Report by Trevor Llyod
One thing the French do well (apart from producing wine!) is organising fetes in every village. One in our vicinity was organising ‘Un Boucle de Jeanaisse’ – a 10km walk at 8.00am and a 10km run at 7.00pm.
Why not give the run a try – €10 to enter and you got a nice T shirt. When registering and after producing evidence of insurance which is required for all fun runs and races in France, I enquired if there was a map of the course. “ah Non”. However it was explained the run was 2 laps of the village followed by a lap of 2 local lakes. Lakes are generally flat so that was ok. What I had forgotten was that like many French villages this one was set on the top of a hill. Setting off the temperature was a cool 24c- down from 34c the same time the previous week. 2 laps of the village entailed visiting the top of the hill at least 4 to 5 times –merde! Then around the lakes and back to the village to the finish, but merde encore, another 3 or 4 hills!
All female finishers received a rose and the male finishers- Michael take note- received a roof tile! Admittedly it did have an inscription. I presume those that had done the race the previous 24 years could now roof their garden shed. As we have found with races in France there was a full sit-down meal for participants and friends after the race. Now that I know the course I may give it a go another year when I can better time my finishing sprint!
Trevor in action
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