Training for Spartathlon: training

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Quick update: marathon in 4 days

Hi everybody, my last boy is born 5 months ago. He is an amazing little boy full of energy and a great joy for his parents. This left me no time for posting on this blog. Training is getting hard, with an hectic schedule, short nights, and my job. Hopefully, I was able to run some pretty nice races but was really tired on the start line:
- end of June: Le Raid du Morbihan (178km), I gave up at km 144, I was able to finish the race, be without any pleasure, tiredness was TOO painful
- end August : 100km des étangs de Sologne. A great race but my bike injury on the left knee (accident happened in April) came back after 35km. At km 45, I had to slow down, then I switched running & walking. I finished with a strong mental in 13h50, my initial goal was 10h! One month of rest was required to be able to start running again.

Then, I decided that I need to change dramatically the way I train. Speed was currently an option in my ultra running races. Back to the basics! My next race will be a marathon. I asked to my friend Philippe to design a 6 weeks marathon training plan for a 3:15 goal. The D day is approaching, it will be Sunday the 14th of November in Orléans (France) : http://www.orleansmarathon.fr/
Orléans is closed to my home, about 1h by car, it is convenient. 259 registered runners so far. The weather forecast is terrible, cold and rain shower. Should be fun.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

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

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...