The sun was shining and there definitely was above +10 degrees Celsius in the sun this time. This 10k run didn’t go too badly. Came in third out of about 80 runners. Ok, the time was one of the worst I ran in a long time (36:23min) but the route wasn’t an easy one, constant up and down and turning left and right, plus of course a turn around after 5k. So I guess there’s both parts to the story. The field wasn’t overly competitive, but with around 1000km in the legs from the last 12 weeks and the challenging route, I’m quite ok with the result. It was a bit of a funny run.
Right from the start there was a group of 4 guys who took the lead. With the wind coming from the front I felt it was best to hide behind Toumas Suni’s back. He’s tall, so works really well as a windshield. I guess, he also deserved to win in the end because of this extra work. It was gravel roads, up a bridge, left and right turns, so finding a rythm was difficult, but it felt ok at that point. The first km in 3:30min confirmed a good but not suicidal pace. And so we rolled in this group of four along for the first 5k’s. Lauri Friari, the later winner of the half marathon that started 20 minutes earlier and took the same route, was meeting us somewhere at 3km and giving the thumbs up. He was pretty much running a race by himself. In the end he had a 3 and half minute lead on the second placed.
After 5k the turn around, we reached it in 17:29min, so the same pace all way through, that was really encouraging. I realized quickly that the way back won’t be that fast. Still tried to hang on Tuomas for a while, he was clearly setting the pace, but my stride got shorter and had to let go. Jussi Makkonen, also a marathoner whom I tried to convince that the Berlin Marathon is the plcae to be in the fall, instead of the Finnish Marathon championships, he overtook me somewhere between 6 and 7km. 10 years younger and 10 kilos lighter, no wonder he can fly by. He encouraged me to hang on, and I did … for 200m…
I guess, at that point I could have focused on my running style and the stride, that perhaps would have helped to keep up at a better pace. But the lazy animal seeks the position with least pain. The last kilometers were a bit slow in 3:44min/km. Lauri Friari passed by a second time on his lap number two (the half marathon was running the 10k route twice and a bit more), he was still smiling and giving the victory sign this time. I guess he knew, he would win and he cheered us up, since we weren’t too bad either.
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