The Trail Yonne

MAY 2 , 2015

Laetitia Silvent, Ionut Pirva, Rajah El Jamali, Wippy Lejolif

Gold, Silver or Bronze, we’ve got them all!

The Expatriés on the podium of the 3rd Trail Yonne.

At about one hour and half drive of Paris, the town Sens received for the third edition The Trail Yonne If last year competitors had a great sunshine to run through the 110K of hills and rape fields, we were not so lucky. Instead sunburns, we had a great deal of mud and slippery roads.

To do it in a team (relay race), I had to find 3 more runners that would be willing to probably get lost in the wood and at night! Obviously, my fellows from Expatriés were the best choice ever and the easiest to convince! So, with a former colleague, Clément, and the best triathletes Ionut and Wippy, we end up with the international team named ‘The Globe Trailers’. I thank them so much for their great team spirit!

As the more the merrier, Rajah and a new comer Amagoia, also triathlete, joined us. But missing 2 people to make another team, they went for an individual run. We registered for the 35K and Rajah and Amagoia for the 18K.

Being a night run (for the longest distance), we didn’t start before 4pm so we decided to picnic together before. Our lunch wasn’t as bucolic as expected for the time of the year but the great spirit and good laughs made up for it. But it is probably the Wippy’s Mary Popping’s bag that changed everything! She bought lovely Thai food (and Thai wine!) and much more, enough for a full summer camp of hungry kinds!

Registered and well fed, I joined Rajah and Amagoia on the start line ready to do the first part. As the relay in divided in 5 portions, each member run his part and the last one is run together. The 3 others not running had then to catch up the runner by car through another itinerary to the meeting point. After an almost missed catch up and an almost too quick arrival of Ionut on the last part, we took off together. In the mid time, Ionut managed to overtake a great deal of runners in his portion and Clement slipped somewhere in the mud and cut his hand. We learned some time later that Rajah did too! For sure, the first-aid workers didn’t relax much during the 24h run. But at least no of us broke anything.

Between asphalt and woods, it was like switching from floundering in mud, to getting stuck in clay, to running uphill in slow motion and to skating in sludge… all of it while struggling to keep your balance and trying not to get lost as the marks slowly washed down with the rain. Luckily we finished the run before the night fall.

But as we were approaching the finish line, our team members started to lose sight of each other’s and we didn’t cross the line together. Ionut was the first to cross the line which brought our team to the official first place. Everyone arrived just behind, but, as in the meantime, another team arrived in one group, they decided to move us down to the 2nd best! So the official results say Gold while or medal is Silver! In both case, we were in the Podium!

But while we were still running, it was Rajah’s time of glory! She jumped twice on the podium! Gold medal for her category and Bronze for the distance!

Well done everyone!!

After drying up and enjoying the rest of Wippy’s Thai food, it was time to drive back home…