Descente de la Lesse:
Sunday 29th August 2010

Dinant and the river Meuse

Mike and Glenys were going to Dinant in Belgium, to run the 'Descente' again, and hearing Glenys's enthusiasm for the mainly gentle downhill route on paths along the river (though interrupted by 2 large hills), Alec and I decided to join them. Having neither of us raced all year due to various problems, this presented quite a challenge. When Chris Hunt said she and John were going to the race as well, we trained together, working hard over gradually increasing distances. Alec reckoned he couldn't regain enough race-fitness in time, so came to provide welcome support.

We took our campervan as usual, staying at Houyet, near the race start - a good decision, seeing the hordes of runners packing the buses from Dinant. The weather had been wet and miserable ever since we arrived in Belgium, and we had prepared for a soggy run, but lo! for the few hours of race morning it brightened up. However, the idea of an optional fording of the river had to be abandoned, the water being waist-deep. Everyone had to queue up to mount steep steps and cross the narrow bridge.			The distance markers were a bit confusing at first; they counted down rather than up, so here we still had 18k to go.
View looking back from near the top of the hill.		You can just see the race profile across the top of the sign, with a red arrow showing the current position (after the climb up the first large hill)

My run went to plan, walking all the uphills (especially the first big one - brought back memories of the Stickler in Dorset), and glad to rest in the queues for pinch-points. Although the route was pretty, from my point of view there were too many tarmac roads and hard surfaces on paths, which jarred my 'dead leg' and sciatica, especially the last 5k into Dinant. The finish came into sight a long way off, and I had to tell myself "just grit your teeth and get on with it" but it seemed to take forever. Once over the line though, my leg immediately felt better. After being greeted by Alec, and having a hot shower (in a tent in the street!) I could look back on the enjoyable parts of the route. Chris finished strongly, but John had to retire shortly before the end.

Path by the Lesse.

We stayed for the very long-winded presentations - speeches thanking every sponsor and promoting all sorts of things (we understood maybe 10% of it). Then the awards - 2 other NFR runners got 3rd in age-group in the short race. As they hadn't stayed, I went up to collect the awards for them, and the presenter made me stand on the podium in their place.

The bromeliad

Then a big surprise - I was delighted to get 1st FV60 in the main race. The presenter probably said something like 'not you again', but I had to stand on the top step this time. I got a nice (but impractical) pale blue fleecy jacket, and also a large potted bromeliad plant - lovely, but where do you put it in a small campervan?

Rosemarie's time (for 21.9k):

2h:12m:16s (clock time) 2h:11m:37s (chip time)

Fed up with rainy Belgium, we immediately headed south towards the French/Swiss border and the Jura mountains
for the remainder of our holiday (and another trail race, but that's another story).
Link to Trail de Combe Noire for the next instalment.

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