Finally the first competition of the season has reached!
After few weeks of specific training to prepare the half marathon of Linz, I wanted to feel those butterflies in the gut when you face up an important race. To be honest, this was no more than a test to prove my feelings and see how my legs react in a race out of my workout routine.
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| Start from the bridge |
The day before the race I got a lot of encourage from my Erasmus friends as well as relatives, which are greatly appreciated and they pushes you a lot to do your best in front of them trying to thank them for their support. And many thanks to Pili for the surprise that you left in my mailbox!
On Saturday noon I went to collect the number and have a walk around the fair that was organized due to the race. I had never participated in a pasta party before, but I didn't like to much... To sit down only to eat a huge plate of pasta is not so cool while the rest of the people is in silence! Where is the music? It didn't convince me a lot, by the way I'd like to think that this was so boring due the austrians are so.
The race day began at 6:00 AM with a good breakfast, trying to eat enough to have energy and more important to hydrate myself enough for the race. The previous days I took care responsible for consume abundant quantities of carbohydrates to take forces for the race. The breakfast I recieved some help from Natxo de the previous evening. The breakfast was the following:
- - 1 banana
- - 1 bowl of muesli
- - 3 slices of toast with olive oil
- - 1 tick Victory Endurance Bar
- - 1.5 liters of Victory Endurance ISO ENERGY
- - 1 coffee with milk
Taking the products of the brand Victory Endurance have been through a personal recommendation of a friend who had been for a while in the world of triathlon and encouraged me to try these supplements. This is not doping as some people say, is one thing that irritates me a little because the people speak very fast and without knowledge of the facts. This does not mean anything other than a few products that help us to rich the maximum by providing energy and hydration at all times for the realization of the physical activity, as well as for providing us with an optimal recovery. I will write some lines about this topic in the future because brings a lot of controversy...
The competition started exactly at 9:00 AM after listening the Austrian national anthem. We had the same start both in the Half such as the Marathon, in numbers there were around the 4500 runners. The first few meters were a little slow, jerky, I just couldn't find a pace while I was going trying to avoid slow runners. Near kilometre 2, Pablo jumped from the public and started the race with me. We had spoken the previous day, that would make me a few kilometres in front of me to set a good pace and because we didn't know if forces would have to run the whole half marathon for him. With the passage of the kilometres I saw that he was quite fit and marked me an intense pace but comfortable to continue (unpayable). He had a good pace, so running next to someone with the experience of Pablo knew that I would benefit throughout the race and I was right.
During the race countless thoughts passed by my head and even carrying music to distract my mind. How important is the mind in the resistance sports! Many times the self-motivation and the desire to fulfill a goal is more importat than the preparation or physical condition, it is awesome! The mind is the strongest weapon that we have and which we should train as much as our physical condition to be able to get up each time that we have an adversity.
Going back to the race, the first 10 kilometers were quite good, with average rates of 4:30 min/km and lowering the second part of the test to a 4:39 min/km due to pain in the feet. The fearsome blisters had appeared! I was so dissapointed that I couldn't be able to perform better the last 2 kilometers with continuous pain in the foot. After the race I discovered that it had a huge bloody blister in the right foot. But I knew I had to grit my teeth and keep running, 2 kilometers to 4:30 min/km are only 9 minutes, is not so much! Definitely, I will have to find a solution to my Asics Hyperspeed 5, it always comes out the same blister but this time was too much. Maybe a gel template would solve these problems?
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| My foot after 21 km |
After crossing the finish line and giving thanks to Pablo, they interviewed me live in the Austrian television, it was funny ... For a moment I felt important as a Gomez Noya, Marcel Zamora or Eneko Llanos being interviewed after just crossing the finish line! Haha! I am very grateful to Pablo by the intense pace that he runned from the beginning. Hopefully one day I will be as fit as him to be his sparring and help him in any race that we will run together, I am sure there will be more in the future! On Saturday I had a friend and now I have also earned a running colleague! Long lifeeeee! Many thanks also to Frantxu for coming to cheer us up and get some photos at the finish line, also to Rober that he tried to came but was ill and also to my "vainas locas" that although they were not present I had their support, the previous day.
Link to the video: http://tvthek.orf.at/programs/70016-Oberoesterreich-heute/episodes/3922891-Oberoesterreich-heute
To finish, I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:38:13 in the post 656 of 3543. The position is not important, what is more important is the time which I think is pretty good for having spent only 4 weeks to the preparation of the half marathon, although always could be better if I didn't have problems with the feet. The winner of the test was Viktor Röthlin with a time of 1:04:49.
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| Pablo and I after the half marathon |
There are only 4 weeks for the next challenge of the season, the Triathlon Sprint of Linz. It remains only to continue working hard on it in order to be able to be on fit as possible, adding more kilometers to my legs but also without obsessing over, knowing that my peak season is not for these dates, but for the triathlon of Tudela in late June. I hope you have enjoyed this first chronic, thank you for the support and follow-up.
Best,
Ander
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