Semi-championnat de France

Yesterday I raced in the Semi-Championnat de France for cross country in Mably, near Roanne. They had changed the distance of all of the races that day so my race was actually 6.423k. The apparent precision of yesterday's races makes me question the accuracy of the other cross country distances I've run here, but that's beside the point.

After hanging out and watching some of the other races to try to orient myself as to exactly how the loops would be traversed I did a nice long slow warmup. It was pretty cold (about 35*) but I felt nice and loose after a mile or two.

The starting line was away from the rest of the course which was generally one huge loop (grande boucle) that could be shortened to make a medium sized loop (moyenne boucle) and a short loop (petite boucle). My race was one petite boucle followed by two grande boucles and then the finishing stretch.

This was easily the biggest race I've run in France. I had no idea where to place myself on the line, so I stepped in behind Stephanie, but as we waited for it to be exactly 2:15 I lost a lot of my personal space. The first 50m or so of the course was a mud pit so I was nervous about falling down (again). Although I was passed by nearly everyone as the gun went off (French women start races fast!) I fortunately did managed to stay on my feet.

In the other races I've run, the field has immediately strung out so within 1k or so I've been alone. This time it was strange to have other women directly in front of me, behind me, and others' elbows nearly hitting my sides. It was definitely a hindrance as the course narrowed and we took a couple of sharp (muddy) turns on the PB, but as the race progressed and the course was less sloppy, I really appreciated having others to push me.

Other than the patchy mud in one place on the GB, the rest of the course was fairly dry flat dirt. There were three short but sudden hills that we traversed three times, but they wre minor and the course as a whole awas pretty fast. I kept passing women through the race, and in the last 200m I actually dug up a finishing kick and passed several more before the finish line.

I finished 58th out of 151 women. I was just 10 places (15 seconds) out of qualifying for the national meet, which sounds close, but I was not really anywhere close. Stephanie finished 3rd with Cecile in 26th and Martine in 34th; they all easily qualified.

The photos I'm inserting were taken by Meredith, who managed to see me several times to cheer for me loudly in English. I'm really lucky to have him as a roommmate. He ran in the men's short course (3.78k) finishing in 12:57, which is a huge time improvement from his last races. The best part aside from his huge improvement was that he forgot his uniform at home and had to wear mine!