Dead Runners society race report
Galopade du Mejean 10km, Lattes - Dimanche
le 4eme juillet 1999.
And so off I went to la belle France
until December. Running in the south of France in the summer was interesting, I
soon got used to running early in the morning and wearing plenty of sunscreen.
After a month I tried my first race down there.
Bonjour deads
Just resubscribed to the list again, what`s been happening in deadland? I`ve been here in France now for 5 weeks, I am living and working in Montpellier in the south of France, about 10km from the Mediterrenean coast. I am here for 6 months as a postdoc at the Université Montpellier II, the science and technology university for this region of France. I`m getting used to the place now but still struggling with the local french accent, my french has improved a little but is still pretty bad. I may just about to be able to understand the locals by the time I leave in December. Running here is rather interesting, the summers here are HOT, especially for an englishman. Therefore I have been doing all of my running here before 8.00am before it gets too hot, towards the end of this mornings run it was only 26 degrees C. I can`t see me doing much lunchtime running here during the summer. Sunday I did my first race here, only my second ever race in France. 2.5 years ago I ran a 10km XC race in Le Mans, that was on a cold January day and was just like running at home in england. Sunday`s race was nothing like any race I have done at home.
The Galopade du Mejean 10km took place in Lattes, a small town just outside Montpellier, the race was due to start at 9.30am. I arrived at 8.20am and entered the race, only 40F (4 pounds) to enter. I did 5 minutes jogging round the sports field where the race was going to finish before the race to warm up, it was already very warm, this was going to be interesting. Lined up in the middle of the pack, over 400 runners had entered. Bang and off we went, first couple of minutes on the road and then off road for a bit. The runners kicked up loads of dust as we ran along through the "parc nature", 1 km in 4.59 rather slow, back onto the road and now there was room to overtake properly and I speeded up and started to work my way through, 2nd km in 4.22, 3rd km 4.25, 4th km 4.26 and 5th km 4.16, halfway in 22.28 and I was still feeling OK and passing runners, it was a bit warm though. Off-road just after 5 km, harder work now, fairly good running underfoot but a bit rough in places. Passed a couple more runners but it was getting harder and I was slowing, 6th km in 4.33 and 7th km 4.35 and by now the procession of runners overtaking me started. Working quite hard now but I wasn`t making much impression on the runners ahead, by now I was feeling very warm. 8th km in 4.44 and 9th km in 4.45. By 9.5 km back into Lattes and onto the road for a bit before running round the sports field to the finish, didn`t try to run in harder. Finish in 45.48, 4.44 for last km. Fairly tired on finishing but I had a lot left in the tank, just had a problem with an overheating engine.
T-shirt for all finishers and the post-race "goomies" were almost as lavish as those at an american race, loads of fruit to eat and plenty of water to drink. That was good as although there were 3 drinks stations in the race the french system seems to be if you want a drink you pick it up off the table yourself, they don`t hand the drinks to you like in england. Consequently I skipped the first 2 drinks stops as there was a scrum of runners around each one, I managed to grab a drink on the run at the last one when the runners were more spread out. A bit disappointed with the time, I`m not very fit at the moment but 45.48 is close to my personal worst for a 10km when I haven`t been pacing someone round. Still it was very hot for an englishman and the course was a bit rough underfoot in places, a reasonable first attempt at a race here in the sunny south of France, conditions were far more suited to going to the beach than for racing so after the race I went to the beach :-) This race was an interesting experience but I think I will wait for it to cool down a bit before I race here again.
bye tony.....
Dr Tony Bell, LAMMI, Université
Montpellier II,
Place Eugène
Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
email bell@crit.univ-montp2.fr,
phone (33)
4 67 14 33 30, fax (33) 4 67 14 33 04
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