, but I'll check back in with the next update on my very unorthodox training milestones. In the mean time, enjoy these photos of running, which are sure to disappoint as our audience has become far too accustomed to high mountain snow-romping photos....
 |
| "j'en chie parceque je veux en chier" |
 |
| prettiest 9km runner around |
 |
| me, looking like a goofer, on the right, ham-thieves on the left |
Franchement faire tout ca pour meme pas ramener de jambon, la je vois pas l'interet ;-) En plus ca a l'air fatiguant ton truc ! Bravo pour ton classement ;-)
ReplyDelete