Liverpool Half

I was prepared to write a story how amazing it was to run and how I had a brilliant run. I had every reason to believe it would go that way because my winter training has been good and my target pace on long steady runs has felt easy. I was prepared to run 6:30 miles and felt confident with my goal. But quoting Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own this isn't an American story, this is an Irish one. It suits very well with the date too because St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was celebrated on March 17th, just a day before the run. Melancholic story sits fine into Finnish culture as well, so let's get started.

Everything went very well until the preceding day. We arrived to Liverpool in good time on Saturday just to hear that the football match we were supposed to go was postponed to next week. It wasn't such bad news considering the coming race although my travel mates might disagree with me. So far so good, I thought. So instead of football we just walked around the city like regular tourists. We had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant and took a look on some UNESCO World heritage sites, the cosy Dock area and the Beatles museum. The only problem was that this sightseeing tour took hours and nearly 10K. So when back in hotel again we were too tired to go out for dinner. All I had with me were a few apples and a packet of raisins, so I ate those for dinner. Wasn't such a good idea I got to learn afterwards.

On Sunday morning I got up early to do some jogging but the hotel door was still closed. I tried to get breakfast but it wasn't open either. Finally 1.5h before the start we got something to eat and jogged then to the start area. I had an urgent need to get to toilet but there was no way to get there before the start. I could feel the raisins coming out but all I could do was to go to the start and hope for the best.

The beginning of the race was awful. It was so packed that I had no chance of getting anywhere. I was walking when I crossed the start line and jogged the first kilometre nearly a minute slower than I had thought. After the first mile I passed some running teddy bears and then the voluminous ladies with their trendy water bottles running in a perfume cloud. There were some thousands runners to pass and I jumped to the car lane in order to do this. Hopping in and out between the posts and moving sideways as much as forward cost me both time and energy. I felt frustrated and exhausted when it finally started to loosen and I reached people running the same pace with me.

Maybe a mile or so I could enjoy running before my stomach started to cause problems. This unpleasant feeling grew and grew and after a few kilometres my bowel was the only thing I could think about. I started to look around for some bushes but an idea of going there during the run felt like quitting. If I had to do that it would definitively mean quitting. I felt horrible but I was so determined that somehow I could keep on running for some more miles. After 9 miles it wasn't a matter of choice, I just couldn't bare it anymore and had to jump to a nearest bush. I saw nearly a hundred runners passing me and felt frustrated. All the trouble for nothing.

As I slowly started to jog again I felt much better and after a while I gradually reached my target pace again. At 15K I was about two minutes behind my schedule. No chance I could catch that time but I decided to try to keep that pace on the remaining 6K. It went well and I finished the same two minutes behind my target time. After quitting the race once I was happy with that. Time as such was a disappointment but taking into account the stop I had to make and the slow start it wasn't that bad. Time I used for running was about a minute better than in Birmingham (my first half marathon), so a small improvement anyway. Based on the chip times I was 4th in the women's class but I was never really running for the prizes because I started 2-3 minutes behind the first runners. If I ever again try to run a certain time or for a top3 position I will have to start from the start line or just behind it. That's the only way to make it. Results

Inter Counties

Inter Counties cross country championships were held in Cofton Park, a large open country park on outskirts of Birmingham. I had done my preparations: a week of climbing on rocks and crawling through brambles in Portugal followed by a week with various small injuries when trying to get back into running. Anyway on Saturday afternoon I stood on the start line quite nervous with 248 other excited runners in their county vests. 

To be honest I did ran my prep run for this race just two weeks ago at the English Nationals at Parliament Hill in London. It was right after coming home from Portugal and I was still pretty exhausted. The race was painful but quite amazing experience. It was massive and I got to learn that the fastest runners in England are miles faster than me and I should definitively not stick with them. Nationals were however open to everyone, which meant that there were also over 500 runners slower than me, whereas the Inter Counties were only for the selected runners from each county. That meant that I would for sure be minutes behind the winner but also that I could consider myself lucky if I'd beat anyone. I don't think I've ever been last at any race but now it seemed more than a likely option. When realizing that I was a bit horrified for a moment and wanted to cancel the whole thing. Why an earth did I want to put myself into this? 

But after playing with a thought for a while I started to see it more and more as an opportunity. This is what I always seek in orienteering. Bigger goals and bigger challenges. Well, here's one, why don't you take it? It is definitively not going to be nice but it is going to be good for you and make you tougher. So when I stood there at the start line I knew it was going to be one of my toughest trainings but in some weird way I also looked forward to it. Yet the feeling was far from what I am used to have prior orienteering races. I knew everything there was to know about the course but still I felt insecure, whereas in orienteering races I usually manage to build some kind of confidence before the start despite the fact that course is always a surprise. 

The race itself was not that awful that I had imagined (something good about pre-race nightmares) and I was not the last. I started quite offensively to avoid worst jams and the first kilometres went very well. But fighting to get my place in the group probably cost a bit because after that I lost half a minute on an uphill part and I dropped several places. I tried to find the rhythm back and ran better the fourth kilometre but had huge problems again when reaching the main climbs. As I wasn't able to keep my running efficient on ascents I tried to run as relaxed as possible. By doing so I was able to finish my race but it cost me another half a minute. The last kilometres I was able to run more progressively, gaining some time and places. Direct feedback in the finish was however that I should have pushed harder on the second lap because I obviously had energy left on the last kilometre and in the run-in. Might be true but I still think I got more out of me than on the nationals and the margin to Gemma was less than then. 

It was certainly more painful than any of my orienteering races but on the other hand it was a lot easier to steer and control. I could easily push 100% without worrying whether my brain will work fast enough and whether I will find controls straight if I exceed my threshold. On the other hand that's part of the game in orienteering, to have it under control despite the lactate. I hope I've pushed my limits forward by running cross country races this winter and that I will be able to run somewhat faster after getting more used to pain.