Thursday was race day. Blodomloppet. I entered the 5 km race with a goal to run it in less than 25. Since I ran my first race 6 years ago, I haven't trained for a 5 km. I have always had my focus on increasing miles and never on getting faster. Until this year. I took a break from running when we moved to Sweden, mainly because of lack of time. So, when I started running again in March, I had this idea, that maybe I should train to run faster instead of farther. My previous best 5 km time was 26:46:56. I set my goal at 25 minutes. Running a 4.3 km run during lunch breaks my time improved from over 24 minutes to 22:20 to 21:59:58. But then it was very hard to get under 22 minutes again. I missed it by 7 seconds, 15 seconds, 45 seconds... Then finally, I ran the route in opposite direction (less head wind) and finished in 21:26. 8 days before race day I ran 5 km in 24:59:58, so I knew I could do it. However, the race route was supposedly hilly. During the actual race, I stayed focused and on pace. First mile was mostly uphill, but not too much of a climb. The second mile began uphill, then changed into a descent. After 2 miles I was on pace to finish just under 25 minutes and I was feeling good. I just kept going, putting one foot infront of the other. It wasn't until after 4km that I checked the total time and it was 21 minutes. I had fallen behind. I had almost 1 km left and had to do it in less than 4 minutes. I still had lots of strength, so I sped up, determined to make my goal. My watch stopped at 24:31. Official result was 24:33, finishing 108th out of 3108 women. I beat 3000 women, and finished strong in under 25 minutes!!!
I felt good, but finishing a half marathon sure feels like more of an accomplishment. Next race is Tjejmilen (10 km women's race) in Stockholm in September and then I plan to run Göteborgsvarvet (half-marathon in Gothenburg) next May together with my Swedish interns and some of our Arkansas colleagues.
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