The Liz Yelling Training Camp in the Alps - La Clusaz

From 20th - 27th June I attended Liz and Hayley Yelling's Training 'Camp' near Annecy, France. This was the second year that I had used the Camp, which is actually based in a luxury Chalet in la Clusaz,  as part of my training plan. There is an excellent mix of training on trails in the mountains, interval training on the bike trail next to Lake Annecy and at the Thone's track together with talks from Liz, assisted by her sister in law Hayley this year together with excellent company and banter with other runners:

The first 4 mile 'recovery run' started at the upper car park at Manigod, close to the Chalet, there was a spontaneous change of route plan when we took the upper path however all worked out well in the end with great weather and wonderful views of the local mountains

The next day we travelled by Minibus to Grand-Borland for a mountain run, each loop was around 5 miles with a gentlish hill followed by an undulating section and some steepish decent in the last quarter on fire trails. Last year I had developed two huge blisters on these decents so wore some more appropriate trail shoes this year - the Salomon GT6 which hold your feet so that they don't slide in the shoe

Two cute Donkeys..

the start by the Restaurant with the minibuses

wonderful views

one of the hills with Rachel and Jenny

a flatter section..

The Restaurant

John being escorted back after he took a wrong turn .. he was a awarded a goat bell so that we could hear him if he stayed again!

The gang with Liz and Hayley

That evening we did the 'recovery run', a steep hike up to the path followed by a gentle uphill run though a wooded area across a mountain steam with views of the Mountains and, if the cloud permitted a glimpse of Mont Blanc, in the distance, at the top

The Chalet from above

Hayley and Sue on the way down

The Chalet

thanks Brian..

some friends in the fields

a gentle stretching session after

followed by Dinner and banter at 7.30 ..

The next day we travelled down to the Bike Track next to lake Annecy for some intervals. It was pretty hot and after a warm up we had 6,5,4,3,2,1 minute, out and back, sessions with 90 second recoveries followed by chilling out in and by the lake and lunch..

the briefing ..

The Track .. on the way back 3 minutes up, 3 back ..

Chilling out

The youngest member of the gang Charlie who did most of her running around the Chalet!

Chilling out in the Hot Tub at the Chalet

We dragged ourselves out of the hotel for a recovery 4 mile run up the mountain path by the chalet; after all it's not everyday that you get 'chicked ' (male trail runners term for being over taken by a female) on the downhill by an olympian (Liz Yelling)!

Liz and Hayley with Mont Blanc behind - under the cloud

The run was followed by a core stability workshop that sparked some Plank contests in the next few days.. and Dinner

Tuesday was a lighter day with a pre breakfast run from the Chalet, followed by a talk about 'Planning your Peak - your racing schedule and how to plan'. the afternoon was set aside for 'alternative activities' but it had rained in the morning and the Via Ferrata rocks were too wet so an alternative run/hike was organised up the vertical Kilometre at Manigod

this was quite a climb 

Rob

and became quite technical at the top along a ridge - some of us climbed to within 200 metres of the top but due to time (and safety) constraints, there was poor visibility and, according to Richard,  a 30m cliff at the top. Exactly how Kilian Jornet managed to run up this in 00:28:18 at this point is beyond me - super human..

Rob on the descent

We had fun running the technical descent back into the valley..

lunch was followed by another evening recovery run up the valley Dinner and a rest ..

the story continues in the next Blog ..