17km run

Sunday 30th May 2010

Found enough motivation today to go out in the rain for a 17km trail run from Bourg towards St Foy alongside the Isère (324m climbing). It’s the first run this year over the 10km distance and the first run off-road. It’s also the first run in the rain and the first following a very hard long distance cycle on the previous day. Despite tired legs there was still enough juice to accelerate on the steep climbs – but the legs were very tired by the end. That’s quite normal when increasing distance beyond previous training.

At one point, when climbing a shallow gradient off-road I was overtaken by a young, skinny and tanned guy who was going so fast that it seemed surreal. Afterwards it seemed to have been like a cartoon character that shot passed me – the speed was unbelievable. I know that I was going quite slowly but this guy made me feel like I was standing still. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me when running those trails.

Body weight is starting to come under control at last, perhaps I’m burning a higher proportion of fat as fitness is improving. That’s what the theory predicts anyway. It could also be just the simple fact of burning over 5000calories on sport alone in the past two days…