I ran the HM this year as my goal race and frankly as my dream race. Give me mountains and lakes in France and I'm about as happy as I … MORE
I ran the HM this year as my goal race and frankly as my dream race. Give me mountains and lakes in France and I’m about as happy as I can be. There was much to love about this race: spectacular beauty, a flat course, solid organisation, wonderful volunteers. However there are some things to bear i mind. The HM starts at 2.30pm every year – this year, that coincided with temps in the 20s/low 70s which is too hot for pale European runners who have trained in the winter. As such, I scrapped all ambitious plans and settled for survival, running as wisely as I could. People literally were dropping all around me – collapsed runners at every single mile. Plenty of medics, all of whom were busy. Lots of water stations and excellent volunteers but very little ‘food’ and no salty food at all. At the end, there was very limited shade to cool down in, and no food or salty stuff at all. The organisation took much criticism for those things, hopefully they’ll learn. We got rubbish, horrible medals but apparently the organisers were let down by suppliers and the actual medals will come in the post, which is fine! I totally fell in love with Annecy but I don’t know if I’ll run this again – 2.30pm is too late and too hot. But seriously – the beauty was incredible.
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Stunningly beautiful but hot as hades
I ran the HM this year as my goal race and frankly as my dream race. Give me mountains and lakes in France and I'm about as happy as I … MORE
I ran the HM this year as my goal race and frankly as my dream race. Give me mountains and lakes in France and I’m about as happy as I can be. There was much to love about this race: spectacular beauty, a flat course, solid organisation, wonderful volunteers. However there are some things to bear i mind. The HM starts at 2.30pm every year – this year, that coincided with temps in the 20s/low 70s which is too hot for pale European runners who have trained in the winter. As such, I scrapped all ambitious plans and settled for survival, running as wisely as I could. People literally were dropping all around me – collapsed runners at every single mile. Plenty of medics, all of whom were busy. Lots of water stations and excellent volunteers but very little ‘food’ and no salty food at all. At the end, there was very limited shade to cool down in, and no food or salty stuff at all. The organisation took much criticism for those things, hopefully they’ll learn. We got rubbish, horrible medals but apparently the organisers were let down by suppliers and the actual medals will come in the post, which is fine! I totally fell in love with Annecy but I don’t know if I’ll run this again – 2.30pm is too late and too hot. But seriously – the beauty was incredible.