Yesterday I ran the Winterrun 10k here in Oslo. It consists of two 5k laps in the dark in the city centre, running along the harbour and then through the old Akershus fortress. The route was lit with outdoor garden candles (the low kind in metal containers) and there were fakirs along the route. Runners are encouraged to decorate themselves with lights, so I wore a battery-operated string of Ikea lights with snowflakes on them, and an LED light on one shoe - studded shoes were a must.
The run went fairly well, although I felt a bit more tired early on than expected, and had to give myself a firm talking to. There were about 1400 of us running my distance, so the first 500m were fairly crowded. The track along the harbour was clear of ice, but it was fairly icy in the fortress. Not a problem for me! However cobblestones are no fun when wearing studded shoes. This and uneven paths made things a bit too exciting, so I wasn't able to keep up a decent pace here.
I managed to put in a few sprints in the second half, and did a really good sprint to the finish line. No way was I going to let the two people who suddenly snuck up on me with about 50m to go beat me!
All in all, a very slight improvement on last year's result, but surprisingly my second-best race pace overall, so that's nice. And while my hubby who only ran 5km, having thrown his back out a couple of weeks ago, is sore today, I'm feeling fine!
Long run HM training run number 18
HU Virtual 10k
