Mr Garmin

I really like my Garmin, (405) as I have an amazing ability to forget how far, when and why I have been on any given journey. I assume other people use their Garmin for the same reason. So why is it that I was told it was carnival day for Owen 3 weeks ago, but it was only him who did not have a costume on Tuesday last? Surley other people have my forgetfulness gene.

And I have noticed a certain reliance on the statistics from Mr Garmin, so much so, when I ran on Thursday, I was mortified to see I had forgotten to "unpause" the watch after giving a cyclist some bad advice on the route I had just ran. I have therefore about 2/3 km missing from that run. Actually, I felt a bit sorry for the cyclist. He asked me how steep the path was I had just ran and how far he needed to be on it before hitting the road above.

Well, out of breath English man with bad French giving advice .... What can I say, on reflection while running the lost 3/4km I think I said it was not too bad with only 100m of walking with bike. What I forgot to mention was I was running on the minor trail, the major left turn is quite different.

Friday, I was so out of sorts I forgot to bring Mr Garnin along with me. About 1/2km I remembered it. I had a choice of running naked or going back and getting dressed. I chose to continue commando style. It was quite liberating. I could stop and have a pee without feeling guilty, go slow without anybody looking over my shoulder and even stop and enjoy the view. I can see myself not inviting Mr Garmin on a couple more runs.

Too much chocolate

May be eat too much chocolate and food in general. I managed just 4km from an 8km run when the outside of my right knee and below was giving me grief, enough for me to stop and walk/jog back to the house. It may be a slight tear from last Saturday as it seems the downhill was the the most painfull.

Probably will rest it again tomorrow, and that means I can eat a bit more!

I eat some cabbage today - that will test the gut too.

Chocolate

I don't know what has gone wrong in the last week. Seems I cannot stop eating. Discovering chocolate in the cupboard was a disaster. How can I look my kids in the eyes and say, "sorry, no more sweets" when only an hour earlier I have snaffled a bar of chocolate when they where out.

Trail des Cabornis Results

Bah humbug.... The results are in and as expected I did get the 32nd spot, but they are not breaking it down by age so I cannot tell if I managed to keep in the top 10 V1's but if the breakdown is the same as last years I may have got there or even a place or two better.

I do know that there was only one women with a faster time - And so she should have, 4th in 2009 world cup and 3rd UTMB 2008 (5th last year), she was a good 5 minutes in front of me at the end. I saw her shoot of at the start and thought she was going to have trouble, clearly not.

Trail des Cabornis

My time of 1:14 was 8 minutes down from last years time for the Trail des Cabornis. But I think this represents an improvement! An unofficial 32nd overall while last year was 36th overall - May keep in the top 10 V1, will see when the results come out.

The conditions where so different that the time is incomparable. Plus the course changes every year to add a bit of spice to life. This year there was about 550m in elevation gain and 11.4km distance (according to Mr Garmin). The biggest change though was the weather - It had been raining most of the night and it was still raining when we started the run.

The trail was so wet that in some places I needed to walk uphill (and down) because I could not run for slipping down. I was not the only one, most people where walking the same places, and if they did not, I caught them back up a few minutes later.

Then there was the hard down hill.... I was wandering why at 6 degrees so many people had gloves on. I soon found out when slopping downhill trying to keep hold of a piece of rope. Blisters where only just averted. Although I do have a couple of cuts on my hand where the grit must have been scrapped across.

You can see the walking parts clearly on the cadence chart below.  Lots of fun with lots of mud left on my legs afterwards. Thankfully no injury to me (I stopped to help one guy who twisted is ankle just in front of me near the end - not too bad he came in about 5 minutes later) I was very careful though. Some of the younger chaps with more bravery came in with allot more mud on their bodies where they had fallen.

Must not drink too much beer tonight

It has been 3 or 4 weeks since my weekend in hospital, time to test myself on the trail des Carbornis. Having spent last week in Germany (1 run of less than 5km in cold and dark) and this week with kids, 2 days in Morzene 1 run of 8km and 1 walk up a steep hill I doubt I will do very well tomorrow. Getting round in a half decent time is the goal for this one.

This is the hill Gareth and myself walked (well I snowshoed and Gareth skinned up)

Gareth tells me that the energy of skinning and snowshoeing is about the same. However, the day after we did this, Lee skied up, and his time was about the same as mine. Admittedly, it was my first time at doing anything like that so the whole thing was a bit unexpected and maybe I could have gone faster, but Lee is 15kg heaver and I should imagine quite a bit less fit than me (although walking up hills is not a strong point of mine see KMV)

We had fun seeing friends this week and having them help me look after the kids. Playing the single parent is not fun on your own but can be amusing with a little help. I hope I can get another weekend skiing in with the kids this year - written it off for myself.