Back home again after an intense weekend in Stockholm. And a new experience from a VERY nicely arranged half marathon. The S:t Eriks-race was beautyfully routed throughout the watersides of Stockholm. And almost all the track was flat asphalt, just the way I prefer. So there was nothing to complain about and the running went quite fine. Here are my results:
10 km 0.52.49
21 km 1.56.18
Speed 5.30/km
The first 10 km was very easy, after 3 km I achieved the "flow" and I really enjoyed everything: the atmosphere, small chats with other runners, body working perfectly, the track and the audience. But then after some water at 13 km I started to feel some nausea, but I tried to endure and at the 16 km water station I was also a little dizzy. I concluded that I underestimated the water and salt loss so I drank a whole cup of sports drink and walked for ½ km. Then I recovered and the rest of the race was OK, I tried to speed up a little bit the last km so that my final time would not exceed 1.56. Although I had some problems in the last third of this race I improved from Göteborgsvarvet with about 8 minutes. But the best of all - I had no bad knee feelings! I think I have planned my training quite well this summer, in order to strenghten the surrounding muscles of the knee, but I have not really achieved any speed improvement. I am happy that I did this race - just to get the feeling that a well performed half marathon is a nice experience. My frustrations from the Göteborgsvarvet have gone now, and I'm still ambivalent if I will register for the 2008 race. But I have no doubts about going for the S:t Eriks race next year (13 sept 2008) again! It would be nice to do it together with someone from the western part of Sweden.
