Championnats d'Auvergne

Today's cross country adventure took place in Thiers, an Auvergne town famous for its cutlery. Despite the hilliness of the region, the race venue was very flat and probably would have been a very fast course had it not been blanketed in snow which turned to thick mud in parts.

My race was the 'elite' women's long course, a 6010m race consisting of three different loops, torn up by the spikes of half a dozen previous races. Only the 'eilte'men raced after us. Meredith had run the men's short course (4.1k) in 15:24.

Fortunately, Cecile loaned me a pair of her old spikes, so I felt more, um, steady than I did last time.

The race opened with the petite boucle (short loop) where we ran up a hill and turned back toward the spectators. At this point I was probably mid-pack heading into the moyenne boucle, which was pretty sloppy. Sometime in here, I reqlized that my borrowed spikes were just slightly too small, as they were rubbing hard against my big toe. This loop curved us back toward the spectators, and there was a huge group of Montlucon runners cheering for us.

Just after beginning the grande boucle I had passed several women, most of them decisively, but one woman was hanging right behind me. This was a really lonely part of the course as it took us out past the lake and away from the spectators. All I could really think about was her footsteps behind me and the obviously consistent distance she was keeping. I tried to make a move to accelerate steadily to lose her, but she held on. With about 500m to go, coming back near the staging area she surged by and I was left chasing her around the last curves.

I finished in 10th place in my race, which made me the 3rd senior female. My time over 6010m was 24:56, only 20 seconds behind my best 6k run in significantly better conditions. I also qualified for the interregional championship February 12, which is the last step before the Franch National XC Championship.

Stephanie won the race after pulling away easily from two other women. Cecile placed 6th (2nd espoir), and Martine 8th (3rd veterane).