Pierre

A truck, not a race car

In trail running there are the runners built like race cars: light, twitchy, mounted on springs, able to accelerate up a rise at the hour when everyone else is negotiating with themselves.

And then there is me. I am a truck. The chassis is solid, the bodywork has volume, and do not count on me to take a tight corner. On the other hand, I roll. For a long time. All day if that is what it takes.

The advantage of a truck is the fuel tank. I have never had a nutrition problem in a race: no bonk, no nausea, none of that tragic moment when one gel too many decides to turn back. I eat, it goes down, I set off again.

The drawback of a truck is top speed. Let us say I do not frighten the clock. Not the clock, and not anybody else either.

My speciality: the cut-off time

I have a talent nobody envies: I always make the cut-offs. Just before. Really just before.

Where others collect podiums, I hold a season ticket to suspense. The volunteers who are starting to fold the tables away know me well. There is always that moment when somebody looks up and says “oh, there's still one more”. That is me. It is always me.

What I run

Between 40 and 100 km. That is where I belong: long enough that speed stops being the point, reasonable enough to go home and sleep in my own bed.

The 100, I have not done yet. It should happen. I have started telling people around me, which is, as everyone knows, the first irreversible step.

By day, I work in an opera house

On the stage. In practice: in the dark and in silence, I move scenery that weighs as much as a small car, while somebody sings a few metres away.

It is excellent cross-training, and it explains part of the build: you do not do this job mounted on springs.