Massif de l'étoile

I forgot to post this: how come I have never come here before?! Stunning views, and quality podcast, thank you Talk Ultra!

For my gran: "Bunny", 8 km hill climb

7.8 km in 44:24 hill climb.

Today is a sad day following on from my Gran, a.k.a. Bunny, passing away last night. Some of today's run was spent thinking about her, and prayerfully recognising the privilege of that heritage and existence and family.

This was a sprightly run up the steepest off-road hill near me, that sees a vertical gain of xxxm in the first 2k. Downhill speed peaked at 2:38/km (almost 23k/h), but this was obviously on a steep downhill tarmac section. Off-road downhill, attempted to integrate some of the lessons learned at the trail race on Nov 4, although there's only so fast you I feel I can go on that rocky, and stupid-steep section.

not been easy, getting back on the blogging wagon...

2 x 9 km

I seem to have gotten off the wagon - not so much of running, but of updating the blog, which I think also coincides with some difficult personal circumstances and family stress. What was great about today was the way in which the runs just slotted into a commute to and from an appointment. Excellent - and I don't feel the 18 km at all, it's a great way to sneak in extra miles without my body really noticing. It really did notice, however, the other day, when I did a 36 km run around my city in 3:34. It was nice to get into the second half of the challenge ahead - the 70km SaintElyon, but yet scary, as my feet were killing by the end.

Breakthrough came though in my nutrition - running at 5:55/km pace is so different to 4:20! I can really take on board good food, and I found that both ham and cheese were welcome fuels. I will be doing the same again on the ultra, using highly-practical babybels (remove the plastic wrapper though, that was annoying).

Running has again become a time for meditation and prayer for me, and for it I am grateful. I am going the process at the moment also of wondering again how running can be glorifying to God and how I can work with other people in that vision. I'm off to work on that now in fact!