To try and get a decent starting position I did my bag drop about 2 hours before the start, thankfully they had plastic poncho's available so I put one on over my long sleeved top which I would discard - so far so good. Had no problem making my way up to the front but the next thing was trying to figure how the hell I was going to warm up. There was still over an hour to go but I decided an early warmup would be better than none at all. Made my way into a courtyard at the houses of parliament where some others were also doing some extremely small laps so I joined in. Conscious of not getting back to where I was I only did about 10 minutes and sure enough it was quite crowded when I got back but still managed to make my way towards the front.
Ended up standing around for almost an hour, but everyone was in the same boat, well except for the elites. Heard, but didn't quite see the elite women starting and didn't find out until after that the sole Irish woman didn't manage to make to the first bend due to a pulled hamstring. My own felt ok thankfully.
Finally we were ready to go and off we went to huge cheers from the crowd. After things settled down a quick glance at my watch said I was doing 5.40 pace, perfect I thought as I was optimistically shooting for 75 minutes. After another few hundred meters though it had dropped to 5.45 and my legs felt heavy. My HR was in the 170's and I just thought "it's going to be a long day". It felt really hot and my throat felt dry. Went through the first mile in 5.39 though and my HR was back to low 160's. I think the sensor had just dried out during the long wait for the start. With last Sunday's session in mind I decided to forget about the watch for a while and just run. And then things began to change, I felt more comfortable and my legs loosened out. Just goes to show the importance of warming up. When I eventually glanced down my pace had dropped to 5.30 but I felt really comfortable so didn't panic. My second mile split was 5.21 and my breathing was easy. Mile 3 was even quicker at 5.15 so I backed off a little. Despite the crowds I was really focused so just kept it going, can't quite remember when but I joined another runner and we started picking off little groups at a time. Pace dropped back a little which was fine. Still felt comfortable at this stage.
Went through 10K in 34.45, which was my fastest 10K in a while and shortly after starting taking on fuel. The Ronhill jobbie was excellent, really easy to drink from but I didn't risk trying to put it back in my pocket. We were still motoring with the garmin reading between 5.27 and 5.29. It was nice that it was fluctuating as normally it only goes in one direction!Got to 10miles in a shade under 55 minutes, over 100seconds quicker than my PB! I know no race would be exactly (only) 10 miles but still it was nice. Now the real fun started. I was struggling to stay with my friend but said I'd hold on as long as I could. I knew we were heading to Fredriksberg so I was looking forward to the turnaround point so that the psychological effect of heading for home could kick in. I was really starting to suffer now and had a bad patch coming up to 11 miles. Looking at my splits after my garmin said I had a 6.04 for mile 11 but I didn't think I had slowed that much. I managed to pull it together a bit now though and when we turned a corner onto a large boulevard with Danish flags on either side I got another lease of life and passed some of the runners that had passed me. Assuming they were Danish, I'm surprised the flags had had a bigger effect on me. As we approached the city centre I was struggling again, I think I was considering how far it seemed we still had to go, as we were on familiar territory, on streets where I would normally be travelling at a more sedate pace.
I was on planet pain now and my pace had gone to 5.33. I didn't even attempt the mental arithmetic, I didn't care about time I just wanted to stop. I had thought the Start line was also the finish line even though we had passed the 20k marker what seemed like miles ago. When I rounded a bend and saw a clock, I was never so happy to be wrong! I just gritted my teeth.I had no kick really but could see a 13, a beautiful glorious 13. Passed the line and stopped my watch 1.13.36 (chip time 1.13.35) Yesssss boy!!!!
After catching my breath I jogged slowly back to the baggage area grinning like a Chesire cat, not before thanking my accomplice for much of the race. He hadn't broken 1.13 which surprised me a little. Looking at my 5k splits they are pretty even, I hadn't slowed as much as I had thought. I definitely have some mental work to do though, as I think it is mental - I felt really bad with the same distance to go as Ballycotton, not with the same distance covered. Overall a very good day though and to knock over 2.5 minutes off my PB was pretty satisfying.
It was n't without some price though, although my calf came through unscathed my tendon problem, though fine during was pretty sore after. Would have loved to go for a run yesterday as it was glorious but decided to stand in the icy water of the Kattegat instead. Will take some time to let it recover. It loosened out today a bit but it was still not worth the risk of running on it. Looked in shops yesterday for an aqua jogging belt for an alternative for maintaining my fitness but to no avail.
