I’m operating on a bit of a 1-day broadcast delay this week, and not because I’m trying to protect anyone from any wardrobe malfunctions – but rather simply because it was a busy weekend as you’ll see below. Plus, we’ve started a bit of a week-long road-trip down the West coast of France – so I’m sidetracked in enjoying that!
1) Delivered a wedding cake a few hours away to a chateau.
Despite my artistic inability to properly frost a cupcake according to the standards The Girl sets forth, I do have responsibilities at the CupCakery. For example, I’m in charge of edible testing. I’d like to think I’m a critical cog in ensuring the taste testing wheel goes around.
Additionally, when it comes to all things electronic or digital – I’m usually at fault responsible for the awesomeness of the design.
But there is one final responsibility that I’ve gotten somehow: Delivery man.
When it comes to any complex delivery outside of Paris, I’m usually it. And, for that matter – any complex/big delivery inside of Paris. So this past weekend on Friday evening we made the journey a few hours away to an area in Normandy where a wedding was being held Saturday. I believe the drive took about 50% longer than normal, given we’re driving about 200% more carefully than normal.
Luckily we had no problems* making the delivery the next morning – with things turning out quite nice:
*By ‘no problems’ I mean that we found the correct chateau eventually. The other chateaux that we visited were courtesy of Google Maps apparently thinking we’d like to house-hunt for chateaux. But, the hosts at those were all quite friendly however.
2) Saw a chicken cross the road
Shortly after delivering the cake and being able to drive like a normal person again, we saw this cross the road in front of us:
Yes, seriously. We aren’t quite sure why he crossed the road. But we are sure that he was definitely more successful than the road kill just to the right edge of the photo. Win some…lose some.
3) In unrelated news…had chicken for dinner.
From there we continued on to Saint-Malo for packet pickup. It was about a 3-hour drive away from the cake drop-off location to the packet pickup location. This is the same place that last year I swam to and around a fort/castle out on the water (cool stuff!). Also the same place that has the gigantic pool that fills up when the tide comes in.
After packet pickup – which I’ll cover in tomorrow’s post, we grabbed dinner. I thought it only appropriate that it was poulet.
While Saint-Malo and the rest of the coast is well known for mussels, I figured it might be a poor selection pre-race. Don’t worry, I’ve been more than making up for them since (3rd serving already!).
4) I ran a marathon
In order to mix things up a bit, I ran a marathon on Sunday. It was a point to point event from the town of Cancale to the famous Mont Saint-Michel (2nd most touristed locale in France).
I’ll dive into that more tomorrow in my race report. But, I had ‘fun’ running 26.2 miles. And, being that you can actually see the finish line from the start line – it served as a very visual reminder that running 26.2 miles away is really rather far.
5) Biking around post-marathon
After hobbling over to the hotel, popping a few blisters and showering, we headed back out and grabbed the bikes from the hotel for a bit of a wander.
I’ve long noted the importance of an easy pedal post-long run (or post–race). It makes all the difference in the world when it comes to recovery. Note that I said ‘easy pedal’. I generally recommend doing this on something less performance oriented…like…a beach cruiser.
So we first cycled out to to the big island of sorts that you see above. Then, after that we kinda set out wandering around on small paths and trails.
It was quite nice and really helped the legs. In total we ended up just bumbling along probably a bit more than necessary – about 2 hours, albeit at all of 7 MPH. No GPS on my bike, but just a swag on distance and time based on the rough route that we took. Very enjoyable though, and nice that we saw almost nobody else out there (car or bike) during our wander after we left Mont Saint-Michel.
With that – more on the marathon tomorrow, and then a bit later in the week I’ll wrap up some of our journey down the coast before I head into the Pyrenees for some riding this upcoming weekend (albeit without The Girl, as she’ll whisk back to Paris on the high-speed train).
Thanks for reading, and hope everyone has a great week ahead!
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glad to see you’ve run one of the nicest french marathon 🙂 a good memory for me too (except the last straight mile to the Mont… hard finish)
Wow what an Post ,.Really your post are very inspiring
Nice to see that I am not the only crazy guy considering a marathon as part of the training 🙂
If there is any job opening for cupcakery taste test, where can I apply?
I rarely run marathon as part of training (this year 2times) but my everyweeks training long runs is longer than marathon 😀 (usual 40-70km). yoy are not alone 😛
and my nubie pride bubble of making it 6 miles has just popped!
actually – you guys all inspire me 🙂
looking forward to the race report – must be an unusual marathon
oh, and thanks for the “random things” reports, always interesting to read 🙂
No defending champion at the triathlon du roi this weekend !!!
now i understand ; -)
was there as well (marathon)
nice weather isn’t it
in case you don’t know a link to your finish line pictures
link to maindruphoto.com
yours
sam a french marathon beginer (sub 4h00)
I think your going to miss France when your tenures over there
What an awesome weekend! I can wait to read your race review tomorrow!
Excited to hear your race report … this was my first Marathon and I completely forgot you’d be there too (finishing WELL before me however). I probably should have done the bike thing too, walking today might be tough 😉 . Thankful for good weather, and a beautiful finish line!
ps. now all I can think about is that lovely cake and how much I want some!
But why, I’d just like to know why? (point 2)
Where in the Pyrenees? Be aware that some of the most clasic climbs (Tourmalet, Aubisque) might still be under the snow.
Let me know if you need help in arranging routes. Enjoy it.
I agree with above posts, very inspiring! Even the chicken meal in photo inspires me to attempt “portion control” at dinner time!
Sounds like a very fun weekend 🙂
You are the 2nd person I know ran St Michel, can’t wait to read your race report 🙂
Can you expand on the riding post running or point me in the right direction?
Very new to running (not that that’s what I’m doing) and am curious to learn more.
It’s essentially ‘active recovery’. Much like what you’re (supposed) to do at the end of a hard workout by finishing with an easy cool-down. Typically a cool-down would involve something that brings your heart rate back down slowly. For most of mine it’s basically a 5-minute run, but I’ll essentially do it like a reverse step ladder. Thus, I might run slightly slower than normal for 1 minute, then walk for 30 seconds, then run a bit slower than 30 seconds, and eventually just walk.
With the riding, I find it really helps keep all the muscles from getting a completely ‘frozen’ feeling (I’m sure there’s a technical term there).
Here’s a bit more from a long while ago: link to dcrainmaker.com
“In unrelated news…had chicken for dinner” this line made me smile… Thanks for what you do!
I’m pretty used to see chickens around here, as strange as that might sound, they usually have better hang of it than cats, which typically wait until the last moment and then do something stupid.
Around the city, pigeons, doves and blackbirds seem to have perfected the art of crossing to a level exceeding that attained by at least half the populace.
By now you probably think I’m totally out of my mind, but bear with me: as long as they’re not hearing the noise of a motor vehicle approaching (or at least the racket of a Campag freehub coasting), most people will cross without bothering to look. Birds actually turn their heads!
“By now you probably think I’m totally out of my mind, but bear with me: as long as they’re not hearing the noise of a motor vehicle approaching (or at least the racket of a Campag freehub coasting), most people will cross without bothering to look.”
In Paris, most French will cross without looking even if they hear cars coming. Somehow it always seems to work out for them.
Nice post. Brought back memories.
When I was a kid, my dad was stationed near Madrid. One year, probably ’66 or ’67, we took a tour around Europe and the place I remember the most and enjoyed the most was Mont Saint-Michel. It still looks as fantastic as I remember it!
First, my 9 yo son got a chuckle out of the chicken items. Second, I pointed out to him that other people think it’s important to bike after a long run or marathon in your case. Going for a bike ride with him after a long run is great, we go at his pace and it makes my legs feel so much better.