On April 10th I did the Jouy-en-Josas 50k trail run in 6 hours, 39 min. Officially, that was 108th place among the 140 participants. In my category, I was 21st out of 30. I am happy with that result given the the mild case of the flu in March that put me out of action for about 10 days.
I really enjoyed the course which was about 90% on forest trails. It’s surprising to find so much trail only 15km from Paris. It had rained a lot in the days before the race so the trails were muddy and treacherous. There were many short, slippery ups and downs. In some places we had to slog thru ankle deep mud.
Here is the course layout. You can click thru to see my data.
The weather was just about perfect for the race. I would have liked a few degrees warmer. It was about 4° C at the start. With a cloudless sky however, temps rapidly rose and in the afternoon it was about 17° C. The sun kept me warm in the later part of the race when I was not going so fast.
Things started off poorly for me. Something moved in my backpack and caused my water container to start leaking. I had to stop pull everything apart and tighten the connection of the tube to the bottom of the container. Meanwhile, everyone passed me and got a good 3 minute lead on me, except my wingman, Thomas! We were dead last and slowly but surely made our way back into the race passing runners one by one.
With the slippery conditions and the hills, the pace was slow but steady. We stopped at aid stations at 7km, 17km, 25km, and 38km. The voluteers had lots of good food and drink with equal amounts of encouragement and good cheer. I ate and hydrated well throughout the race. I think this was key in preventing leg cramps later in the race.
Those last 12 km sure were long. For the most part I was able to keep jogging along except for the uphill portions. It was a struggle as all long races are, but was very enjoyable with the nice weather and the always twisting, turning trail.
At the end I ceremoniously deposited my New Balance Leadvilles in the garbage bin. After 1,063 km they started to come apart at the side seams. Those were good shoes that carried me through many a race in the last year.