Nordic walking in the French Alps is quite a different business from, say, walking in the Central park in Helsinki. So, for our first Nordic walking experience we decided to attend a non-competitive event with, not 5 kilometers, not 10 kilometers, not even 20 kilometers, but 36 kilometers of walking, […]
Ut4M 40 Chartreuse, that is, a 42-kilometer mountain marathon with total ascent of 2540 meters and descent of 2610 meters. Two years ago we were not allowed to continue from the last check point, because we did not have lamps with us (the lamps were optional that year!). It was […]
Finally we had a chance to visit Postman Cheval’s Ideal Palace in Hauterives, Drôme department. For a while we dreamed about riding our bikes there, but gave up the thought since, realistically, it would have been a bit too long for a day ride, and in hindsight, not too interesting […]
Our easy and short recovery hike turned out quite differently from yesterday’s hike, besides being short and easy(sh). As soon as we got out of the car at the parking of Col-des-Ayes it started raining. The rain soon stopped and we had to peal off the rain jackets, since we […]
This was our first real recce for the upcoming ultra marathon that will take place in six weeks of time on the Chartreuse range. We took an early morning bus to St-Izmier and planned to climb to the first rest stop at Habert-de-Chamechaude and then down to Sappey-en-Chartreuse to catch […]
(June 25, 2017) As hindsight, it may not have been the greatest idea to go for a 80-kilometer bike ride with some decent climbs to recover from a longish (mostly) downhill run from the day before, but at the time it felt just right. We left early when it was […]
We have a four-day Ascension Day holiday weekend with very Summer-like weather; early mornings have been still relatively cool, +15C at most, but afternoons quite hot, +30C and plus. We deviated a bit from our marathon training program, and on our rest day (May 26) did a 128-kilometer bike ride […]
to Asics Stockholm Marathon for which we have been training most of the Spring. Yesterday (May 13, 2017) we had our last very long run, 30.15 kilometers. Once again we took the Transisère bus to Goncelin, and ran back to Grenoble, or more specifically to the university campus in Gières, […]
(April 22, 2017) We did an easy hike from Le-Sappey-en-Chartreuse (999m) to L’Écoutoux (1406m) with a total climb of 551 meters. We are half way in our marathon training schedule, so we did not want to push ourselves too much on the rest day, but wanted to enjoy the sunny […]