U Giru de Natale

I've gone all bonkers this autumn, and started doing loads of sports. Swimming, running, mountain biking, you name it, I've done it (slight exaggeration... ;-) ). So, I was quite keen to take on the legendary Monaco 10 km Christmas run with a few colleagues of mine.

I headed down to Monaco with Philippe. After getting our bibs, we headed of for a quick coffee, as we showed up a bit early for the race (we wanted to be sure not to miss the start!). And then, time for the big race... There were quite a few people from work there, all in all we were about 10, I think.

I started off easy, as I knew the race was a deceptive one. 10 km is quite a short distance, but this is Monaco, which means there are a lot of slopes going up, and going down. The first 3 kilometers were quite easy, as it was relatively flat going, but then, it was time for the first important ascent - the staircase leading up to the Principality palace, "on the rock". Actually, it turned out not to be as difficult as expected, as the narrowness of the staircase leads to a kind of human traffic jam.

From then on, the going was pretty easy, until we got to the 2nd major ascent, the one taking us up from the port to the casino in Monte Carlo. But I'd dosed my strength quite well, so didn't have too much difficulty with that part either. And from then on, it was all downhill, as we ran downhill along the seaside to the goal, back in the port. Finally, I crossed the finishing line with a respectable time of 51 minutes. I even felt I like might've been able to do a bit better if I'd have had a bit more pace in the middle part of the race.

As expected, I wasn't the top runner at my company, that honour went to Olivier, who actually wan a basket of goodies for his efforts!

In the evening, I was quite happy to reward myself with a big meal at the Polygon Riviera (the swanky new shopping centre in Cagnes-sur-Mer), where we met up with Aurelien and Julie for a bit of a pre-Christmas meal. We decided to go to a rather classy-looking affair called Maotsumy, an Asian restaurant. We had a pretty decent, if overpriced meal there. Great to see Julie and Aurelien!