I've got a long history with road running (not to mention the Roadrunner, but that's another story), but it's been on pause for a long time. Briefly, I was once young and kind of fast but also very stupid and thus found myself injured more often than not...which is why I started cycling in the first place: you can absolutely murder yourself on a bike and still not fall prey to repetitive stress injuries.

Anyone who reads this blog knows how years of training has done little to change the fact that I suck at bike racing and probably always will. I love cycling and will never quit, but one too many bottom-half finishes in French cyclosportif events really had me itching to be a little more competitive at something, and preferably before I'm too old to find my way to the starting line.

So, after more than 10 years on the shelf, I started running again. Smartly, this time: last November I started with an 11-minute jog around the park near my house, stuck to the "10% rule" (i.e. not increasing distance by more than 10% per week) and didn't start running far or fast until I had built a solid base. Then I built a training program around three core workouts per week (one tempo run, one track workout and one long run), filling out the other days with bike rides, tennis, rest days and the occasional 40-minute slow jog.

In short, things went well and the old race bean, buried 100 mattresses down, started to make its presence known. After crappy weather, a bad crash and equipment problems severely damaged my 2011 cycling season I decided to find some road races and see how it went. Le Tour du Lac de Paladru marked my return to the road racing scene, something that had been so familiar to me in my teens and 20s.

Only now everything is different, and not just because more than a decade had gone by since my last race. This is France: everything's different here. How could I forget that after all this time?

The first thing that caught my attention was the distance. As the name implies, this race goes around Lac de Paladru, a gorgeous mountain lake at the westernmost edge of the French Alps in the département of Isère. Advertised as a 15 km race, I assumed it would actually be 15 km long. Silly me: further analysis of the website reveals that it is actually 14.2 km. Sure, you can't expect God or whoever it was to build lakes with a circumference of exactly 15 km, but couldn't they have added 800 meters somewhere? Just sayin'.

The second thing that surprised me was the scene at the "starting line" (see photo below, taken just a few minutes before the gun went off). I arrived a little late and the starting line was densely packed, so I dutifully went to the back and worked my way up as far as possible...which was apparently not the hip thing to do. From where I was waiting I could see a straggling pack of about 50 runners loafing about in front of the starting line with no apparent desire to move. Others wandered around on the sidewalks, or in a neighboring parking lot. As 9:00 approached I waited for a cop or race official to come by and clear them out, but no: the gun simply went off and everyone started, right from where they stood! I've never seen anything like it.

depart.JPGMany of those pictured in front of the start line ran at least a little bit less than 14.2 km...

As the pack slowly moved forward and headed into the very unfortunate 90-degree turn about 50 meters into the race, I noticed that not only was I forced to get around hundreds of very slow runners (my fault for being late) but also a number of competitive walkers (the race's fault for starting them five minutes ahead of the runners)! Seriously, whose idea was it to have the walkers start ahead of the runners? Good thing there weren't very many of them, and that none of them were trampled.

After a few minutes I worked my way out of the dense pack (more than 1200 people started the race, and 1192 finished) and began to pick up the pace. As we angled around the pointy end of the lake we started up a decent-sized hill. OK, I told myself, this must be the first of the two hills advertised on the website, where the course is described as "flat and fast with two hills, each followed by a downhill." About five minutes later we ascended and descended a second hill. Weird that they would both be in the first few kilometers, I thought.

After the sixth or seventh hill I realized that the website is a big fat liar. The whole damn route is hilly. Between lake views and the mountainous backdrop it's a lovely course, but why say such a ridiculously bogus thing on the website? None of the climbs are long or steep, but the whole course undulates sans cesse: I have no idea which two hills they're even talking about. Incidentally, I prefer a hilly course and welcomed the relief (pun intended), but those expecting a flat speedway upon which they could chase their, ahem, 14.2 km PR must have been sorely disappointed.

The last thing I really want to complain about is the lack of distance markers. While I didn't really expect them to use mile markers just for me (for some reason I still keep track of my running time and distance in miles), but some accurate kilometer markers would've been nice. There are a series of old bornes marking the kilometers around the lake—I presume these are what the website refers to when it says "kilometer markers at each kilometer"—but they don't begin precisely at the starting line so they're really not much use outside of measuring speed from one marker to the next, which is kind of a PITA when you're trying to race.

All runners are different, but I'm the sort that relies on measured intervals to judge speed, effort and what sort of day I'm having. For example, towards the end of the race I was trying to decide when to put the hammer down based solely on my watch: as it turned out I was quite a bit ahead of pace and wound up practically at the finish before I realized I was even close, all of which served to turn me into one of those jerks who leaves too much in the tank and sprints madly for 400 meters at the end of a long race. It would've been very different (and almost certainly faster) if I'd known exactly where I was during the last 5K or so.

In any case, I finished right around 59 minutes according to the official clock but, as real-time start technology has not yet reached Lac de Paladru, I rightfully get to take at least 15-20 seconds off of that to make up for the time wasted behind the start line after the gun went off. Let's call it 58:45 (6:41/mile, for you metric-phobes), a bit faster than my conservative goal of getting in under one hour. Of course that put me about 60th in the infuriating, Fédération Française d'Athlétisme-mandated age category of 23-39 (I'm 39), but that's OK: I'll be back next year, one year (and one age category) older, ready to knock some 40-49 year-old heads.

Oh, actually I want to complain about one more thing. Why in the name of all that's good in the world are there two 90-degree turns within 50 meters of the finish? It felt, however briefly, more like roller derby than a road race. Which was kind of cool. But still.

Now that I'm done complaining I'd like to say that the people who run this race are, problems mentioned above notwithstanding, some of the nicest folks around who took care of all the basics (securing the course, marking the route, dealing with the inevitable parking nightmare, etc.) in comprehensive fashion. Reading this you might think I was disappointed in the event as a whole, but no: it is in many ways quite exceptional. It just needs a controlled, electronic and prioritized starting line, some race-specific distance markers and a decent straightaway finish and it would be a top-notch race. I'll be back next year...if only to finish in the 100s again, instead of the 700s like I would've done in a cyclosportif of similar size.

Oh, and one more thing: the 2011 Lyon marathon, half-marathon and 10K (Run In Lyon) are Oct. 2. I think I'll do the middle one. See you there?