Fuel for trainings: an ultra play list

I want to share with you one of my best training tips: music! I do not listen to music when I am running in the forest or on the road. Music player is not autorized on many races, and on the Spartathlon as well.

But since I have to train at the gym, I like to listen something stimulating, tired of commercial electro craps that you may usually listen in any gym club.

I have grown with heavy metal and still enjoy to listen some. But not every hard rock song is suitable for the gym. In the last months, I had a huge crush on two Symphonic metal nordics bands: Nightwish (Finland) and Epica (The Netherlands).

Listen on Deezer

Listen on Deezer

I am listening music for: treadmill, interval training on a treadmill, crossfit, etc.

Here is my playlist: Nightwish (Once, Wishmaster), Epica (The Divine Conspiracy), Crucified Barbara (In distortion we trust, 'til death do us play), Metallica (Death Magnetic), the black eyed peas (for situps) and other commercial crap that I am too shame to confess...

http://www.nightwish.com/

http://www.epica.nl/

http://www.crucifiedbarbara.com/

2010: a tappering year!

Welcome back, after a long silence due to a dramatic lack of time. This is a bite late for wishing a merry xmas and a happy new year, but I would like to thank my team (Philippe & Isabelle), Cap Running Aventure at Versailles (France) which provided my Asics equipments. Asics is making good shoes, I ran with Cumulus 11 & Trabucco all over the past year and my training was fine. I do not know if I improved my performances as 2k9 was a year of discovery (to explore new places where no man has boldly goes before :) but I did not get hurt. I used to twist my ankles often in the past, now everything seems to be fixed and the shoes did their job.

Cap Running Aventure web site:
http://www.runningaventure.com/
Cap Running Aventure on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000780886101
Cap Running Aventure on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/runningaventure

I started the training in the rude way on January the 1st. A first run in the cold and the snow. We had a lot of snow showers and running in the white virgin snow was delightful. My coach wrote a plan to train for a 100km. But this plan was definitly too long: 23 weeks. As I planed to run the 100km of Perigord Noir (Belvès/France) at the end of April, I started the training at the very first week of December. Which was not possible for me, I was tired and my body needed urgently a big break. So I did just a few scattered trainings in December.

The beginning of January was also the opportunity to focus on my races calendar. What should I pick up to prepare the Spartathlon? Here is my short list:

• March: Ecotrail of Paris 80km (bib won at the UFO's lottery, thanks UltraFOndus!)
• March: 6 hours of Buc
• April: 100km of Périgord Noir
• May: 24h of Villennes sur Seine?
• June: Grand Raid du Morbihan (177km)
• July: Lakeland 100 miles (in the UK)

And then, we'll see...