I haven't been posting my weekly training updates, but I have been fairly religiously following the Jack Daniels' 5-10km plan for the last 9 weeks, whilst slowly increasing the amount I run by 5km every week too. Last week I ran 96km and I will run 100km this week. I have also run every day for the last 40 days or so, obviously a big record for me as I doubt I had run 10 days in a row until this streak!
So to the race. It started at 2:30pm but had to set off at midday to get the tram, train, then bus to the start!. I was happy to see a few TCEC guys were also doing the race, 3 others doing the 15km and the younger lads all doing the 5km. It was pretty cold at about 3 degrees, so I wore long sleeves and long tights, but after a few seconds of the race I noticed that everyone ahead of me was wearing shorts, maybe I need to wear shorts too!
I started and straight away there were 5 guys ahead of me, one more passed me after a few hundred metres. I didn't overtake anyone all day! I looked at my pace and saw that I was running 3:35/km, too fast but not crazy for the first km. I settled in and soon realised it would be a lonely run, the guys in front of me had all paced well, and those behind me were well behind me. I felt a bit tired after 6km, and with 9km still to go I was a little worried, but soon enough I reached the airport which I knew was the furthest point of the course and made the turn. I realised that we had been ever so slightly climbing for a while, so now I could enjoy the slight downhill, though my pace didn't really show that!
At the 10km marker I made a lap on my GPS, it showed 37:30, 10 seconds outside my 10km PB. It also meant that I could technically run 19:30 for the last 5km and still beat my main goal time of 57mins. I still felt strong but after 12km it started to hurt. My heart rate monitor slipped down, so the readings went crazy, I pushed to hold my pace and felt confident of keeping below 57mins, but 56 seemed a real push as I would have to have a great last few km. I could hear clapping behind me after I ran past some onlookers, I was worried that that meant that someone was coming up behind me, but I soon saw that it was a race official cyclist, and they were ironically clapping him – phew!.
The last km was ok, I didn't have a sprint left in my legs, but I wasn't dying either. I crossed the line in 56:28, well inside my goal time, but short of my dream time of 56mins. A quick look at the Vdot charts shows that it was my best run ever, and equates to a sub 37min 10k and a 1:21low HM, both much better than my PBs.
I think that if I had tapered into the race I could have run a bit faster, but this isn't my goal race, so I am happy that I didn't. It was also run mainly on trails, not on asphalt. I think that makes it a little slower, but it is still a good and fast course, they are nice wide trails, hardly technical! I will definitely be back to do the 10km in Rüsselsheim early in January to try to beat my 10km PB again.
I was 7th place overall, 2nd in my age group so I got some lemonade and a certificate for my troubles! The other TCEC guys all seemed to have a good race too, Torsten wasn't ecstatic, but I think everyone enjoyed the run.
Next up – Ebersheim Adventslauf on December 13th