10x 2min off 1min

Very weak reps today.

Decided last minute to do 10x 2mins on with 1min recovery. Too many miles in the legs. But I'm off for the weekend and next run might not be until Monday and next week needs to be a taper week leading up to the Geneva Half.

Was a hot day and the heat was an issue, I really appreciated the water in the fountains on the route.

Out bound reps were ok, but did not feel fast enough and I had no courage to go faster for fear of not making it back. Garmin confirmed zone 3 on the way out.

Turned back and the wind killed me. Had a wobble on rep 7 and a massive hrt spike - recoved quickly and did the last two passing some guy cruising fast enough to catch me on the recoveries and then I'd catch him on the on sections.

Disappointing stats, close to, but not on the 4min mile pace. Weird as actually better on the longer 4min reps. I guess the wind against was much stronger than I thought, or I was more tired than I though. Probably a combo of both.

7.3m steady, but hard on the hills

By the time I left the gym I had no idea how to use the lovey day with the sun shining and a distinct lack of Tenke to keep me fast.

So I plumped for a "steady" run, no messing around and aimed to do 30mins out and then turn. The woodland path up by the airport seemed like a good plan and only the killer hill would present any problems.

Pleased with how the hill went. Was focused all the way up and stayed on the road, rather than ducking into the park which is less steep but with a dip so total climb is more. They guy in the yellow top did that and he was pretty surprised to have seen me 100m behind him at the bottom of the hill and then I got to the top just ahead of him.

Some serious guys at a short 50m track doing mega reps grabbed my attention.

Headed down to the end of the field and did the small woodland trail then headed home.

Three guys came out the park just ahead of me and were speaking English, I think they were pretty surprised when I over took them skipping and frollocking down the hill at top speed.

I'd warmed up nicely and was now focused on holding the "steady" pace all the way home.

Messed up the crossing at the Botanic gardens and missed the underpass, so had to cross a road and then the WTO building was all secure on the left and had construction work on the right so frustratingly I ran roadside for a while until I found a path down to the works and jumped the fence to get back to the lake side park. Won't make that error again.

Felt great. Loved the downhill. Held the home pace on the flat at 7:45s with overall time out was 58mins for the 7.3m making ave pace 8min miles, but remember the hill mile took me 9mins!

Anyway the heart rate was maily zone 3, drifting into 4 on the hill and the last section. But very comfortable.

4.6 miles acceleration run - Botanical gardens

The idea of this run was to go out steady and gradually build up to a strong pace getting significantly fast on the home run.

On the way out a tubby bloke in a Man United top was jogging towards me soaked in sweat and doing 10 min miles. Two thoughts and I only just managed to keep them both to myself. Thought one "Chelsea!" in a London accent, thought two "Grrrross plein d'soupe!" that's for my French speaking Tintin fans.

Well it kinnda worked out ok today. 8min mile out to the parks, 8:17 though the second with the hill and then 7:45 to make sure I was homeward bound by 20mins and held it accelerating to 7:32 then hammering the last half mile at to finsh the last bit at 7min mile pace, which actually felt rather quick. Over the bridge I reached 3:32 minute km pace which was fun.

Just drifted through zone 3 for the second half with the big effort at the end taking me through the 4th and just into the 5th for a couple of minutes.

3.5 miles attempted easy run

Lovely day for an easy recovery run. Garmin suffered death by battery - very annoy as I'm sure I saw a "Charge complete message" on it last night.

Anyway, running free once again. Focused on form. Richard from my beasting in the gym last friday took a look at me on the treadmill warming down. I asked him to show me how my feet were landing on the treadmill. He showed me how my right foot was landing, nicely in the mid sole. Then he showed me a goose step with heel smash. That's what your left foot looks like. Cheers mate.

So off I trotted along the lake side focusing on left foot mid-sole striking. There was a guy with an empty bottle of bacardi and two cocktail cups doing a barman act which was an unusual sight.

Ducked under the parking tunnel at Geneva Plage and into the parks. The perimeter route is great, under the trees it is cool and the path is soft under foot. I spotted a telly tubby ahead and decided I wanted to catch him by the top or else. So I focused on driving the knees and toeing off hard and started to close the gap, just quickly enough to fly past him at the last bit of the hill. HRT through the roof and blown the easy run, but it was fun. I hold the pace for free on the flat and two serious looking guys are tanking along towards me and I receive the nod of acknowledgement among runners who clearly "know what they are doing". Back down the hill avoiding dogs of all shapes and sizes with owners of varing degree of interest too.

Home in 24 mins and some lake side stretching in front of the 100s of people munching their lunch in the sun.

Correction the following is completely wrong:
Manually calculate the route to be 3.5 miles so that's 6:51 pace, so only another 10 miles at that pace would see me around a half marathon sub 90. Dream on.....

I was out for 30 not 24 mins so the ave pace was actually 8:47 so this was indeed a very easy run. I would love to have produced such amazing pace with such easy effort but hey, I'm just not that good.

16m all the way to St. Prex

With the London Marathon on today and the 20km of Lausanne yesterday, it had to be a long run today.

Plans was to go to Luins again to pick up Jason, but he called in sick which is a real shame as he had been out scouting woodland mountain passes for us to explore the night before! So I instantly did an about face and headed of on the flattest route I know around here which is my lovely Aubonne River route.

Oddly, with the PT beasting in the gym it was the pecs and shoulders that held me back until they loosened off. Then Garmin died after 2 miles. Ho hum running free then today.

Woodpecker was going for it in the Aubonne River Forest and I was enjoying the sun rising in front of me and the organic material underfoot was a joy. Over the river and first surprise was a seriously steep hill. Then the route took the forest again and I could see glimpses of the Littoral shopping zone. In Bouchillon there is a house being built, a snip at 2.8 million swiss. Eek.

Before long I started to recognise places and even friend's cars parked up out side their houses. Nice feeling. After that down to St. Prex via the park, made use of the excellent lake side access (well done the commune and landowners for the compromise of a path that is "over" the lake - people get access and no-one gets part of their garden chopped off!) dipped into the main square so I could run under the horloge arch and then down to the pier where I touched the St. Prex sign and then back via the plage des hommes (luckily remembered their is no link with the plage des dammes) and then back the way I came.

Two guys came screaming down behind me on Mountain Bikes and all the gear on. I had to jump out the road. The river crossing slowed them down so much I caught them on the far bank and one of them must have read last week's blog because he carefully held open the gate for me so I would not risk catching anything on the metal. Merci!

At the river I went up to Allaman village and made the mistake of going up again to try to short cut my way to Perroy, ended up in Fechy and added a couple of miles to the route.

Out for a total for 2h 13m and with the below plus the out to the river is 4 and back must have been around 5 I think I did around 16 miles at around 8:20 min mile pace which I am reasonably pleased with.

Aubonne to St. Prex section of the route.

6x4mins off 90s

Reps today and decided to reduce my normal 2mins recovery between the 6 4mins on session to 90 seconds.

Out bound into the wind and as I was on my own it was hard to force the efforts out. Wind against outbound but no excuse as the Garmin proved I did not get out of zone 4 until half way through rep 3.

I guy in a red top kept overtaking me on the recovery and then I would overtake him on the on. Made it as far as the start of the lake side hill and did the recover on the up hill so the downhill would be on the on! So rep 4 was start downhill and wind behind. Disappointed to only just sneak under the 4min km mark at 3:57 but it felt better.

5th felt good (and was under) I tried telling myself it was the last one but any fool could tell there was at least 3 more kms before Geneva, so it did not really work.

Last one I noticed something release on the right shin and suddenly that side felt very light and bouncy, so I almost made it back to the naked lady but came up 50m short. So only two under 4min kms and ave. 4:04 min/kms. I think this is more a function of no Tenke to speed me up or Ken running me down rather than a lack of fitness. That sesson should have been all about zone 5, but only spent 10mins there with nice recovery that just got me back to zone 3 in time to start over again

4.7miles easy river, with punchy hills

Yesterday was a "rest" day, went to the gym and did 12 mins on a bike that felt like 90 mins of running. Then I did some circuit training stuff and finished with some stretching.

Had a late night last night so was not full energy, but the legs felt like they'd enjoyed the day off yesterday. I was planning reps tomorrow, so decided to do 20 mins out and 20 back easy.

Took the Rhone trail. I was trying to go slow, but hold the pace on the uphill sections which are sharply steep and hard. I'd just attacked one hill and was focused on the recovery on the downhill section when I nearly stood on what looked a lot like a wolf sunning it's self on the path, then I noticed another, and another oh no I think, now I've done it running into a pack of wolves. My heart skipped a beat and then I noticed they had collars and there was an owner up ahead. Phew. What would Dave have made of that?

Even with the Tenke switch back I was going to have to climb to the bridge at round 17 mins so I needed that like a hole in the head and decided to run up a random path to see where it went. Nothing to exciting but a change is as good as a rest and as it was 260 feet up hill that broke the boredem of zone 2 and I was gently nudged into the fourth. Opps.

Also saw two black squirels. Jet black and hard as nails. I'm sure they gave me a dirty look when I went past.

Recoverd back to zone 2 and then was so bored with the slow pace I could not help speeding up over the last 5 mins back to the start.

Total time 40mins to do 4.73 miles. Out bound 20 were safe in zone 1 and 2, but the hill got me in zone 4 briefly and I recovered quickly to zone 2. Last mile was at 7:30 which should be easy, but ended up in zone 3.

3m 20mins tempo

With all the slow stuff over the weekend I needed something fast, but with more miles in the legs over the last 7 days than I'm used to - I've racked up 48 miles with out really trying - I could feel the legs were tired. So increase the speed reduce the milage.

Warmed up properly today by steadily accelerating to the naked lady statue going past her close to target pace for the 20 mins of speed work I'd decided to do today. Simple 10mins out 10mins back with no recovery.

Felt far to fast over the first bit, but got it under control quickly enough and bounced around trying hard not to focus too much on the Garmin and just run at what felt like much faster than normal, but not right up at race pace. Did not settle until after the first mile, which at point I was very disappointed to see it had taken me just over 7 mins. Still into the wind, so picked it up safe in the knowledge I've have the wind behind in 3 mins. Turned on 10mins as planned an made a point of forcing myself to go faster than before and sure enough the same effort yielded more speed. Happy days.

I felt there was more in the bag and made a big push to clear the next 5 mins stongly pretending to myself there were only 5 left. Next the Garmin beeps the 2nd mile and I know I am nearly there. Get past my start point with 2 whole minutes to go and I pretend it is a race and sprint through the last minute flat out. Nearly make it to 3 miles (2.94). Jog home and am glad to see the hrt drop quickly.

So, 7:07; 6:48; 6:30 increasing speed and steady straight line heart rate drift up to max. 10mins in zone 4 and 10mins in zone 5. For about 2 mins before the turn I found that magic pace just at the top end of zone four where I felt comfortable and held 154 as my hrt with no drift. Interestingly, that pace was 6:52. Hold that for 90 mins and it is a sub 90 half!

Right. I need a rest day.

8m I crossed the Aubonne!

Having dragged poor Jason on this route for an "easy 5km" which somehow turned into a 13km outing last weekend, today was time to do something I had wanted to do for ages. That is find the footbridge over the river Aubonne. In doing so I would open up the route to St. Prex and expand my running options massively.

So off I went, pace felt like lighting after yesterday. However it was an average of 8:40 min miles and the good news is that the vast majority of the run was still down in zone 2, a fair bit in zone 1 and a drift into zone 3 for a few minutes while on the Perroy hill.

Out and back downtown Perroy (for my English followers, that's P-eh-er-wah, trust me!) was jumping, old guys on push bikes, cars, pedestrians all headed to the source of the freshly baked bread smell wafting out of the bakery.

The kiwi trees have flowered by Allaman beach and the river side clip was a joy and the anticipation mounted as I drew closer to where I thought I could cross the river. A woodpecker made a racket doing it's thing.

I notice a lot of white water ahead and over the weir is a small concrete bridge with the yellow walking route sign on it. There's a small metal fence around it with a metal gate and the gate is not locked but jammed shut. I jump the gate and cross the bridge. Quick time of day check and admire the far bank and head back. Unfortunately I snag my shorts on the way back over the metal gate in a stray wire and stop dead when I hear a tearing sound. Luckly no pain or real damage done, just a small hole in the shorts!

Somehow crossing the Aubonne really made me feel great, another goal achieved.

Head back via Allaman village and down to the outbound route. I reflect on how I now know the area well enough to guess connections like that and even the village names all are falling into place.

Begining to belong!

13.8m/22km Long run

In terms of distance, I know it is not that long really, but in terms of time 2h 6mins it was very long. In both time and distance dimensions this has been the longest run I've done in ages and was important for me as I need to go longer than 13.1 in the lead up to a half marathon to prove to myself that I can still do the distance, which of course I can, but somehow going beyond the target distance gives you the confidence to push out harder knowing for sure if you need to simply slowing down will permit you to finish the course.

The plan was for me to run to Luins and find Jason at his place and take if from there. Luckly a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland had closed the airspace over northen europe and so Jason's missus could not escape to Ireland as planned so the run was on, off, then on again. I needed to be back by 9am so we arranged to meet at his at 7am. Google maps spelt his street with an i instead of y so I had to call for directions the night before. Two things went wrong, his good lady talked me into taking the vineyard route (which was much better from a lack of traffic and scenic perspective) and I thought I was meeting him at his house. So from the map the main road is 5.4km so I left myself 30mins and set off at 6:30am. Unfortunately taking the vineyard route meant the dreaded hill - this time 7% from km 1.5 to km 2.8 taking me up 500ft. Very hard work. The straight travese of the hill side was a joy and I tried to get back to a decent pace (well sub 10 min miles!!!) then realised I'd hit the 5km mark and there was at least one more village before Jason's place and it was 6:57 - opps. I was going to be late. I picked up the pace and as the church bells clanged in Vinzel to annouce 7am I still had one more click to do. Picked up to race pace and tanked it into town found his road then his house and no sign of life let alone runners. His car is parked up outside so I am sure this is his place. I remember the wife and kids inside, so stop myself ringing the doorbell. Go to the garden and climb over to see if there is anyone inside. Nothing stirs. I admire the sunrise which is spectacular and then go back inside to leave my map on his door mat to prove I've been there. A flash of yellow outside at the top of the drive could be a runner so I open the door and call out Jason - it's him! Phew. He's been running up and down the main road to warm up as that's where we were supposed to meet while I was waiting at his house. Ho hum. Still now I know where he lives and that the vineyard route is 7km.

We decide to go easy down to Gland and follow the parcours vita that is near the sports centre and goes through some woods.

After that Jason introduces me to some great little paths and chemins between Rolle and Gland that are just what I need to have some more "flat" options on the Geneva side.

We go through a cloud of insects and Jason gets a mouthful of flies and spits them out in a big sneeze right at the same time I get a fly in my eye. He offers to remove it for me there and then but I decided to live with it until I get home.

Next up is a great event that made me think of my mate Dave in England who has a complex relationship with dogs. Jason assures me that there is a tunnel under the railway just along this lovely section of path. The path looks to me a lot like the drive to a massive mansion house just up ahead. The sign says something like "Keep out losers, 30 francs fine if I catch you on my land." But Jason assures me they tolerate runners like the owner of this place is one of his best mates. He points out the galloping horses in the paddock. As we get to about 100m away from the front door a woman in horse riding gear appears followed by a guy with two horses. And then the dog. This thing was massive. It was bigger than many humans I know and it was the kind of hunting dog you could imagine the Iceni using to give the Romans a hard time when they invaded England. It sees us, stops dead and stares right at us. Jason stops dead and shouts at me urgently to do the same. So there we are stopped in our tracks with a killer giant war hound 20m in front of us. Only one thing to do - blagg it. In excellent French Jason shouts "Hi good morning, we're only here to use your tunnel!" We get an odd look, but the lady of the manor calls of the war hound and horse man nods at us as if to say ok you can go through. Which we do. Jason confidently assures me the tunnel is just around the corner. Or perhaps they moved it. Later we cross a bridge.

We part company and Jason heads up back to Luins and I push on for Rolle. Time of day shows that I've got plenty of time to get down to the lake side and loop the castle before heading for home. I was glad I did. As I got to the edge of the lake I could see what at first I thought were riot police, then creatures from a bad doctor who circa 1950, but what were in fact firemen learning fireman things. In groups of 10-15 all along the lake past the castle and long the football pitch they were learning how to connect fire hoses to other sections of fire hoses, then the more advanced class were working on climbing ladders and the top bannanas got to connect their fire hose to the fire hydrant and spray the football pitch with water. No that looked like real fun. What a great job.


27 mins in the dangerous grey zone getting over to Luins, but around one hour in zone 2 and the rest in zone 1. So happy days, time on feet was the name of the game and I got lots of it!

Average pace was 9:10 so Jason is a minute mile faster than last time, yee ha. At this rate of improvement I'll be slowing him down in about 3 weeks.

After I got home my daughter managed to remove a fly from my eye. But it still hurt. I needed to use Jason's q-tip tip for removing insects from your eye which worked a treat. The dead fly was massive. Yuck.

5 or 6 miles Easy Parc des Eaux-Vives and old town

Easy run to Parc des Eaux-Vives free of all electronics. Round the perimeter of the park on the trail through the trees. Lovely underfoot on the wood chip on the ground.

One guy climbed the hill outside and tried to catch me. I could see he was struggling so kicked hard to the top for fun and glanced back to see him bent over double dripping sweat and head between the knees. He he!

Then back out the park and I decided to take in the old town so run to the main tourist places and perfectly judged the decent to arrive right outside the gym.

No idea how long I was out for, 45 to 50 mins and probably did around 5 or 6 miles super easy.

Felt great.

7m with a nasty hill

Aiming to do around an hour "easy" with Tenke, which for mere mortals like me is usually a fair clip.

However we had plenty to chat about on the sunny day and drifted (easily?) over to the botanical gardens out to the trails we've touched upon last time.

The hill nearly killed me. I noticed after about quarter of the way up that I've stopped talking completely and Tenke is chatting away like the hill does not exist. But it does. I can feel the heart rate climb and the perceived effort rockets. I grunt and groan my way to the top and appologise as 3/4 of the way up as I can't hold the pace and live. Hey Ken, deja vue? We drop into the park and I recover before the last quarter of the hill. 300 foot climb in well under one mile. But then that's it, recover back to zone 3 and stay there the whole way home.

Highlights of the run include being one field away from the airport, fields of cows, then fields of horse right in the middle of the city and the best for last, the big broken chair statue to remind politians visiting the palace of nations that land mines are nasty things.

7 miles in 57 min ave pace 8:10s. Felt easy enough except for the hill. 33 in zone 3 and the rest split evenly between 4 (up hill) and 2 (downhill).

Route home was rubbish next to the road, saving grace was the broken chair thingy.

6x 800m Reps

Three out three back. Set the fully charged Garmin up in the sun as the world went by. Sunny, but with a chill in the wind when it blew.

Hard to get going on your own, but I did and I tried hard not to stop on the recoveries. 2 mins felt long, but the advantage of a long recovery is that you can, in theory do the next one properly.

Wind was against out bound, which is my excuse for failing to hit target race pace once. Surely the way back would be better? Wind behind, perceived effort high, grrr, still not enough pace. By the last one I was feeling like I'd done enough and it was a struggle to keep going to finish the 293m I had left at the naked lady statue. Final one was the best and only one under target pace of 4min kms. Ave for the six was 4:05 so not far off, but not as fast as Kenny so clearly room for improvement.

Nearly took the guy who runs the tourist train out. Went for the gap between a bloke carrying a child and his train and he tried to get on the train behind the tourist and had to leap out of the way as I screamed through. That will teach him for not addressing me formally yesterday!

May go to the track later this week, but need to be careful not to rack up too much high intensity verses tempo and easy.

5m, two or three long reps or were they tempos?

My planned short tempo was destroyed by the "battery low" followed by blank screen trick from uncle Garmin.

So I pushed out anyway, along the Quai de Gustave Ador. At the naked lady statue I decided to tank it to the other side of the Plage de Geneve, recover out there and perform the same trick on the way back.

Out bound was tough, holding the pace difficult into La Bise which was still about as strong as it was yesterday, when I spent much of the day putting the plants upright on the balcony.

Overtook a fat zone 1 bloke doing some run walk garbage. I waited until he was running before going right behind him putting my footfalls in his before accelerating past him at full pelt.

At the turn I squeezed an hrt check out of the Garmin before it refused to start anymore and it was 140, but I'd already had a few moments recovery so I was probably well in the fourth zone.

Few guys go past and I get several "Bonjour"/"Hi" acknowledgements. No idea who any of them are.

I noticed a more serious looking chap cruising in roadside and decided to recover some more and use him as a mark on the return leg.

Set off lake side and for the inbound leg and felt the wind pushing me home. Nice. Think form. More speed. Catching. Catching. 20m to catch him and at the Yatch club he vanishes. Gone. I move onto the grass and try to hold the percived effort which feels strong but controlled. Kick to the naked lady and am mildly annoyed to have failed to capture any data.

Suddenly, m. serious runner appears. He's still going at a decent pace and up by the road. I decide to see if I can catch him again. Ease up to his pace and match it as I draw level. Hold that all the way down to Jardin Anglais, where our paths meet and we run side by side through the park in silence, both of us holding the pace and looking staight ahead. Then the clown who sells the tickets for the tourist train jumps out and runs long beside me as if he is racing me - I think about taking him out Andy McNab style but quickly decide he is no threat and he says something in french about how I am far to fast for him to keep up with, now who told him he could say "tu" to me anyway....

Down the ramp to go under the Pont de Mont Blanc and the speed comes for free and I hold that pace to the end. Well there we are, three one mile chunks of steady running.

8.5 miles, Rolle to Aubonne river

Today was my first run with Jason, veteran of several marathons.

Easy run was agreed as Jason is just getting into it after a while of not running and he did pretty well considering his only running prep was a a couple of short runs. But he looks like a runner, because he is a runner. Anyone who has done one marathon, let alone three gets plenty of credit in my book regardless of pace.

Super easy 8.5 miles in 1:27 so TEN FIFTEEN MIN MILE pace - Ken you'd have loved it. All zone 1 & 2 (on the hills).

Jason's company is moving to Perroy so it was familiar territory for him as we headed over that way and I very carefully made sure to turn down towards the lake and not in any way shape or form up.

Turns out the weird looking vines are in fact kiwi trees. Apparently they smell a lot when they flower. We pushed on past the beach through the Aubonne river nature reserve and turned back on about 4 miles. Nice section next to the river and in the woods. Fishermen out on the river.

On the way back as we are coming up to cross the route suisse, Jason glances right and left and mutters "let's go" as he darts across the road busy road like Usain Bolt. Click the link, it is worth it! I just make it though the cars behind him!

As we get to the top of the last hill I'm chatting away and remark how the last time I was at this point in the run I was stuggling and how today I'm still talking, Jason's retort is a classic "Yeah, well I'm still listening!".

I've decided on the way back my tradition will be to run through the grape gates in Perroy, I mention this to Jason and he has another Usain Bolt moment and glances back at me as he goes through the gates "hey, race you to the gates!"

Loop the castle because it is there and take in the "marche des puces" to finish at the Cafe Boulangerie where we eventually enjoy some refreshments.

8.5 miles on the Rhône trail - long tempo

This time I felt we ran well and reasonably hard.

Out for 72 minutes clearing 8.29 miles ave. 8:42.

On the surface poor. However, we only overtook. The Rhône trail will never be a fast run. It is a very difficult trail, narrow in places and you need to jump fallen trees try not to knock on coming runners into the river and so on.

Having read the bumf from the tourist info on the trail I pointed out the artificial reed beds and pools (ideal for pike and local terrapins) the sewage works (water goes back in better than it came out!) and was disapointed not to make it as far as the pipeline bridge, but at 35mins it was time to turn back. Tenke seemed to know every runner we met today.

With the garim powered and not skiing anymore I was delighted to review the statistics that confimed we had climbed (and decended) 1694ft on our 8.29 mile run. And those climbs are so steep that even Tenke was reduced to walking. Net result of these super steep climbs was that I spent 33:10 in Zone 4 and 27:20 in Zone 3 so I am claiming this as a long tempo run. While the speed was not there the sheer steep climbs and technical difficulty was. Where the trail flattened my hrt dropped and the speed increased. Slowest mile was 9:12 due to the massive climb from the river to the top of the bridge which is as near as can be to vertical.

4x(5on 30r 1on 90r) opps that 9 miles!

Early out and RVD was the naked lady statue for the reps session.

1.31 miles to get there. Bit of chatter to decide when to start and how many out and back to do (Tenke has just run 10km to get to meet me btw!).

We settle on 3 out 1 back.

Tenke's class shows as she eases through the reps, disappearing ahead of me and there is nothing I can to do close the gap. She is kind enough to loop back after 4 mins of the 5 min cycle to meet me on the recovery.

My head is not cleared of the cold and I can feel the chest not filling properly. I try and put an even effort in and hold a decent pace on the fives, but cannot. 2nd rep takes us through the shopping area and a car pulls out and nearly knocks Tenke over then trys to do the same with me. Now we are back down hill on the 3rd cycle on some pleasant back roads. Furthest I've ever been out this way. We head back and the fourth cycle gets us onto the downhill section to the lake and this is the most enjoyable bit. Speed comes easier on the downhill and safe in the knowledge I'm on the last rep. As we finish the final sprint I see a sign that says Geneva 6km. Opps. That's more warm down than I intended. Cleared 4.38 miles on the 4 8min cycles full Garmin stats below (in imperial and metric) and total of 9.03 miles. That counts as a long run too!


Looks like my efforts were consistent, but the sprints could have been harder and the 5mins should have been faster. As Tenke says, we need to do more of this kind of work. Planning a trip to a track next week.

65 minutes time on feet, running free, 8ish miles

After no running at all in Ovronnaz and the very slow hill run yesterday I thought the Tenke Tempo might be pushing it. I had a blocked nose too. And a headache.

Tenke did not fancy the tempo after all and we headed out to the Botanical Gardens and when I ran out of route Tenke guided us up a massive hill and off into the unknown (for me anyway). Amusing moment was when I asked a bloke in my wonderful French how to get into the park, while Tenke detected a hint of an accent in his answer and switched us into English which the guy spoke well enough, but with a thick German accent. Typical Geneva.

By the time it came to do the tempo neither of us fancied it so we just kept running and as my Garmin still thought I was skiing nothing captured.

I'm sure it must have been a good 2 miles out from the botanical gardens when we looped back, making the whole thing between 8 and 9 miles.

6m What's over there, oh another hill

Garmin is dead.

Ran semi free, with a plan to go out 30mins then head back. Followed the Geneva side footpath and found some new villages with the added attraction that the fountains are all open and flowing with ice cold melt water from the mountains. Previously they were closed to protect them from the ice.

However, the usual non-lake side problem arose after about one mile. Sheer climb, no hope of any speed much above walking so just think of form enjoy the view and soak up the environment. Spotted M. et Mme. feeding the chickens. Some else tending their vines.

Weather was perfect, cool, clear, crisp and sunny. Came off the yellow dimonds just before half way, but found them again. Even better the route I did find had a fancy 3 on it and some verbage below it which basically announced the panoramic walk - did exactly what it said of on the tin. Outbound views of Geneva with the jet d'eau and on the way back the french alps and the other end of the lake with the chateau de Rolle below. Stunning stuff.

58 mins on feet must have done at least 6 miles, yes that many. So steep. Too steep. I will crack this.

No stopping! But this time on skis....

Family holiday in Ovronnaz with ski and thermal baths. We bought the 5 day pass for both the slopes and the pools so that meant we had to go every day to extract maximum value.

With the kids in ski school each morning that meant I'd be ski-ing with my dear wife, Katja. She is rather good and this is not surprising considering she was brought up on skis. Normally, this means I ski at my limit until I catch her waiting for me halfway down a run and just as I arrive huffing and puffing she shoots off to the bottom. Grrrr.

This year I discovered how to ski quickly. Suddenly it just happened. I was going really fast and not in fear of death. Skis pointing down hill I could make tight turns or traverse to slow down and it really was rather fun. Next thing I know I'm at the bottom. Legs hurt, then I think hey where's Katja. Next thing I see her come down and while she looks 1 million times better than me I am at the bottom before her. An all time first for me. Perhaps it is because she's not well. Perhaps it is because her skis are 23 years old (not anymore, she's got new ones now!).



Then it snowed on Weds and Thurs was amazing. Some of the runs they just left and so there was power on the slopes. Total joy to ski on and the resort was almost empty. One run we did it looked like we were first to ski on it. On the T-bar up we made the first traces on the run.

Just for fun I put the Garmin on on Friday and not including the lifts, so pure skiing only, in the morning we cleared 11.65 miles in 43mins 55s. (2hours 30mins "skiing") ave. speed was 16 mph and my max was 40 pretty much all done in zone one.



The thermal pools were great too. Lots of jets of water to point at sore muscles.

Found the gym one day and did some rowing, weights, bike and some circuit training type stuff.