Saturday, 16th December was the official opening day for the St Gervais winter season. We nipped up to Le Betex to get in a few turns as it is the first day of the season! Snow is thin, but its there, and there was a limited number of runs open, but given the late arrival of the snow, the pisteurs have done a great job !
Today, the resort was again closed - a snow preservation messure I believe, in preperation for the main start of the season which is the Christmas week. We are assured that the lifts will open again on Saturday 23 December.
We are all looking forward expectantly to more snow!
Frinday, and the first snow fell in the village overnight. This is a big relief as there had been none so far - not even any staying on the ski area. But with Friday and Saturdays fall, the continuing cold temperatures and some use of the snow canons it looks like the resort will be opening on time on the 16 December.
With the Christmas lights up and switched on and all the snow covering the trees and chalets, and the sun out the village is looking great at the moment. Looks like it will be another great start to the season. I’m looking forward to getting the skis on an heading for the slopes!
It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I last went out running - partially because I have just not been able to find the time, with these short days, partially because my 8month old has been keeping me awake a lot at night, and also because the weather has been pretty fowl !
Today was a beautiful day and so I dragged myself out, and I really enjoyed the run. I also went further than before, by quite a long way, and discoverd some parts of the commune that I’d never visited before! In fact some of the route reminded me of hiking in Nepal - Little granges with the smell of wood-smoke in the air. Of course magnificent mountain views everywhere as well!
It’s kind of tough staying motivated at the moment, as I know that very soon, most, well *all*, of my running routes will be under an awful lot of snow, and the running will have to be cut back a lot, to be resumed when the snow starts to melt in spring. I’ll be replacing the running with Cross-Country skiing, and I’ll let you know how that goes when the snow finally arrives ! No sign at the moment.
For the Record, todays run was 11.4Km, 576m of ascent and took me 1hr 31Min.
After rain over night we wake up this morning to mist floating round the valley, and through the mist we can see that snow has fallen on the Fiz and Aravis.
I put “first” in quotes as this is the first snow of the season, although there was snow on both the Fiz and Aravis in August believe it or not! Of course I’m expecting this snow to last through the winter now !
The locals are saying that this winter the snow will come in January (to the village). So I’m waiting to see if they are correct !
The first of November brought with it a real winter feel, and today the sky was clear and the temperature crisp - a great day to go out for a run.
Today I took water for the first time and wore a ‘Bum Bag’ to carry it in. I usually use the bag for cycling but this seem to work OK for running, staying reasonably stable for most of the run. At some stage I’ll have to make the decision as to whether to do the Ultra with a light backpack - probably with a hydration system, or to run with a bum bag, staying really light weight. This worked fine today, but I don’t know how well it will work with more weight in it - it may press against my stomach which I don’t think will be good. But we will see - I’ll test out the options and see which works best.
Carrying the water and sipping it as I go seemed to work realy well. I’m definitely going to carry water from now on.
For the record, the run was the same as the last - 8.1km, 450m Ascent, done in 1Hour 5Mins. Felt fairly good at the end - almost did further in fact, so the training must be having some impact !
