Training Log Archive: AC

A Sunday in the middle of August is the quietest tahtparis streets will ever be and so i make it an annual event to head out for a "Tour de Paris", cycling down many streets that I wouldn't normally contemplate riding on for enjoyment. I normally head out around 7am to get the full benefit of empty streets, but left it a little late this year and so it wasn't quite so tranquil and there were sufficient numbers of cars and tourists around that I really needed to keep alert. So not quite as peaceful as I had hoped but still a nice ride around parts of the city - Champs Elysees, blvd St Germain, Places de la Bastille and Republique, Notre Dame, rue du Rivoli, place de la Concorde, Tour Eiffel. Knee felt okay but my thumb was very sore and I felt every bump in the road (especially over the cobbles). This operation will take some time to recover from. A good first ride on the bike since teh St Moritz debacle.

In the interests of keeping the hill runing going after the great weekend in Malvern, I headed out to Suresnes and up Mont Valerian. Good run overall, although coming back down the hill is hard on the knees and started to get a bit tired teh last couple of km. Am out of shape for these "longer" runs.

Lazy morning on holiday at home. Finally roused myself for a run around the Bois. Did 2 x 1km hard (4.32 and 4.22) and then 3 x 1 min hard/1 min easy. Felt okay once I had warmed up. Very humid morning after a period of rain.

Last run on the Malvern Hills and headed out for a longer hill run. Lovely sunny day with a nice tail wind on the way back up the hills. Not a fast pace but good to feel strong up the hills. Paris will seem awfully flat after these few days in Malvern!

Woke to a very wet and rainy morning so decided to give the hills a miss and head westwards from the accommodation and explore the countryside using roads and public footpaths and bridleways. Lots of fun exploring the area and trying to figure out where the public paths went - they were poorly signposted and I had to engage in a bit of guesswork and do a few cross-country links and short forest runs to get to somewhere that looked like it might take me back to where I started. Rain had passed on towards the end and so I headed up on to the hills for a short circuit to finish up with.