Friday, May 19, 2022 was a special day… The beginning of my 2023 season, finally!
I had decided late to register for the ultra of the Euskal Trail and I thank the organizers for having accepted me.
The Euskal is the event awaited by all the runners of the South-West and elsewhere and once again it was a superb edition with more than 3500 runners in the various events proposed through the valley of Aldudes between St Etienne de Baïgorry, Bance and Urepel…
My Basque Country, landscapes and trails that are familiar to me since they are identical to my favorite training ground in my beloved Soule.
Arrived the day before in Baigorry we established our base camp at thehotel Juantorena. A big thank you to Melanie and Bixente for their welcome and their care throughout the weekend.
This year, the organizers had concocted a new course, 130 km and 8500 of D+… Beautiful, but a big deal, not to mention the kind of vertical kilometer around 100 km…
Here is the profile of my race… As you can see, after a cautious start I took the lead between km 20 and km 30 to never let go.
So I won, and it’s a real satisfaction but it wasn’t a piece of cake and I want to congratulate the other competitors who fought a great battle(see the ranking here)… There was really no question of relaxing…
My time : 16h 27 min and 32 s… we’ll see in the next years if this “record” (of course it’s the first one on this new course) will last a long time 😉
But the greatest satisfaction is not the victory
What a foot my friends!!! All along the course, spectators, organizers, runners, all had to congratulate me, encourage me and even thank me… Thank me for what ??? it is rather me who must thank you for having carried me throughout this long day…
And the arrival in Baïgorry !!! incredible… To win such a race, at home or almost, in my Basque Country with my family, my friends…
I can’t resist the pleasure of putting the video of the arrival
Time for recovery
The season is launched and believe me it will be beautiful!
But now it’s time to recuperate before starting the first very big piece…. The preparation for the Hardrock Endurance Run is going to be tough… but we’ll talk about it later.
Recovery means sleep, cycling, physical therapy and of course a few sessions with my
Compex
to optimize all that.
