No Garmin for me tonight, school boy error in leaving it charging at home while remembering to take the hrt strap!
On the way up, Stefan was using psy ops on Jason, questioning his health. Meanwhile, Richard was downing some dodgy fluid that quelle surprise made him sick too. But his tough character showed through and he ran the race anyway.
Stefan and I went on the traditional trek to find out what the last 1km or so looked like, and it was nasty. Narrow tree section then an rise into a football pitch with a 1m ramp right in the middle of the finish straight.
The start was delayed by 5 minutes to permit the lost runners to get there on time. There were some massive road works which meant country lanes rather than motorway!
I found Alain (aka Bob Le Couruer) and sloted in 4 rows behind him. I was ahead of Stefan and Jason had found a nice spot surrounded by the hot babe running club, or perhaps they were attracted to him?
The first km was crazy. Several people went over in the crush at the start and I was very focused on not being one of them. So much so, that the first km was slow, with both Jason and Stefan ahead of me. This was not right. Alain ahead I can handle, but the new eager beavers had me worried.
After about 1km it calmed down a bit. I noted I'd passed Stefan and Jason and I had to supress a little niggling feeling that Richard might be ahead.
Suddenly I recoginised a little girl in the field with a banner and the lady she was with looked familiar too. Then I realised it was Lia and Katja and Paul was there too, they were waving and shouting, so I waved back and that lifted my spirits. I also knew they were well placed to see us on the way back too. Lovely touch from my darling wife - I had no idea they planned to come and see us!
On the hill I was surprised that Alain did not "disappear" as he usually does. He was still about 30 people ahead. We plodded on, with no hrt data I struggled to know if I was too fast or too slow or what. All down to percived effort now. Focused on holding my position in the field to the top, with enough reserves to change gear on the return leg. The hills were nothing too drastic compared with what we have done in the other etapes, so they were over soon enough, I missed many of the km markers so focused was I on holding my position.
Over the top and I was immeadiately challenged and reponded. Pegged in Alain, 20 people, 16 people, 10 people, 4 people then went wide and got a nice enouragement as I went past Alain. I kept his shout of Allez Niall, Go Niall in my head and held onto the faster pace down the hill making up placings all the time.
At the bottom of the hill I started to struggle. Seeing the family again was a boost - my son was running in the field behind me for a bit cheering me on and the update was Tenke was winning and I was "second" from our gang. Great news, Richard was actually behind me.
The kids were as high as kites, but not as excited as Jason - when he saw the banner he decided to run under it and he said it felt like he had won the race!
Turned the next bend expecting to see the woods and was gobsmacked to realised that since the scouting of the course God had decided to have a laugh and he had chucked in an extra field to the course that I am sure was not there when we ran the reckie, Richard later confirmed that the field was not there at the start....
This destroyed me. I had to really focus to keep going. One went past. Then another. I decided no more. A third challenged and I imagined it was Alain and some deep reserves of energy came from the depths and I made it to the woods before the guy behind me and recovered enough to come out the woods sprinting for the line. The group in front were too far ahead to catch.
Tenke, Zosia and Attila were there on the line to congratulate me and someone got me a drink. I was done for. Saw Alain finish, Jason and Richard but missed Stefan.
So watch time was simply 35:40 for the 8.5 (official distance) or 8.3km a bloke with a garmin told me. On the night I was 31/193 (my best placing so far) or 119/563.
Overall 23/107 for my age group and just three places (or 1min 36sec) behind Alain, but to be fair to him he has been preparing for these races by doing heavy rep sessions the day before which is definately not ideal.
Sprint finishes from all the guys, I was there making sure they found their max heart rate by encouraging them all to catch just one more person in the race. A joy to behold.
La Sarraz results here.
Overall here.
Tenke won tonight and won the ladies series overall. Here are the results (click here), well done Tenke! The trophy is apparently a traditional style Swiss trophy.
Zosia did pretty well too, she came third.
I had suggested we all wear out brown TVP t-shirts and so when Attila went to take a photo I shouted no wait tops off and all the blokes knew why and started undress, Tenke hesitated and then realised this was all about the TVP t-shirts and went for it as well - the look on Zosia's face was one of total bewilderment. We got a cheer when the people around us realised that we were all suddenly in the official brown TVP t-shirts and the pictures were taken.
The next thing was the prize draw which took hours and we started cheering like mad when we won prizes like flip flops!
There was also a water bottle bloke selling insurance, but by the time I got to him he was packing his stand and could not be bothered trying to sell anying any more so he just gave us a free bottle with no insurance!
The night ended with plans for sauna parties, bbqs and maybe, just maybe doing the Lausanne half marathon.
3 comments:
Nice on mate!
great recount of the race, and thanks for the photos.
Nice account of your races; Jason has some good running mates and it feels like I got to know the group myself.
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