Tuesday 29 April 2014

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Tuesday, April 29, 2014
I was lucky to be offered a free entry to the local "Vikingesporet", and who can say no to a local half marathon on your "home trails"??

The route was following the fjord out to the forest and then the paths in the forest as well as the MTB single track in the forest, so I looked forward to a race on trails well known to me.
In the week leading up to this race I was starting to feel tired and my legs were heavy, most likely due to the "fyr til fyr" race as well as my minor injury a few weeks back. So I was starting to doubt if I would be able to complete Hammer Trail the week after and therefore I decided to try and gun it at this race.

I kept a great pace after the start as I wanted to avoid problems with overtaking people once we left the harbour area. It proofed to be a good tactic as everything was pretty quiet around me but after the race I heard people doing minor complaints about how difficult it was to overtake people in the beginning. Most likely these people are not used to running single track and therefore it came as a surprise to them that they could not simply run their own pace without thinking a bit ahead.
In general it was clear to see this was more a city trail than the other races I had completed, meaning the usual "camaraderie" on the trial was missing and people seemed a lot more self focused than usual. However it was still a great race.

I kept my pace and heart rate high throughout the race, my average heart rate was 174 which is the highest I have tried to complete a half marathon in. The time was "only" 1h 52m however given the layout of the course it is actually a really great time. I was able to try out a new breathing method that I my brother had mentioned: instead of trying to take deep breaths or get enough air, try to suck the breath down in your stomach. It really worked wonders for me and I felt as if I had a lot more kick in me, even though my heart rate was really high.

The tricky thing now is that my legs actually felt great so I may just have ruined my chances of a good race next week... Time will tell.

About the author

I am a 29 year old guy, who just loves running. I also love planning, order and goals. Which is why I am combining all of that into, The First Project..

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