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.
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