running after my plane

A bit of a hectic trip to Abidjan last Sunday, starting from Caen in the early morning where I was supporting my daughter, wife, mother, and mother-in-law for the annual Rochambelle women-only 5k race on the previous evening! With my daughter managing a fantastic 52nd position and ending up first of her category! As I was driven to the local train station to get back to my 63kg of Annals and my plane, the on-going 10k race kept preventing us from reaching it and I eventually decided 8 minutes before the deadline to leave the car and race to the station, actually running along the 10k racers for one kilometer and managing to enter the train just before it was leaving (too bad I could not finish the race, this start would have made for a great time despite my current injury!). And then when I eventually reached the CDG airport with my 63kg, I was told my bags were not good enough to carry them and that I had to drop some years of these Annals in the bin! So very frustrating… At least the remaining books reached their intended destination.The plane ride itself was uneventful and above a constant cover of clouds. While catching up with some unread arXivals, I also watched a great 2018 Japanese movie, Shoplifters, which sounded more like a modern tale than a realistic story, so outlying its characters were. With unexpected revelations towards the end and overall a moving and very subtle reflection on what ultimately makes a family. (Reading reviews on the movie later made me realise one scene had been censored for plane audiences…)

La Rochambelle, 15000⁺ women in pink! [38:53, 118th & 8th V2…]

As essentially every year in the past decade, I have run the 10K in Caen for Courants de la Liberté, with 5000⁺ runners, on once again a new route, still completely intra muros in the city of Caen, and mostly flat, with highlights Guillaume’s medieval castle and Men Abbey,  the gothic St. Pierre church,  and a few other churches. It went reasonably well if not great (although I ran the first 5K’s in 19:02) as I ended up at a mediocre position (8th) in my category, which is not surprising with some runners now 9 years younger than I! (The runner next to me is the first V3.) Weather was much better than last year, if still too hot. I however primarily want to congratulate my mom and my mother in-law for walking the 6⁻ km Rochambelle the previous evening  in great cheer despite the rain and the crowd. I could not spot them on the picture above…

 

La Rochambelle, 25000⁺ coureuses! [39:29, 24⁰, 164th & 7th V2…]

As almost every year in the last decade, I have run the 10K in Caen for Courants de la Liberté, with 5000⁺ runners, on a new route completely in the city of Caen, partly downhill..! It did not go well (although I started in 3:44 on the first three k’s) as I ended up at a poor position (8th) in my category, which is not surprising with some runners now 8 years younger than I! (The runner next to me is the second V3.) And a fairly hot weather, especially for a Norman early morning…. Several runners fainted on the race or upon arrival and the faces of most runners showed the strain. But I first and primarily want to congratulate my mom for walking the 6⁻ km the previous evening despite serious health issues in the previous months, as well as my mother in-law who walked with her.

La Rochambelle 2015 [10K – 38:28 – 73th & 4th V4]

Another year attending La Rochambelle, the massive women-only race or walk against breast cancer in Caen, Normandy! With the fantastic vision of 20,000 runners in the same pink tee-shirt swarming down-town Caen and the arrival stadium. Which made it quite hard to spot my three relatives in the race! I also ran my fourth iteration of the 10k the next day, from the British War Cemetery of Cambes-en-Plaine to the Memorial for Peace in Caen. The conditions were not as optimal as last year, especially in terms of wind, and I lost one minute on my total time, as well as one position, the third V2 remaining tantalisingly a dozen meters in front of me till the end of the race. A mix of too light trainings, travel fatigue and psychological conviction I was going to end up fourth! Here are my split times, with a very fast start that showed up in the second half near 4mn/km, when the third V2 passed me.

20,000 pink ladies [10k: 37’26”, 43rd & 3rd V2]

This year was a special year for the races of Les Courants de la Liberté, in Caen, as part of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Allied landing on the nearby D-Day beaches. The number of women running the Rochambelle race/walk against breast cancer was raised this year to 20,000 participants, an impressive pink wave riding the streets of Caen, incl. my wife, mother and mother-in-law! And even one of the 1944 Rochambelle nurses attending the start and finish of the race!

While I had no particular expectation for the 10k race, it went on so well that I ended up with my best time ever on this distance (my previous record was in Ottawa in July…1989!). The weather was perfect, cool and cloudy with a tailwind most of the way. (The low intensity training in Edinburgh and the Highlands may have helped.) I had a bit of an issue at the beginning passing the first rows of runners who were clearly in the wrong league but stuck with a runner most of the race, which helped with the middle hardest k’s (with a maximal 3:58 on the 8th k!), and  finished by motivating another V2 to keep up with, very glad to see my finish time. I actually ended up 3rd V2 just ahead of two other runners from this category, but there is no podium or reward for this in this race, given the large number of races to accommodate (ultra-trail of D-Day beaches, marathon, half-marathon, 10k, rollers, kids,…)