semi de Boulogne [1:29:33, 1243/8134, M5M 6/206, 8⁰+rain]

First time back to the Boulogne half-marathon since 2008! With clearly a much degraded time, albeit better than the previous race in Argentan. The route has changed, with a longer part in the Bois de Boulogne, sharing the road with the hordes of Sunday cyclists that pile up loops at high speed. But still a very fast one (with a record at 1:00:11 in 2013). The number has alas considerably increased since my last visit, with 9800 registrations, which makes running in the first kilometers a challenge with hidden sidewalks, parked cars and moppets, &tc. And a permanent difficulty in passing other runners, especially on a rainy day. (The only good side was being protected from headwinds.) Once on the road by the Seine River, I managed to pass a large group conglomerated around a (1:30) pace setter and moved at my own speed, till Km16 when I started to tire and realise I was alas missing some volume of training (as running in NYC was only a slow-paced jogging). Hence wasting about a minute on the final four kilometers… (Jogging back after the race to my car, parked 3km away, proved rather painful!) As the 1:30 time was my upper limit, I am still reasonably fine with the result (and the 4’14” per km) and hope I can train harder for the next race.