Championnats d'Allier

Today I ran in the Allier XC Championship race in Commentry, about a 20 minute drive from Montlucon. Cecile and Pascale picked up Meredith and me, so we arrived just in time to pick up our race bibs, talk to Christian, and walk around a bit before warming up. The weather was beautiful here today - about 50 degrees, blue skies and sunshine. I even wore sunglasses.

The Commentry course for the senior women was 4.1k, so two hilly, muddy loops around the woods. It was muddy enough that the starting line had nearly been erased by the time the younger runners had raced.

After a short delay while the race officials looked for their stopwatch, we were off -- except me. As soon as the gun sounded, I slipped and found myself hands and knees in the mud. With one knee aching a little bit, I picked myself up and chased the pack. There were lots of spectators at the race and I could hear several people cheering for Montlucon and for me through the first loop.

None of the hills on the course were very long, but there were a couple steep slopes, including one with logs set into it like stairs. That in addition to several sharp turns and some mud made this a fairly difficult course. The downhills were very gentle for the most part, however, so I used that to my advantage to gain back some speed each time we descended.

At the beginning of the second loop I could see several other women strung out in front of me, including Cecile three places ahead and Martine a slot behind her. I knew Stephanie had a shot at winning, but she was too far ahead to see at that point. Halfway through the second tour, I passed another woman and a spectator shouted out our places - 7th and 8th. On the following downhill, I opened up my stride and lost her. After a couple more hills and two sharp turns I crossed the finish line in 7th place.

Stephanie had finished 2nd, Cecile 4th, and Martine 5th. Another woman (who I'd never met before) had also competed in the Montlucon singlet, but I'm not exactly sure where she finished. European cross country scores the first four team finishers, so if the race had been scored by teams, we would have easily won.

My hands had been covered in mud when I fell and my knee was becoming a crusty mess of drying mud and blood. There were actually blood spots on my shoe! Christian made me go to the ambulance and have the paramedics clean me up, but it was really just a superficial scrape now turning into a bruise as well.

After cleaning myself up, Celine and I ran a short cooldown and watched the men's race, where Manuel finished 4th and Pascal 11th, and several others placed highly as well.

My next race is the Championnats d'Auvergne (the regional championship) in two weeks!

Edited to add: Results are available at this site. I'm listed as 6th place because there was a junior woman who finished in front of me, so she's scored in a different category.