23rd – Tromsø, post-run

I woke up and had another shower before going down to get breakfast before checking out and went on a small – slow – walk around town. I realized there was nothing much to do so I returned to the hotel where the medal and price ceremony would be held from 1300 to 1430. After 20 minutes people had held speeches and the 1., 2. and 3. place winners (both men and women) for the marathon, half marathon and 10km had been given their prices. I was starting to wonder how they could have been so wrong in estimating how long it would take, before they announced they would now give out prices for 1., 2. and 3. place winners for each class for the three runs. With up to 20 classes for each run (18-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75+ for men and women!), with four extra for the 10km (12-14, 15-17) it took some time. I was pretty blasted towards the end, and with the 10km run being the last getting the prices the room was more than half empty when they were done. They did try to be efficient; quickly get the 3 (or however many were present in the room) up onto the podium, give the prices, take a photo, make them leave and call the next 3. No unnecessary talking in between. I’m very happy for that – it could easily have taken most of the day if they hadn’t been so disciplined. The biggest surprise was the M75+ in the 10km group; the three fastest all did it in less than an hour which resulted in quite an applause when they came onto the stage. Or maybe the applause was to show approval of the fact that the price ceremony was finally over. Who knows.

Looking at the results list it seems as if the 10km is much more a local run compared to the marathons. Quickly skimming the results it looks like at least 80% – if not more – were Norwegians, and among the winners they absolutely dominated.

The timing was about right to grab the bus to the airport after the ceremony so I stepped out of the hotel, stepped into the bus, camped in the café lounge at the airport before departing with a layover in Oslo, looking forward to getting this trip behind me.

The view when arriving home in Copenhagen.

Full album can be found here.

22nd – 23rd – Midnight non-Sun Marathon

Being called the Midnight Sun Marathon the marathon wouldn’t be started until 2030, and the half marathon would be started 2 hours later, at 2230. The marathon’s first half would be crossing the bridge towards the Arctic Cathedral and then run south along the water before returning the same way, passing the bridge and circling around before returning across the bridge, circling around the starting area and starting on the second half of the run. The second half would go south along the coast of the island, reaching the south point and continuing north on the opposite side, reaching up along the airport, circling around and returning from where we came and finishing in the starting – now finishing – area. 

The view from the hotel room shortly before the start. Not the most promising.

At the starting line the weather was less than promising. It wasn’t raining, but it was heavily overcast. This resulted in the comment during the welcome speech “We invited you all for the midnight sun marathon, but it seems you’ll be running the midnight cloud marathon instead”. But without much further ado we were off, and we were soon across the bridge and on our way.

At around 10-15km. Still feeling optimistic.

Photo taken by the organizers.

Despite the height of the bridge it wasn’t too bad crossing it – I am assuming that part of that was due to its length making the incline less horrific than it could have been. The weather kept dry in the beginning and with the temperature around 10-12°C it could have been far worse. Returning across the bridge we started the second half of the run, at a time that I was happy with. I wasn’t going to break my PR on the distance but it didn’t look to bad, either. A couple of kilometres after the halfway point we started getting passed by the many – many – half marathon runners who had just been started and now were fresh and energetic, ready for their shorter run. It was tough puffing away and then suddenly being passed by hordes of very non-tired people. It also started raining, so that didn’t help. It wasn’t a very heavy rain, but rather a light rain but it was constant so it didn’t take long before we were soaked. And with 15km to go it got a lot worse; slowing down to get something to drink and a snack at a water station I realized I couldn’t get myself back running again. No matter how much I tried forcing myself, I had to face the realization that I had to walk. And walk I did – with the exception of a couple of km I actually managed to run slowly, I ended up walking the rest of the way. Soaked, getting constantly passed by the faster half marathoners (and marathoners, for that matter), frustrated with not being able to run and towards the end absolutely shivering from the cold I was not in a good place.

Crossing the finishline I was not in a good place.

Photo taken by the organizers.

This meant that I finished in an unimpressive time of 4:48:24, 59/72 in my class (male 35-39 – the slowest Dane in the class by 50 minutes, 13/14 of all Danes), 561/855 of men, 576/1022 in total. Fastest runner did it in 2:20:32, fastest woman did it in 2:50:50. 244 never showed up for the start, 36 didn’t finish and 1 was disqualified. The last finisher was at 7:10:44. 6 runners spent more than 6 hours.

If I hadn’t been freezing as much as I was when crossing the finish line, I would have been seething from the disappointment from my performance, but I got some hot to drink (the woman passing me the cup took a step back with an “oh my GOD!” when she saw how I lost half of the contents of the cup from shaking), grabbed my stuff from the bag storage and returned to my hotel, which fortunately was close by. I got rid of my clothes and took a much needed very hot shower which made me feel almost warm again, sat down on the bed and took a few seconds trying to get at least some of all my frustration, anger, disappointment and f#%)&(“ out of the system. Feeling slightly better – but not too much – I went to sleep, relieved that breakfast would be served until 1100 on the Sunday.

20th – 22nd of June – Tromsø, pre-run

Going to Tromsø from Copenhagen you have to have a layover in Oslo. Oslo not being the world’s largest airport it’s fairly easy finding your way around. And it does get easier when your departure gate is just across from the lounge. The food on the flight was a bit disappointing on both legs, but they had some absolutely amazing caramel & sea salt muffins. I might have had one on each leg of the flight.

The view when flying into Tromsø.

On the entire flight going north it was heavily overcast so there was nothing really to see. Nearing Tromsø the clouds started loosening up and arriving in Tromsø half an hour to midnight with the (almost) midnight sun gave some beautiful views of the landscape. Tromsø’s airport is a small one so within 10 minutes after leaving the plane I was sitting in the bus waiting for it to depart to downtown Tromsø and my hotel. The bus stopped right outside my hotel, so with no problems I checked in, got to my room, leaned back relaxing and enjoyed the view.

The view from the hotel room.

On the Friday (the 21^st) I went down to the town hall (after enjoying an excellent breakfast at the hotel and its extensive breakfast buffet) to pick up my race number. After hanging out for 10-ish minutes I re-checked the schedule and realized that they didn’t open until 1400 despite remembering it at 1200. So instead I went for a walk taking me to the south point of Tromsøya (the small island where most of Tromsø is located; Tromsø + øya – øya being the Norwegian word for island. The imagination went wild on the day they named the island). Here I found myself in front of the Tromsø Museum where there also was a map with tracks and paths on the island, perfect for walking. So I ended up walking the length of the island. App 12km, with an unintentional detour around the lake Prestvannet and a quick walk up onto Varden, the tallest point on Tromsøya of 158m. From here you could get a view of Tromsø and the opposite side of Tromsøya, and also see the connecting east and west bridges, and the Arctic Cathedral on the mainland opposite Tromsø center.

Looking over Prestvannet with mountains in the background.

The view of Tromsø from the summit of Varden.

Coming back to Tromsø I picked up my race number before returning to my hotel room. An hour relaxation later I descended to the hotel’s restaurant where the race’s pasta party was held. And the hotel definitely knew how to make pasta dishes, so that was a great success.

Friday’s weather had been ok; clouds and an occasional drizzle, but reaching Saturday it had turned overcast and it was pouring down. I did spend a few hours walking around, mainly crossing the bridge to see the Arctic Cathedral which turned out to be closed due to a wedding, but other than that I ended up just hanging out in my room waiting for the race to start. The weather was not promising, though towards the afternoon it actually managed to stop raining, though the clouds were ever-present.

The view from the cathedral.

Northern Norway

So, since having completed the Copenhagen and Tórshavn marathons, with only two weeks in between and being my first marathons, I have two more planned, the one in Berlin and New York later this year. I have been looking for another marathon some time around July so keep me going, but it seems as if there isn't much to chose among (and even if you are willing to fly and travel far there aren't many choices, and my finances are not up for that right now). August they start popping up again, but it seemed like I would have to wait until then. The only relatively easily accessible run in July is in Zermatt, Switzerland, and while that would be a nice run, it starts at 1100m and ends in 2500m. So just a bit too much for me.

And of course as an alternative I could do one in the end of June, but that would be crazy this soon after two other marathons, right?

Right??!

20th - 23rd of June

After work I'll leave for the airport and fly north into Norway to Tromsø (which is at around 69th degree). I found out that they have a marathon this weekend with a special twist: it doesn't start until 20:30, giving it the name Midnight Sun Marathon. Yup - as it's bright all 24 hours of the day they have put a marathon over midnight between Saturday and Sunday just because they can. So another of these runs (people apparently do this voluntarily?) and after a morning on Sunday I grab a flight back home. 

I think it's going to be a very nice run, it's quite beautiful there, and while it isn't quite as flat as in Copenhagen it's still a far cry from what I experienced on the Faroe Islands. We'll be crossing the main bridge in Tromsø twice which is around 50m tall, but otherwise we'll be staying between 2 and 20 meters with little variation along the way. 

3rd of June – Returning home sore

When waking up I got my stuff in order and checked out before going down to a local café where I had breakfast (because, let’s be honest, the breakfast at the hotel was quite unimpressive). Unfortunately the café didn’t sell their famous sandwiches until after my airport pickup arrived, so I settled with a bun, hot chocolate and a cake. And another cake (that rhubarb cheesecake was as delicious as it looked). 

Walking among the buildings of Tinganes in Tórshavn.

Common eider found in the harbour.

Tern.

Leaving I returned to the hotel, waited a few minutes before getting picked up and drove the short way to the airport. A quick process of handing off my bag and getting through security, and I found myself in a small waiting area with a café on one side and tax free on the other, and a seating area that had been filled up. When arriving you could barely see the runway due to mist, but the weather improved slowly. Getting closer to departure I started getting nervous as it didn’t look promising to me, but suddenly the plane popped up during landing and with only half an hour’s delay we pulled away from the gate and were off without any more hiccups.

And that was that: a lot of exercise and the chance to see puffins and gannets up close made this trip pretty damn great. And it helps ignoring the not very optimal weather when I was there – but then again; the Faroe Islands isn’t really known for being a destination with amazing weather being as exposed as it is. But I’d love to be able to return some day to see more of Mykines but also see more parts of the islands.

Full album can be found here.

2nd of June – On the run

The run didn’t start until 1300 (I am assuming that it’s because the morning weather here tends to be questionable) so I decided to sleep in and relax until leaving the hotel to go to the starting area. I had a few short walks around to keep an eye on the weather, but the forecast seemed more and more clear: 6-8°C, 6-10 m/s winds and constant light rain. So quite dull weather with clouds at 200-300 meters wouldn’t give great views one could have hoped for in such a beautiful place. 

In total 600 people had signed up for the event, but that was in total for all the 5,5km, 10km, half-marathon and marathon distances. Only 121 people joined the marathon run so it would be a small nice run. We got sent off on time, and after circling the town once we took the main road out northbound, following the coast around into an inlet before continuing back out on the other side reaching Kaldbak where the turnaround point was, and then the same way back to Torshavn again, though just the direct way and no circling around.

I was a bit worried about how things would go as I had just run my first marathon ever two weeks previously, so I expected my legs to still be slightly wobbly. Luckily I felt none of that, and I could instead spend my energy overcoming the resistance of running into the wind and rain for most of the run. There was 538m of total altitude gain along the way, so that went straight to my legs, too. And to add to the challenge the highest hills to conquer were on the last 7km coming back into Torshavn – against the wind. But to my surprise I ended up completing in 4:12:54, a fair bit faster than expected, so I was very happy when I crossed the finish line.

This meant that I was 17/32 in my class (men 18-39), 56/89 among men and 70/121 overall. The winner came in at 2:36:30 (a small improvement from last year and a new track record), the second came in 20 minutes later. First woman across the finish line was at 3:18:8. And the last runner came in at 5:36:03, a big improvement from last year's 6:59:07.

And we are off! And it is as wet as it looks.

Photo taken by faroephoto.com.

A gentle wet hill on the way out of Tórshavn. Coming back it felt less gentle.

Photo taken by faroephoto.com.

Feeling better than expected when crossing the line!

Photo taken by Jens Kristian Vang.

On completion you got served fish soup with chunks of delicious salmon and plenty of home-made cake to grab. It was a great end to a fun run. Hobbling back to the hotel which luckily was only a few hundred meters away, had a nice long warm shower before getting dressed and went out to have a quick and easy dinner. Staying on second floor I definitely used the elevator up and down.

1st of June – Rest day

Today was a do-nothing-day. So I slept in, relaxed and went to the runner’s expo at noon to pick up my number and t-shirt. The intensity there was a fair bit different than the one for Copenhagen marathon a few weeks ago: here in total on all distances there are around 600 signed up, whereas in Copenhagen around 13.000 had signed up for the race. Being more laid back it only took me a few minutes to be done and after having returned to the hotel with my newly acquired stuff I grabbed my camera and went for a walk in town.

After already having had a walk around there wasn’t much new to see – let’s be honest: if you have spent a few hours walking around here you have pretty much seen it all. I did find a small park, though, that quite effectively blocked out the (limited) noise from the streets going by. It was quite serene with a small pond filled with ducks.

For dinner I went to a very nice Italian restaurant for which I had read reviews that had stated that the pasta portion sizes were huge. This I thought would be perfect for my upcoming run, but I realized that they were pretty normal sizes. That was a slight disappointment, but it was still very tasty.