Trail des Veneurs

Date: 24 March 2019
Goal: FunRun
Finish: 4h16
Rank: 3 🙂
Shoes: Altra Lone Peak 4.0
Elev. gain: 1900m

A trip to the Ardennes for a nice little preparation race: Trail des Veneurs (42km, 1900m alt. gain).
The field was small, around 100 runners for the longest distance of the first edition of this race (beside 16km and 32km). Starting line was on a cow paddock, still a swamp from the recent rain, perfect beginning for a trail run with wet socks :-).

After one kilometre it became clear, this is not a joke. We left the forest trail right into the woods, on a dirt track through the trees, up and down, through mud and little brooks. Runner #1 set off pretty quickly and increased the distance to us 4 followers every km, the field was already stretched apart and I couldn’t see anyone coming behind us.

At 10k my little family was waiting for me – power boost (although not needed yet) – grabbed a water and set off into the woods again, catching up with to the other 3 guys who seemingly sniffed their chance of my short stop. We sticked together until 16k or so, when we lost one of our group to the back and one to the front (who would eventually do 2nd place). Two guys we were, running through the woods of the Ardennes. But it was only a few kms later that I could distance myself from the other Mr. Fellow…or, better to say, he distanced himself, to the back; and alone I was for the rest of the race.

At 22k my little family was waiting again (boost now very welcome), and I was told I’m on rank #3 at the moment, rather to my sorrow, because at that point I believed being farther behind and just wanted to make it a funrun. But being on #3 meant, trying to stay on #3! 😀
My ‘excitement’ turned into missing the marked trail twice right away; once just behind the refreshment station (luckily many people shouting), the second time 300m further, this time it took a bit longer to realise (Marina called my phone…).
This started to get a bit tougher from now on, often turning away from any marked trail, left or right, up and down the woods, good fun!
From now on 32k-runners started to catch up on me. One of them looked like Mr. Fellow from before and I tried to push a little more, until I realised he did not wear a vest as Mr. Fellow, and could relaxed again.
Suddenly a hard downhill, few metres, time for a somersault, nothing lost, nothing hurt? Good, continue.

At 34k was the last refreshment station, again great family support.
Now also joining with the 16k runners, the track got a little busy all of a sudden. That gave some good motivation for the last kms.
No one coming from behind, good.
River crossing at the front, good.

My first 3rd place in any kind of purely running event; the next 42k-runner finished 15min after me, and Mr. Fellow even 45min later.

Race anecdote
I mistook one of the 32k-runners as one of my pursuers.
As he looked somewhat Spanish, and there are not that many Spanish looking fellows out there in the Ardennes mountains, I asked him “Eres Español?” – “No, Griego”. All this happened while overtaking some (supposedly) Belgian couple. Would’ve loved to know their thoughts….

FunRun song
Editors – Smokers outside the hospital doors

https://www.strava.com/activities/2237276342/embed/04f469c418d2bf528f0bf398da5d620a85d7712d