I ran the Gatinais Trail Marathon on 12 April at Maisse, France which is southeast of Paris, not far from Fontainebleau. The course goes in and around a forest which is a mix of pine and deciduous trees. There were 21 small hills on the sandy trail which was about 50% single track. Some of the hills were quite steep as you can see in these grade stats with sections greater than 28%, basically climbing with hands and feet. My garmin measured 895m of vertical.
Grade stats from Gatinais Trail Marathon
The weather was a cool 6°C for the start at 7:45 in the morning. The start was delayed for 15 minutes to let the late-comers arrive. There were about 120 at the start line. Just before the start the reigning women’s world trail vice-champion arrived Aurelia Truel. I lined up next to her and charged out of the gate a step ahead of her… and then she took off like a sprinter and left me in the dust.
The sun was out and with the first few hills I warmed up fast. I started with my camelbak half full with the first water stop being at 13.7 km. I glanced at my watch as the first hour passed and had covered just under 10km. I stopped for water had some banana and cereal bar plus a few pieces of chocolate.
Here is my strava map. You can click through to get to data with km splits.
Between km 19 and 25 there were some tough hills where I suffered mightily, along with everybody else. Then during a nice downhill stretch I started to feel better and better and was able to keep a decent pace on a steep hill at km 29. We broke out into a long open field and I started passing runners right and left, one by one. At the end of the field we had a short water break at km 31. I ate my snickers and took off with new energy. I still had good legs and needed them, because the last 5 km had some tough steep hills.
I finished in 4:31:55 which was good enough for 7th in the old, old men’s category and 40th place overall. Looking more closely at the results, I see no one older than me bettered me. I crossed the finish line and was congratulated by my good friend, Thomas, who had just completed the 23km race. I was happy with my performance, finishing without incident or injury.
It was a great race, perfect weather, with a good organization, a challenging trail with lots of twists and turns, and an excellent surface for running without too many rocky sections. This is one that I would definitely like to do again.