Trail Race Report: La Surprise du Père Noël 2025
Context
Alright, I'm super late for this report, since I ran this race on December 21st, 2025!
Also, I didn't take any picture, so you'll have to bear with me with text only this time!
The Race
I wanted to run a shorter race, after the Nice 55k and the Trail des Maures 100k, running something around 30k felt just right.
I found this race: 35k, 850m of elevation, and 1h driving from home - which clearly made my decision a lot easier (I usually have to spend 6 to 10 hours of train or car to go to the start line, as I live in a flat region!)
Goal(s)
This was clearly not a major race for me that year, but still I wanted to challenge myself, so aiming for 4 hours was nice, especially since I hadn't run a "short" distance race for a (very) long time.
Aid Stations strategy
Since I had no pressure, I also wanted to start testing food and gear for longer races, so I brought gels and bars I wanted to test, and also had my Wise Sherpa Max bag with 3 flasks.
Also, I decided not so stop at aid stations: I had enough food and water with me, so that would save me some time - I had done that at Trail des Givrés the year before and it worked well.
How it went
It was fairly cold on race day, with quite some mud, but we didn't have rain at least.
I felt strong during the race, I hadn't brought my poles with so few elevation, the goal was also to use my legs! ;)
Talking about my legs, barely after KM 20 I started feeling them hurting a bit - hey, it had been a
long time since I ran that fast, so that was to be expected!
I nevertheless kept pushing, but when looking at the watch it became clear it
would be challenging to finish in 4 hours.
It was KM 32.5 at my watch, and around 3h50, so clearly it would be tough. But then, a member of the crew told me "keep going, 300 meters left!". And indeed, I passed a turn, and I saw the gymnasium with the finish line! I pushed a bit once again and passed the finish line in 3h 55 minutes and 50 seconds!
Conclusion
A very nice race, closeby - it was great not having to travel for half of day to run it!
What went well
- very regular heart rate frequency, between zones 3 and 4
- food that I tested was great (Maurten gels, Overstims butternut compote)
Things to improve
- Not much, really - the pain in my legs after KM 20 was normal, since I hadn't run fast in a while.
Tags: Running