Lidingöloppet

Oww!

What was it Neil always said?… “Pain is just weakness leaving the body”.

I must be getting rid of a lot of weakness today… It’s Sunday morning and of course, it’s a bright, beautiful morning, unlike yesterday which was really pretty horrible. Me, Neil and Maria got to the start line about an hour before we were meant to start running and it was raining quite a lot so we all gathered underneath Maria’s umbrella. Of course, the second Neil and I took off our jackets and went to the start line, a thunder-plump of rain came by and we started the race as wet as if someone had poured a bucket of water over our heads.

The race course itself wasn’t too bad, a bit muddy, but not too slippy. It was a packed for the first five Km and bizzarly a few people seemed to want to try and keep their feet clean so they would suddenly jump out of the way of a puddle and into your path. I managed to run the first 10Km without any problems and got a big wave and a cheers from Maria and Barbara, who had braved the elements to support us. Right up to the half way stage of 15Km I felt OK and ran the whole distance.

Every 5Km or so, they had little water stations that grew to become more and more advanced and by the 20Km mark, you could get coffee, blueberry soup, banana sandwiches and a massage. I could have just stayed at one of these quite happily.

The last 10Km was not much fun and it took me a long time to run. By that stage, the strength had went out of my legs and I had to walk up the hills. I ended up managing to cross the finish line in 3h19mins45secs by which time I felt like collapsing. I suppose it’s not too bad for the amount of training I done, but I know that with better preperation I could have taken another 20 mins or so off that. I ended up 6032nd out of 8434 in the mens race. (if I had overtaken 33 people, it would have looked much better).

Neil done a better job… He finished in 2h47mins35secs which made him 2782nd. The winner done it in an outrageous 1h40mins44secs…

Heres my and Neil’s time breakdowns for the different stages…

Neil
Distance                 Time
5,5 km                    0.30.43
10 km                     0.53.13
15 km                     1.18.43
20,2 km                 1.49.55
25 km                     2.19.17
30 Km                     2.47.35

Gary
Distance                     Time
5,5 km                        0.32.18
10 km                         0.57.20
15 km                         1.26.36
20,2 km                     2.06.23
25 km                         2.41.26
30 km                         3.19.45

It’s a nice feeling to look back and know that yesterday, I pushed myself to a new limit and that I completed something that was further than I have ever tried before, so I’m happy. Even though I might not seem so in these before and after pictures…