Avg Pace Christmas Run Bruges
Avg Pace Christmas Run Bruges

Race Recap: Christmas Run Bruges 2014

Friday was race day – 10k – trying to break my PB.
No use in lingering: I broke my PB of 39:41
Yay me πŸ˜€
That’s the short version, longer version following.

I got home from work at about 17:30 and the race was 20:00 and a 20 min drive away. I immediately ate a sandwich and drank about 500ml of water so I would finish digesting when the race started. After eating and getting dressed I drove off towards the parking spot that was about 2km from the start.
Thinking of a nice warm-up, I ran those 2km with my bag. Not very convenient, but all in all not a bad idea getting my warm-up done this way.

Pre-race
Pre Race, all layered up

Getting more nervous by the minute I started looking for the race director, because I needed a sticker. Last year I finished within top 150 which meant I could start in the first corral this year. After running around, dropping off my bag and some more running around I found him, got my sticker and got into the corral at about 19:50.
Which meant 10 minutes of waiting, checking my heart rate, seeing it was way too high and waiting some more.
After the obligatory words the countdown began.

5…4…3…2…1…GUN

First 2km went by very uneventful, I didn’t even start (way) too fast. Legs felt good, breathing went good, heart rate was climbing towards zone 5Β and I didn’t need to bother about zigzagging or watching out for other runner’s heels like last year, hooray for the first corral.

After 4km legs started to get more heavy and I needed to slow down a bit. I was aiming at an avg pace of 3:55m/km (~6:16m/mile) so I had some margin.

ChristmasRunBrugesKm1-4
First 4km timings

Fifth kilometer still fine, better than the feeling even,Kilometer 6 and 7 I really needed to catch my breath and the times don’t lie about it, I suddenly dropped 10s.

ChristmasRunBrugesKm5-7
Km 5-7

I knew if I wanted that PB I needed to start pushing through so after a mental scolding I picked up my pace.
What really helped was this guy who just sat on his doorstep, playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ as out of tune as possibly could be. But it helped me a lot. I was thinking “If he takes the time to encourage us, I really shouldn’t let him down“, so thank you Stranger-With-The-Guitar.

Kilometer 9 was mentally though, I knew I was getting towards the end, but all of a sudden the course led us through a small street with no lights. It felt … lonely for some reason. I kept my eyes on the person in front of me and just kept going.

During the last km there was a guy crossing with a cell phone like he had all the time of the world and I had to dodge him. Was kind of disappointed that some could be this asocial :-/

ChristmasRunBrugesKm8
Last Kilometer Timings
ChristmasRunBrugesCourse
The course plotted on the map, not straight at all…

But anyways, final twist of the course and I had still a sprint in me, so I got going, crossed the finish line, looked at my watch, saw 10.06km and 39:12 and knew I broke my PB

Spent post-race
Spent post-race

Euphoric, I wanted to check the official race results, because I was even hoping I broke the 39 min mark because of the spare 60 meters.

This ended up being 39:08,Β so too bad for those 8s, but this makes a perfect next goal.
Very happy about the race, very happy about the changes to the course, very happy with a new PB and it felt actually invigorating to run a shorter race again.

I ended up being 65/2504 and 46/497 of my age group. (20141213_4eKerstloopBrugge_10k)
Strava link
Endomondo Link

 

Ow yeah, I got a towel out of all it, hooray

Christmas Run Bruges Gift
Hooray for “free” towels πŸ˜‰

6 comments

  1. WOOHOO!! Congrats!!

    As for the guy with the cellphone nonchalantly crossing the street…in a half marathon in May I did, during the last 2k, as we were running through the downtown, the police were stopping the RUNNERS to let cars go through an intersection!! I nearly lost my mind. LOL.

    Again, congrats!!!

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