Another ridiculous run down, and another beckons...

Cock-a-hoop following my half-ironman relative success (in that I quite enjoyed it), I thought little of taking on a 30km race 2 weeks later, in my fiancée's part of the world, Brittany. Ok, so "l'Estran" was a trail, and hugged the coast so it would be running on sand, rocks etc, but surely it couldn't be much harder than a normal race? I assumed 3 hours would be fine for this peccadillo.

I was wrong. It was a beautiful sunny day, and conditions were largely perfect. But the ground underfoot varied between woodland, big rocks, small rocks, pebbles, sucking mud (I had to go in stocking feet for 50 metres as I could not keep my shoes on), thigh-deep water, hard sand in ridges so your feet weren't flat in a surprisingly awkward way and all one after another so it was impossible to maintain any kind of rhythm.

I now have the even more respect for Aurélie's uncle, who does this kind of stuff all the time, and while I haven't been bitten by the off-road bug quite yet, I can definitely hear it circling the room and making a whining noise.....

The penultimate race of the season is tomorrow, the Cotswold Care Hospice Race the Train. It will be tantalisingly close, but I feat the locomotive will win. Watch this space....