A Race Report and a Christmas Tree

This is the only race photo you will see from the last race I signed up for. Which, if you think about it, it makes sense given that this is where my trail running shoes spent the entire time of the race.

I had planned everything really well. We were supposed to go and celebrate an early Xmas with my parents and brother’s family down at my parents' in the South of France. Given that I was the one suggesting it, I chose a weekend where I could kill two birds with one stone, and run as well as wait for Santa's Christmas bonenza. I am usually a specialist of deciding to do a race, talk about it a lot, train for it even more, then realise when registration is closed that I forgot to sign up. This time, I had even managed to avoid that pitfall, which can undoubtedly be earmarked as my best 2010 running achievement.

I was not best prepared. The race is 35kms long of hard single trails, when I had only done hourly runs at lunchtime and nothing longer. It is characterised by a succession of steep and short climbs and downhills, and my training sessions consisted of a 40-climb followed by 20 minutes running back down, since this is what is available near work (not that I am complaining to “have to” run in the mountains on week days, mind you).

Still, I was looking forward to it, since the scenery was said to be amazing (when, unlike last year, it does not rain sheets and you feel the entire race, this being clay, is like trying to run on a giant slide): the sea down to the South, the mountains East and West, and this huge sky that is typical of Southern France. In spite of the inappropriate training, I was still feeling confident I could place decently, since I was feeling in good shape.

In good shape, until two weeks before the race that is. Then Malo, who had not felt too well for a while, started being quite ill. And work got even busier than usual. And I started feeling quite ropey myself.

Two days before the race, I started having a very bad sore throat and could not talk anymore. A blessing for most people around me, I am sure, but one which did not mean too much good as far as the race was concerned. On Saturday, with the race being the following day, I was feeling like walking required a huge effort, and it did not take too much brain power to realise that running a hard race may not necessarily feel easier than walking.

Most of Saturday was then spent with this dilemma: run, or not run on Sunday? I was sure I could finish the race. What I was less sure of was in which state. Plus, was the point to race, or to race and enjoy it? The answer seemed to be crystal clear for the rest of the family, but as far as I was concerned, there was still this nagging little voice at the back of my mind, suggesting that pulling out would be the decision of a wimp. Well, I have gone further on the “a race should be fun, or at least, should also be fun”-road, but I am not totally there yet!

In the end, I decided to be a wimp. Why? Because this race will still be there next year. Or the one after next. Because I thought, based on previous experience, that I would deal better with not racing than with having a bad race, or even only what I would perceive to be a bad race. Because this was supposed to also be a Xmas weekend, and it did not seem to make any sense to miss quality time (note to myself: why am I using this expression since I hate it?) with the family, and especially with Malo, to participate in a race I clearly should not be doing.

This is how my trail running shoes, on that Saturday night, ended up under the Xmas tree, waiting for Santa to turn up, instead of in a sports bag waiting for an early morning start.

At least Santa ended up being considerate: for the first time in years, my shoes did not get filled with sports related stuff: he must have realised I would not have handle the frustration so well. Such consideration: clearly a sign Santa does exist, isn’t it?

 (PS - in case this post sounded a bit bitter, it would only be because I am a bad writer, not because I am bitter. It actually ended up being easier than expected not to race. Sure, I felt a bit of envy, at the time of the start, seeing that the sky was of a cloudless blue, at the thought of the runners about to start. Sure I could not help myself checking out the results in the evening, and trying to figure how I would have beemotivan able to place. But there will be other races, and, as I have said many times, I don't need races to enjoy my running and to be motivated to run hard. In the meantime, 10 days later, I am still feeling quite ill, so racing would probably have been quite stupid... oh wait, does it mean I am going to finish 2010 a reasonnable girl? Now, that would be an expected turn of event...)

Doudou Disaster

Last week could have ended up in a disaster.  

On Monday, I took Malo to the doctor to check his then two-week old ear infection. 

The appointment was at 6pm, by which time I am usually still at work.

I had a 5.00pm meeting which started late. It has begun to rain in the afternoon and I was cycling.

When I got to daycare, the Chariot, which we leave outside the building during the day, looked more like a sinking boat than a child carrier, filled as it was with water.

Then, when we arrived in front of the doctor's building, I had to struggle trying to simultaneously hold my son, try to protect him from the rain, lock the bike, close the Chariot's cover, all under the judging eyes of an old lady sheltered under her umbrella and clearly not impressed by my riding my baby around in torrential rain.

In a nutshell, all the conditions were not met to get to the appointment all cool and relax.

Considering things had not gone too smoothly until then, the doctor's appointment went surprisingly well. Not that Malo's ear was getting much better, but at least, he was really well behaved in spite of the late hour. 

45 minutes later, we were all ready to go.

Then the fateful realisation struck: WE-DID-NOT-HAVE-MALO'S-DOUDOU-ANYMORE.

Now, in case you are 1. not French, 2. not a parent yet, 3. lucky parents, like mine were, of a child without a doudou, you'll be forgiven for not knowing what a doudou is, or how important it is. To sum it up, a doudou is quite simply, for many children, most likely the third most important thing on the world after his mum and dad. And sometimes, you would be forgiven for thinking it is the most important thing in his life. He sleeps with it, needs it when he is sad, to day care, to go for a walk, and, in Malo's case, even tries to convince me I should let him take it in the bathtub. 

Malo did not have a doudou until, aged 4 months, he started going to daycare once a week, so that I could  have a bit of free time to (relunctantly) look for a job.  In daycare, the ladies looking after him suggested I gave him something that would remind him of me, ideally that would smell of me. I briefly thought about an old running shoe, realised it was not that practical, so settled on a Provence-style, rawsberry-red cotton scarf, that seemed bright enough for a small baby to be interested in it.

That worked beyond any hopes, Malo was carrying his doudou everywhere, and the only trouble was that, once in a while, I had to find a trick to separate him from his doudou so that I could wash it  dry it with a hairdryer so that it would dry faster, spray a bit of perfume on my neck, the scarf around the neck, and  give it back to Malo before he realised part of him had been stolen.

Now that Malo is in daycare 50 hours a week as a result of me working  full time, the doudou has become more important than ever. He has it to fall asleep, when he's sad, when he's tired. He even crawls around with it, and I strongly suspect the daycare manager seriously considers downsizing the cleaning staff since Malo is mopping the floor with his doudou 10 hours a day.

Now that the context is set, you can easily imagine me, standing in pouring rain with my one year old son under my arm, realising disaster had just struck and the doudou was gone.

After a last look in the surgery, the hall and outside the building, I frantically loaded Malo in the Chariot, sprinted back to daycare thinking that maybe a miracle had happened and I would find the doudou in the hall or where I park the Chariot.  No such luck.

Then Martin rang on my mobile. "I LOST THE DOUDOU", I cried in lieu of hello.

And this there was nothing else to do, I cycled back home, tears running down my cheeks. 

Things carried on going wrong. Malo was tired and crying, and did not understand why we were not giving him the only thing which soothes him straight away. Then it was story time before going to bed. Except Malo's favourite story is that of a little bear who has lost his doudou (a red one too, would you believe the coincidence?). The story ends up with the bear's cat finding the doudou and the little bear being very happy, but since Malo always needs to have his own doudou in his hand when we read the story, doing this tonight was not an option. Hell, even whispering the word "doudou" was not something we envisaged doing that evening.

It is not that we had not thought this may happen one day. We even tried to prepare ourselves, putting aside some scarves which, altough not identical to Malo's, may do the job. As tonight was clearly the night to resort to Plan B, I gave him that other scarf, a brown one, thinking that, with dim light, that may just work. It did not, and although he did end up falling asleep, it took much longer than the (admittedly quite short) 3 minutes it usually takes.

To say I was not productive at work the next day would be an understatement. I was feeling miserable, plus had a lot on my plate.  Like try to reach the other doctor from the surgery since I thought maybe some kid patients of hers may have seen and taken the doudou. Or prepare signs that I wanted to pin on the trees in front of the doctor's office and in the hall, asking anybody would would have information about the doudou to call me (yes, I was that desperate, which is why being ridiculous was not something I cared about anylonger). Gave up my lunchbreak run to instead rush to the doctor's and placard my little signs.  Giving up a run. Now, if you had not realised how bad the situation was, that should give it away, shouldn't it?

Now, if you are not a parent, the chance is you are by now finding the whole story beyong ridiculous, and feel you now need to stop reading and have a good laugh at me. Hell, maybe I would have done just that has I read the story from someone else, pre-Malo.  On second thoughts, I wouldn't, but that only because you're talking to someone who, well into her 30s, cried when she saw a lion driven around in a cage by some circus staff.

Problem is, now, I am a mum, and I tell you there was not much I would not have done that day to make sure I would not see this sad look in my baby's eyes. 

Early afternoon, I could not help calling daycare to check on Malo and how he managed without the doudou. OK, said the lady, but he clearly felt something was off, and he had refused to nap, throwing the erastz of a doudou at the bottom of the bed. Not exactly what I wanted to hear. 

Next step was to try and find a new scarf which looked like the lost one. Not an easy task, since I had been enough of a fool to give my son a scarf from a brand which has known better days and is now only sold in a few shops in Provence, and of a pattern which they have stopped producing years ago. Well done, me.


After a day feeling like the most useless and miserable mum earth has ever produced, I got home, still wondering how to deal with Malo and his loss.

Then I realised I had a message on my mobile phone. I checked the caller: it was the doctor. I checked the message: SHE HAD FOUND THE DOUDOU! We would not be able to get it before the following morning, but now, we knew we would manage another night.

We now have the doudou back. My mum has managed, through a friend who works at the firm producing the scarves, to get the exact same one (that was the last one:  I cannot believe my luck!), so we have a spare one (although I'd better keep it around my neck night and day if I want it to feel the same as the old one - good thing we're getting into Winter).

Malo has also developped a fondness for another scarf of mine, of the same pattern but bright yellow this time, so I have hopes that, if we were to lose both the old and the new red scarves, we may be able to survive with the yellow one.

And now, if the Company producing these scarves does not have anything against child labour, they may  want to consider using Malo as their new top model...  They could pay him in scarves: if he carries on being a scarf addict until he's in his 20s, that may prove a good deal for me.

Standing Ovation

I am glad last weekend was a three day weeekend.

As reported, the last two weeks, including the beginning of last weekend, were, granted, pretty eventful, but unfortunately not of the kind of eventful I like... call me picky if you wish.

Yesterday however allowed us to finish the weekend in style, and hopefully marked the end of our "septimana horriblis" (times two).

The doctor had been adamant I should not run on Sunday. But hey, I had not asked anything about Monday, and the weather was very nice yesterday, so it was worth taking the risk of a more painful throat after a long steep climb to enjoy a run in the sun... no pain, no gain.

So yesterday morning I went out running up Mont Baron, above the Annecy lake for two hours with a friend, Martin, my usual favourite partner in crime, having all but broken his toe on our last run together last Wednesday, and, since he could not run nor climb anyway, having been promoted to "baby sitter in chief" for the morning.

Two minutes in our run, I was already wondering what had gotten in my head when I chose this route, of all routes. Sure, the view from the top, overlooking the lake, is simply amazing, but the 900m elevation gain it takes to get there may not have been the best choice when one is already coughing her heart out walking on flat ground. Every single metre of the climb made my calves burn and my throat feel like pearced with needles, and my running partner as a result seemed more concerned by me collapsing at the top than at his 8.5 month pregnant wife giving birth in his absence. But it was fun!

The photo is not from yesterday but although the outfil has

changed, the view has not!

I was home by late morning, and since Malo was feeling better, Martin was feeling better, and I had been feeling well enough to go for a run, we decided to go for a family hike in a natural reserve by the lake.

And that was even more fun that the morning run!

Petite Boule loved being outside and was laughing like there was no tomorrow. He was throwing big yellow dead leaves in the air, trying to catch and eat a beetle... What a great feeling for Martin and I to look at him enjoying being outside, especially after last summer's fears - seeing like Malo would straight out refused to let grass touch his bare feet - that our son did not like nature and that he would hate every single minute of the kind of activities we were planning for him for the 18 years to come.

We walked a little with Malo in the Deuter backpack, which he quickly got tired of. Who would blame him: it sure is much more fun to be on Maman's shoulders and witness her make a total fool of herself by running and whining like a horse. 

Malo also "walked". Oh, not by himself, since the little devil has clearly decided two people in the family doing insane amount of exercise is more than enough and he does not need to add to that (to be fair to him, he does move around a lot, only not on his two feet yet).  Although I am in no rush to see him walk, since he will do it in his own time and he has the rest of his life to do so anyway, I must say that I am soon going to take on a loan to pay the osteopath if I need to carry on holding Malo's hands the way I do several hours per day these days. Anyway, he did a lot of assisted walking yesterday, from one tree to the next, to some leaves on the ground, to the edible-looking bettle, back to the tree.. repeat 10 times.

Then we got back home, and a few minutes later, a big milestone was reached: Malo stood by himself! We clapped in our hands, so he did it again, and clapped too. And again. And again. Then with keys in the right hand. Then with bread in the left one. Then with both keys and bread.

I just cannot decide who, of the two, was the proudest, the mum or the baby.  Hey hey, next thing I know, he is going to come running up Mont Baron with me, even with a sore throat and a bad cough...

A life in the Day

Back in our London days, when, on the rare occasions we were not training on a Sunday morning, we used to go for brunch loaded with the Sunday papers, one of my first reads was the Sunday Times' A life in the day, where somebody famous describes how his/her typical day looks like.

If I were famous, or had done anything remotely interesting so that people felt they wanted to read about me, last week would have given me perfect material to describe my own "life in the day". On second thoughts, I am not too sure about "perfect", but "some" material, for sure.

Wednesday started early, if not well. 4.10am, to be accurate, as we had to go to a meeting in the South of France, 5 hours from Annecy, and my new company does not believe in bearing the cost of a hotel night so that you can have a mind in working order when you get to your all-day meeting. From then on, the day went like this:

4.40am - leave home, to get picked up by my colleague and drive to the railway station.

4.50am - arrive at station, check on the departure screen  for our platform, can't find our train listed.

5.00am - at last find a member of staff, who tells us that our train has not run for the last week because of the strike (surely the entire world knows by now about the French strikes - the best way found by some workers to be make sure the economy goes down the pipe even faster and their situation deteriorates equally fast). As there is absolutely no other way to arrive where we're supposed to go before mid afternoon, we wisely figure that, given that our return train also leaves mid-afternoon, we may as well cancel all together.

5.15am - I am back home, and get back into bed in the crazy hope I may get anadditional  hour and a half of sleep, but as all crazy hopes, this one does not materialize, and I end up deciding to go to work, so that I can leave earlier in the evening, and get to spend more time with Malo.

6pm - "Spending more time with Malo" has proven to be a crazy hope, too, as  I am stuck into a meeting with people who clearly got more than 4 hours sleep last night, and look and sound depressingly energetic. I, on the other hand, fight to keep my eyes open, in spite of the litre - make it a galon -  of coffee I must have downed.

7pm - home at last, with Malo as tired as I am, after a full day of playing at day care. Hard life to be a baby. We manage to fit his bath and dinner before puting the little one to bed, I bidding my time before I can do the same.

8pm - Martin and I have had dinner, but bedtime has suddenly become something further away, as we have just realised that the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow for the first time in 2 weeks, and that we must promptly tidy the flat to avoid her resigining as soon as she arrives in the morning.

10.30pm - we're ready to go to bed but that the time Malo, who usually sleep 12 hours straight, choses to wake up and start crying. I end up craddling him in my arms for half an hour, which I love... but would have loved even more if I had not been up for 18  hours 1/2.

On Thursday, it quicky looks like the day may not be much better than the last, only different. Thursday is the only day I ride my bike to work. As I am driving towardswork, I start getting a lof of cute little black shiny stars in front of my eyes. Not very convenient to drive. And scary. I made it (just) to work, where I get into a meeting, to promptly have to lie down on the floor with my feet up, shivering and feeling dizzy, and crying uncontrollably. Is there anything you least want to do that crying in the office, especially lying on a dirty carpet with your boss' scarf beneath your head?

Friday is going to be better, at least for the two male members of the family, since Martin has taken the day off to spend it playing with his son (and has even written so on Facebook so that the entire world kneows what a great day father and son are going to have). At 11am though, it becomes clear that Friday is NOT going to be better than Wenesday or Thursday. Martin calls me at work, asking me to come back home urgently, since he is having a migraine attack and cannot even see Malo anymore, let alone play with him. I promptly get out of the very important meeting I have just walked in, rush home, load Malo in the car since Martin has convienently left his migraine drugs at work and needs me to go an pick them up, come back, cook lunch for Malo, feed Malo, call day care to see if they could take care of Malo for the rest of the day, realised I don't have time to have lunch myself, drive to day care, then to work. Whatever is left of the day was uneventful.

In case this was not enough, we played "A life in the day" this week too. 

Malo cried all night on Monday, meaning I was, on Tuesday morning, 1. pretty worried since he has slept through the night since he was five weeks old and him not sleeping meant sometyhing was definitely off, 2. so tired I felt I was in dire need of a weekend. Unfortunately, even in France with its crazy labour lwas, weekends don't start on Tuesday mornings.  On Tuesday afternoon, I was called by daycare to advise me Malo had fever.

On Wednesday morning, fever had gone up, meaning Martin had to give up a climbing day he had dreamt about for weeks, to look after his son.

On Friday, we took Malo to the doctor, which means I did not get to work before 10.45am. Later that evening, I realised, back at home, that I had forgotten his prescription in the office and was unable to get it before Tuesday, since this is a long weekend here. 

Yesterday I decided it was vital for my sanity that I squeezed in a little run in the rain, started running by the river, got freaked out by a guy on his MTB looking too interested in me for comfort, had to run back on the road, stopped at the chemist's to try and negotiate she gives me Malo's drugs without prescription, failed, ran back home feeling ultra cold after the chemist-stop over.

Today, since Malo was still clearly unwell, we decided we could not take the risk of waiting until Tuesday evening to get his medicines, so had to drive accross town to the on-call doctor, where we obviously waited for ever, and well past Malo's lunch time. On the bright side, it turned out his ear infection had actually not worsened. On the not-so-brigth side, I took the opportunity of me being there to tell the doctor I was not feeling too well and had a sore throat, and she quickly diagnosed a massive throat infection, and put a veto on the long trail run I had planned for the day. 

Feeling I had had enough good news for the day, I did not even ask about running tomorrow.

Miss and Hit...

... or how to write two race reports in one post (and make the most of the very little free time I have since starting work

Fast rewind to the end of August. I had signed up for a trail race in the mountains not far from home, and had found plenty reasons justifying getting up at 6am on on Sunday,including, in no particular order:

1. Pretty much everybody who runs in Annecy (and even a big chunck of those who don't) has done it, so I felt I would not get any credibility as a runner here unless I can tick the box (OK, I am totally making tup reason  #1).

2. Set up in the Aravis range, halfway between the Annecy lake and Mont Blanc, the scenery is stunning (this I am not making up).

3. I had turned 37 on the eve of the race, and running and spending half a day in the mountain sounded like a great way to celebrate. And while I was at it, I would also "celebrate", although I am not sure that's the best way to describe it, the end of my time as a stay-at-home mum, and the beginning, three days later, of my new working life.

4. I was still frustrated to have had to withdraw from another great trail race because of last minute surgery inconveniently planned for the day before the race (and it seemed bad form to race anyway while the surgeon had said "no running for three weeks).

5. I don't race a lot, and never felt the need for it. I don't need them to push myeslf.  Actually, I push myself harder if I don't race, as it became all too clear last time round,. Call it a screwed up mind, and clearly a lack of  trail racing experience too.  So it was probably also because I am screwed up that I had managed to convince myself that I had to be able to manage stress and race situations better, and race at my full potential, instead of being the only girl in the world who trains faster than she races.

So here was I, literally freezing my butt off while waiting for the race to start, on that last Sunday morning of August. I had slept very little, eaten even less, in a nutshell, my stress management still had some way to go before being called efficient. Checking out the list of runners the previous night: had not helped all the best female runners from the region were there. Unfortunately, I know I am - in theory - almost as fast as some of them, at least on a terrain I am more familiar with than mountain races.  And I say "unfortunately", because it means that, for the last 12 hours, I had been thinking that, again in theory, and even accounting for my lack of experience of mountain races,  I should be finishing just behind them.

Best way not to feel under pressure? Probably not.

As the church bell rang and notified us of the start, I, at least, managed to avoid a first mistake. Instead of being buried (quite literally, given my "sample" size) in the middle of pack, I positionned myself at the front, to avoid getting stuck behind a long queue of walking runners on the first steep single trail section comes up, less than 1km after the start.

Half way, I was 6th woman, which I was pretty happy with, considering who were the first five On second thoughts, cross that last sentence out: I was 6th woman, but defintitely not happy. Too stressed out to be happy. The same - totally unproductive - thoughts than last April  were cluttering my mind: what am I doing here when I could be running with Martin instead, why putting myself through all that stress while I am a runner because it is fun, why why why...

Then things got even worst: as I started down a very steep and technical downhill session at the half way point, I started feeling a sharp pain on the side of my knee. I had to stop and walk for a few minutes, and got overtaken by a first woman. Then I started running again. Then had to stop again, and got overtaken by a second woman. Repeat that twice more.

As I was about to start up the last very steep climb, I saw Martin and Malo, who had just made it up the mountain to see me, and was oh-so tempted to DNF, and just go back home with them. But as I could not decide what would make me feel worst, DNFing or walking to the finish, I carried on, thinking that, at least, I would get the t-shirt.

An hour and the worst 4kms downhill of my life later, I "sprinted" the last few hundred meters, crying of pain and frustration.

 That's me at the end of The Dreaful Downhill,

crying (but luckily, I am too far for you to see it)

As we talked about the race later that day, Martin pointed out that I didn't need to do this: I love running, I am a good runner, I am lucky enough to have wonderful running routes on my doorstep,  and that should be it. Why racing if that is going to be such a traumatic experience?

And I fully agreed with him.

So why is it that, two weeks later, I have signed up for yet another trail race, taking place the following weekend? Again, plenty of good or not so good reasons. I have in the meantime started in a new job, met some of the runners there, and a few have signed up for that race, too, so I feel this is a good way to "bond". Again, it is not far from home, so I can race and still spend half od the day at home with Martin and Malo (who are staying home today, just in case the whole day is a total failure again). But the main reason is that, once again, I want to prove myself that I can race on trails.

This time I have been smarter though, or so I hope. I have chosen a race which is flater (flater, not flat: there is no such thing as flat around here), to be able (or so I hope - again!) to build on the experience gained during road races, enjoy the flatter portions which should allow me to run fast, as I like it,. That seems slighly more promising than running one steep hill after another, since I seem to love them while training but get terrified by them while racing.

On that Sunday morning, as we start with a first kilometre of asphalt and I get into the rythm, I immediately feel good. My legs are moving well, I am going fast. I am the first woman, and can hear the breathing of the second one just behind me. Then I can't anymore, and understand she has fallen back a little, and I think I am going to try and keep it that way.

As we keep on running into woods and accross fields, I am feeling HAPPY! No stress, just pleasure to be there, enjoying the splendid scenery and the feeling of my legs moving well and fast. This is so much fun! Not that it is not hard, but everything seems to be happening the way it should be. I am focused but relax, I am pushing hard but it hurts my legs, not my brain.

Having fun! To set the story straight, this guy had been using me as pacer for a while, overtook

me when he saw the photographer, then stepped behind his favourite pacer again as soon

as we had passed the photographer. Men...

Two thirds into the race, and I am still feeling happy, but also wondering how things are going to pan out, as I start feeling pretty hungry too. The race has not started before 10am, a full 3 hours after I ate breakfast, and I can tell I am getting low on sugar, and to make things even more interesting, the one big, steep hill of the route is now in front of me.

I slow down but keep on pushing, carried by the idea that I may be able to win my first race ever... if I manage to keep whatever distance there is between me and the second girl. Is she 500m or 2kms behind by now, I have no idea...

Two kilometres before the finish line, we hit asphalt again, and a hill. And I am more starving than ever. By now, I am done with the race, no matter how much I have enjoyed it so far. I briefly turned my head, seem to notice "the other girl" only a few hundreds meters behind, and gather whatever energy I have left to sprint towards the finish.

"And here is the first woman now getting to the finish", I hear the organiser shouting in the microphone. As I cross the line, he races towards me to get my "first impressions", and I am beaming: I won, for the first time, but more importantly, I had fun!!! I could do it, race and have fun!!! It may be that, to achieve this, I only have to find the right combination of off-road but still fast course... only problem is, I think I have just done the only race of that kind in the region...

The only thing missing is actually two things, or rather two people: my two men, the tall one and the tiny one, who I have told to stay home because it did not seem fair to drag them to yet another race especially if I was going to end up in tears like last time. But now I have won, and the two people I want the most to share this with are not here.  I would have been so proud to walk on the stage to get my prize with Malo in my arms (and who knows, getting "his" first prize maybe would have stuck somewhere in a deep part of his brain, and came up to the surface 15 years later, giving him the urge to become a runner).

 I would not mind if that was the first of many...

Later that day, as I am getting back to Annecy, it occurs to me that I am going to have a problem getting back home. I have ridden my bike to the town-centre in the morning, to meet a guy who had kindly offer to give me a lift to the race. The problem is, I am now supposed to ride back on said bike, only I now have ato carry, together with my rucksack, a massive basket full of wine bottles, cheese and honey and an as-massive bouquet of flowers... I guess finishing first sometimes has its drawbacks...