City Run Jyväskylä: 21,1km – 1:15:27h (1st place)

May 10, 2009

On Saturday May 9 I ran the “city run” (katujuokso) in my Finnish home city Jyväskylä. Conditions were somewhat SISU-like (that is: typically Finnish). After most of the week was really nice and sunny the weather got bad just in time for the start of the race: temperatures were around 10°C plus rain and gusty winds didn’t make it too nice to run but that’s your choice as a runner.

The race was not too exciting because after 3-4 km I was on my own already and could use the race as a better training run. I have to think quite some time back, to remember my last race where I had a lead of over 6 minutes at the finish – maybe my winning margin was never that big. Positive for me was, that I had the lead car right in front of me and the guys in 2nd and 3rd place complained about the missing signposting on the course, so they sometimes went the wrong way as they found out afterwards. If they ran longer or shorter than 21,1 km could not be found out but at least there should be better and more signs next time. I guess I also wouldn’t have taken the right way if I would have been alone.

Anyway, it was an easy race for me and only on the last 4-5km my muscles got a bit cold and the stride was not super-easy anymore.