Here is the report on the Trail de l’Oise at Compiègne that I completed on May 4th. I’m posting this 7 weeks late so the event is not too fresh in my mind at this point.
In the train-up for the race I was recovering from a sore throat that made me miss the Marathon de Gatinais the previous weekend. In the previous two weeks I only logged 34 km total during that time. Because of this lack of preparation I did not attempt the 60k that started one hour before and ran mostly on the same trails.
I ran the 37 km (23 mile) race with 784m of positive elevation through the Compiègne forest. It was a good day to run with a cool temperature of around 8° C at the 8 AM start time. The sun was out and it warmed up for comfortable running for the entire race.
The trail was about 60% single track, dry, not very rocky and mostly runnable. There were a few short steep hills, one of which had a rope installed to help with the climb. The course started in the park and passed in front of the castle giving a nice long vew out over the park. The first 5 km were on the flats and I started out with a good 5 min /km pace. When we turned left up into the hills the pace quickly dropped off of course.
Here is the link to my stats and the course layout http://connect.garmin.com/activity/492754893 I averaged just over 6 min per km and completed the race in 3:47.
That was good enough for 43rd place overall out of 155 runners and 9th out of 22 in my age category. It was a good race and I think I’d like to do it again, either the 37km or the 60km.
start of 37km Trail de l’Oise at Compiègne