We take a train to Meudon. The EcoTrail shuttle bus is already waiting at the Meudon-val-Fleury station and brings us to the location of the race start. We are between the first arrivers at the spot but more busses come and soon enough all the place is filled with runners (about 1000 of them) and walkers (almost 200).
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Runners are allowed in the race in several (perhaps 3) groups with a delay of 5 or so minutes between the groups. Nordic Walkers start after the last runners group. The route goes uphill the Avenue de Chateau – the slope is not steep but the avenue is long. The slope is followed by long sections of slippery mud and new up-hills and down-hills. After one of the route curves a particularly long up-hill section shows up. Not much steeper than the Avenue de Chateau it still turns out a real ordeal. As we learn soon enough this is not the only one of the kind.
In a couple of hours we succeed through the muddy hills down to the Seine where the route gets smoother.
Ilze finishes the race as the first in women competition (with excellent time 3:57.58, average speed 8.10 km per hour in 32km of muddy hills!!). My resulting time is 4:06.17 which gives 18th position.