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.
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