8m easy, in the rain

It must be a bank holiday weekend in the UK as the predicted wet weekend failed to show here until around 1am when it started lashing it down.

It was still doing that as I sheltered behind one of the pillars to the Rossey Estate and while the Garmin found some Satellites on top of the pillar I waited for Jason to rock up.

We agreed the original plan of the woods was a seriously bad idea in this weather, so he parked up and produced some croissants. Now this a proper running buddy. Not only does he turn up in shocking weather, even after some hard training the day before, but he has gone down to the bakery and picked up breakfast for my family. Nice one buddy!

He got me at Perroy. 6 feet before the gates he sprints off and goes through before me. Bother. Must remember to pay more attention.

Got a bit lost on the way home, pushing out for a route undery the railway to avoid Perroy, but ended up running 3 sides of a field before getting to the railway tracks. Jason wanted to run to the station along the railway tracks or something, but I was not too keen on that plan. I could hear a training coming and see the headlines now, "Expat squished by efficient swiss train." Let's get the 4th side of the field clear and try the other path. We did and as we climed to Perroy I thought of those gates again. Also though of turning the screw on the hill to avoid being beaten to the gates, but though better of it. As we came through downtown Perroy Jason says, "Where to we kick for the gates? And by the way, I get a 3 second start." Ok, we agree the start point and the handicap.

As we draw level with the white car Jason hits full speed in a flash and there is spray everywhere as he hammers faster and faster to the gates. I ease up to his speed and hold the gap at 2 seconds. About half way I sense just a hint of pace drop ahead and accelerate to my max and power past and hold 100% to the gates. I made it to 159 bpm so top of zone four, felt like max but was really about 80%. Fastest bit during that fun was 3:28 min mile pace! But only for a few seconds!

8 miles covered in 1h 13m or ave 9:13 min mile pace. Super slow and all in zone one or two save the curious incident of the Perroy gate.