Strömstadmilen 2009 (SWE): 10km – 33:55 (20th place)

July 6, 2009

On my way back to Finland I made a small detour to compete in a 10km race in Strömstad/SWE, close to the Norwegian border. It was the first time for me being in Norway, since my flights were arriving and departing in the Norwegian capital Oslo. After the St. Eriksloppet 2005 in Stockholm it was my second race on Swedish ground. And what a weekend it was!

I stayed in the race hotel, a nice Spa and Resort Hotel together with a bunch of other athletes (Kenyans, Spaniards etc.). The race itself went rather bad. The course was pretty hilly and temperatures were way too high for me. With 30°C and even more on the streets in the sun I always have my problems and hardly find my rhythm. This time it was the same: Already after the first flat 1,5km I lost contact to the big leading group (including approx. 15 Kenyans and some Non-Africans). All the Kenyans that dropped from the group discontinued the race just before I could overtake them – nice. I thought there should be more guys that have to pay the toll to the high temperatures but it was not the case and at the end I ended up far outside of the TOP10. In the second of the two rounds I had problems myself to keep the pace, even though I went out with the handbrake on. I’m just not made for running in the heat it seems. I felt dizzy and it was impossible to change the pace. After all this pace was not even marathon pace yet! So still a lot of work to do. Anyway it was a great experience to run against some international opponents after a long time. I guess in the last weeks I competed to much in my home region in Germany and won too many races there

There are a lot of more stories to tell about this weekend and I’m sure they will come up some time later, so just follow my blog