39. Rantarinki in Alavus: 11km – 37:13min (1st place)

May 21, 2009

Today was public holiday in Finland (“Helatorstai”, or Ascension Day in English) so a good opportunity to compete in a small race. The journey took me to the town of Alavus in South Ostrobothnia, Central Finland. It’s really nice that I can explore the country by means of the sport of running. The race office of the competition today was in a small school in the middle of the Finnish countryside and the prize ceremony took place in the biggest classroom. Really small and cosy, I guess the building has a long history.

Yeah, about the race: Unfortunately I had to run the whole 11km on my own again and I was only challenged by the clock. 100m after the start I was on my own and in the finish the next competitor came in more than 2 minutes behind me. Still I’m not too satisfied because the legs were feeling like rubber gum and even though I tried to change stride length and frequency: The feeling was still heavy and the muscled were tight. The pace of 3:20-3:25min/km is what I was planning to run but the course was not difficult and completely on asphalt, so it could have been a bit faster. After all it was not more than a medium-well training.

The weather was close to perfect, with temperatures around 15 degrees and some rain that felt like a warm summer rain already. Sometimes the air was a bit moist but altogether the conditions were enjoyable.

Now a good recovery and the next small competition on Saturday (most probably).