Benoît Cori won Les Templiers for the second-straight year. In the following interview, Benoît talks about how he felt during the race, if he was confident in his abilities to win for the second time, how he fits training in around regular life, and how he plans to celebrate his win.
Thanks to Marie Dohin of Trails Endurance for translating. Apologies for the background noise and interruptions… sometimes external situations demand best-we-can-do compromises!
[Click here if you can’t see the video above.]
Benoît Cori, 2015 Les Templiers Champ, Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Bryon Powell of iRunFar here with Benoît Cori after his win at the 2015 Les Templiers. Congratulations!
Benoît Cori: Thank you.
iRunFar: You’re welcome. You didn’t surprise anyone this year. You looked great all day.
Cori: Yes. It was the perfect day, the perfect race. Everything followed so fast and full to plan. I was very good during the whole race. You dream that you can have so good race, and the dream came true this morning. It’s unbelievable. I’m very happy.
iRunFar: The race went out very quickly. Were you setting the pace or was everybody just sprinting?
Cori: No, no, no, no, there was a group of 20 or 30 people until 20k of race. Then after three hours of racing I said, Okay, let’s speed up a little bit because otherwise I’m going to keep these guys. That’s where I took off and kept increasing my advantage, and it was good.
iRunFar: It was different than last year because last year you took the lead only at the very end. What was it like running in first place?
Cori: Yes, I followed my plan. I followed my dream. I said, Okay, at three hours, if I’m good I take the lead, and I keep being the boss of this race and see with the guys who’s the boss. I planned that. I had legs for that. I’m very happy for having been able to follow this plan and this dream.
iRunFar: It didn’t look like you were struggling. It looked like you were confident and strong and having fun in the lead, yes?
Cori: Yes, I knew I was in good shape today. As I told you yesterday, I was better than last year. In the hard parts last year I was walking. I was running today. So I was feeling good. I was feeling confident. At some parts of the race some people told me I had five minutes in advance, so I said, Okay, let’s go. I am good. I can do it.
iRunFar: Tell me a little bit about your training. When you were training for this race, what did your best week look like?
Cori: Yes, if two weeks before such a race I’m able to run 25 to 30 hours of practicing, cycling, mountain running, long-distance races, I am good.
iRunFar: How do you find so much time to train?
Cori: What I do is, I’m not a professional, so I have to practice early in the morning, late in the day, and I have to take some vacations to be able to practice and to be able to follow these plans.
iRunFar: You are adopted Basque. I think you like to drink. How will you celebrate tonight?
Cori: I’m already celebrating. I’ve already been drinking two or three liters of beer. The big problem is tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. I have to be at work. Yes, I can keep drinking a little bit, but then I have to take the road. I have six hours of driving, but next weekend I’m going to celebrate a lot.
iRunFar: Let’s go have a beer and congratulations!
Cori: Thank you. Thank you very much.
