Hi there,
one more race accomplished – today it was once again the time for the race that nowadays seems to be the most important to me due to the vicinity and the fact I can run in the familiar outskirts, the Vahrer Seen Lauf. I want once again also express my gratitude from the bottom of my heart to the organisation team and all the volunteers that make this event worth experiencing. Once it would be nice to run a full marathon in this setting, but that won’t probably happen without the own personal effort.
Even though the spring has been pretty hard due to the several reasons both on the business life and also at the personal level, I was dreaming of improving my 10k personal best. Today, obviously, was not the day for it, like I could see after the first two kilometres. Today’s weather was far from optimal for running. The temperature that exceeded 31°C in the afternoon was not that bad in the morning, but this year I haven’t had many opportunities for running in a hot weather, and I generally really suffer from the heat. That was the background for the race of today, but dreaming is still allowed…
I fetched my bib number along with the technical running shirt early today. By the way, the event is one of the most affordable ones considering the offering (a free running shirt, normal service during the run and also after the finish), and all of this provided by local bunch of volunteers. 12 Eur for a 10k race is really affordable and I only can recommend this event. I had a quick breakfast and tried not to eat too much.
The (verbal) start was triggered at 10:30 and off we went (hundreds of hobby runners of various levels). My aim was to run the first kilometres at a pace of 04:10 – 04:20 which, however, quickly turned out to be too much for me today. I cannot say the ultimate reason, but my assumption is the high temperature which I am not used to this year yet. The struggle led to higher heart rate than I normally have at the target pace, and I had to give in and slow down a bit. My pace throughout the race was about 04:40 which is acceptable, but far from great. I still dream of going under 40 minutes some day at a 10k race, but let’s see whether the day will come…
Each race ends at some point, and after not so great 46 minutes I reached the finish line. This race didn’t provide much satisfaction for the future, but at least I participated and know there has to be some changes in the training. After a race will be a next race; this will for me take place in Bremen in about a month. Bremer Brückenlauf will be organised for the third time and at least a year ago the event was so enjoyable in the wonderful outskirts of the river Weser that I definitely will be there again.
Now, the next training will be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow so no rest for a runner.