Not as I wanted it to be...

To start with the hard facts, I did´t make it... my goal... something was wrong, and I also did something extremely stupid. I really just want to forget about the whole day, but... since I hopefully have learnt something about it, I´ll tell you what happened.

I woke up early the 21st September, and ate a nice and healthy breakfast. Then I went outside to look at the marathon runners, and to check out the new North Face shop in Oslo. Well, maybe it isn´t new, but I´ve never been there ;) I ended up with some new fantastic mittens called Himalaya mitt - I don´t think I can ever freeze in those. Happy :)

After this I had a light lunch and prepared myself for the run. I felt fine, strong and ready mentally. But... then I did something stupid, I jumped into the group before me, the ones wanting to finish by 1:40... and followed them when they started. Out into simple words, I stared to hard. When we all ran together I didn´t feel the pace... and it felt fine... until almost  6-7km. Then my feet started to feel as they do after 15km. I looked at my watch for the first time, and was shocked - it showed 200bpm!! After 6km!! I stopped instantly and started to walk, I needed to get my pulse down this second... but the damage was already done. I couldn´t relax, my feet went super sour, and all motivation disappeared. The next 14km are the hardest I´ve ever run... everything hurt. My head, my knees, my hips and especially my mind. How could I do something like that? I hated myself for not trying to run harder, to let myself listen to the pain, to wanting to give up. If your mind get into a state like that, it is like running miles and miles in upstream. Nothing at all is OK, and you feel like crap.

When that is said, I did finish at 1:57:29 (net time) and are more or less happy with that, all taken into consideration. 

I talked to a trainer friend a few days later, and he said that normally when your pulse jump to something like that after such a short time, and you do not run as you have a lion chasing you, something is wrong inside. Your body chooses to work on something else, than wanting you to run. I might have had a small flu, fever, or similar. The reason why I did not not feel it could have been me wanting to run really bad, and also wanting to finish within my goal. This relaxed me a bit, and I a not so mad at myself any longer. I know I can do this run with the result I want... to make that happen I´ve already signed up for next year Oslo Halfmarathon - BRING IT ON!!