......Had a fantastic couple of weeks in Fontainbleau, photos to follow.
The weather for the first couple of days was pretty grim to say the least, I had to stop on the drive from Dunkerque for an hour of shut eye to let the downpour subside slightly. After arriving early morning and pitching the tent, followed by some more sleep, then trying to find a shop open on a Sunday in France! we hid from it in the tent eating pate and cheese!
We completed the Circuit de 25 Bosses which I thought would translate as something grand like 25 Hills, but unfortunately after checking the dictionary it is only the 25 "Bumps!" oh well, it was good fun. The route does a lot of up and down, admittedly on small hills, and scrambling through the boulders and rocks so it's a pretty interesting outing. We did plenty of bouldering and a bit more walking, I even managed a few runs in the evenings.
One of these was slightly disastrous, to cut a long story short, I was first blocked by a lake, then a motorway and I was considering swimming across the river to get back when I did find a road in the right direction. My own fault I should have taken the map with me, I came back exhausted to a slightly panicking Gemma who had expected me back about an hour earlier!
I've been getting out in the mornings and evenings gradually increasing my mileage, and I'm getting back into the groove. I've got a few training runs planned for the OMM over a couple of days and I am now obsessing over weight, my kit as well as my own! I received my balloon bed through the post last week, and I have had the scales out weighing leggings, tops, gloves trying to keep as compact and light as possible so I can get it all in my inov8 18l sack. I'll blog with my final kit list when the final decisions have been made. My last OMM experience was 2008 and the great Borrowdale storm, I was one of those unaccounted for runners! so I'm hoping for a slightly less lively experience this time.
I am full of a cold this week which isn't helping, neither is the grim weather, but I have got out a couple of times and have some more mileage planned before the week is out.
Just trying to decide what to do with my days off for OMM training. The 15 Trigs of the Dark Peak looks like an interesting and probably similar terrain to Dartmoor? I quite fancy doing the Ribble Way over a couple of days, Longton-Gisburn the Gisburn-End, coming back on the train. There's also the Bowland 1500' s so I'll have to make my mind up, lots of inspiring stuff on Tony Wimbush's GoFar web site worth a look at.
Should have some more regular updates to the blog now so stay tuned.........
