A Taste of France

To place what I’m about to tell you into context, know that I’m an avid fan of cycling. It’s been almost ten years since my last race, but that hasn’t stopped me dreaming (particularly as I was a better cyclist than runner).

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Even though the majority of my saddle time is now logged traveling to and from work on a decommission rail line, I still occasionally dash for imagined sprint bonuses.

So it was earlier this year while following the Giro d’Italia, that I declared May to be… Italian Food Month, and then spent the subsequent weeks filling our table with venetian rice pudding, tagliatelle with walnut sauce, and sausage and lentil stew. But with the Tour de France starting in a few short days, I decided to get a leg up on July (French Food Month) and have perfected a brilliant boeuf bourguignon… I’m really looking forward to the month ahead.

As for the running, my achilles continues to slowly heal. I was happy with how it held up after the pseudo 100s on Tuesday, but even so decided to sneak in an extra day of recovery before running some (pseudo) 200s on Friday.

I’m very pleased with how my running has come around, if not physically then mentally. On Wednesday, I’ll race the last of the Summer 5k Series after which I’m going to dial things back for a few weeks before launching into a solid 12-week marathon build. Whereas last time around, I felt I was struggling to find some/any energy, I’m really looking forward to the months down the road. October couldn’t come soon enough.

Training:

Thursday: easy/steady 1:08:39

Friday: easy 49:08 with 12x37” 3kP (1’)

Saturday: easy 53:49

Sunday: 46:22 with 8xstrides

Weekly mileage: 6h17’42”, +/- 88k or 55 miles