Rest and Recovery Over

Its been a week since the Marathon and I rested until Friday when I decided to see how the legs and more importantly the Hip was feeling. I got the lift up to Planpraz and jogged along to Flegere , Arriving at Flegere I was feeling not too bad so decided to keep going and continued up to the Chezery Refuge , from there it was downhill all the way. The path down was wet steep and slippy so I really took my time and only ran short flat sections keeping the hip from any pain. I then got to the river and followed it home only to be caught by the most horrendous storm so far this season , for 20 minutes I ran whilst being absolutely pelted by rain , it was lashing down like I have never seen thankfully though it was warm so I wasn’t bothered at all and I did manage to crack out a smile and I was loving it , much to the surprise of a wee old French lady who passed in here car and kindly stopped to ask if I wanted a lift , she even cracked out a smile as I replied “no thanks its all good”. I was out for 2hrs 20mins and felt pretty decent and my hip didn’t cause many problems.

Glorious Trails - Flegere station in background

Lovin' it!

The following day my good friend Jo asked if I wanted to take her along the Cosmiques Arête as she was heading to climb Gran Paradiso in a few days and wanted to get a little acclimatised. I have done that arête more times than I can remember but its great fun and I am never one to knock back a wee trip over it plus it helps keep my altitude fitness up.

Arriving at the lift the next morning at 8.30am I had forgotten one vital detail. It was Saturday! The Midi lift at weekends over summer is a joke with massive queues and a ticket system that needs sorted out. Luckily just as they started to issue tickets I managed to grab us some meaning we only had a 30 minute wait for our lift so it was off to sit outside and have a coffee. It was a cracking sunny morning and it was ace just to get up there again and stroll along an awesome little ridge. It was the usual Cosmiques busy at the two main bottlenecks , the abseil and the crux but we were in no rush so we were happy to just sit and chill. It did take an age to get over it but there was no point rushing to pass people as there were so many parties you just got stopped 5 minutes further. We were something like 5 and a half hours round trip but a worthwhile time as we both needed a little altitude workout.



Waiting to catch Jo at the bottom of the abseil. Thankfully I didnt have to though.

I haven’t done nearly enough Alpine stuff this season so far and I knew when I came back over that my main focus was running but after that wee day out it did bring back how much I love being up in the Mountains even though it was a route I had done many a times it made me want to get back up there as much as possible.

Reckon I will go a little ride on the bike before work tomorrow and then probably a run on lunch for a couple of hours. Off again on Tuesday and Wednesday and hopefully it is going to involve some high Mountain stuff.