Result 1:58:42

On Saturday it was finally time for me to run a half marathon in Gothenburg. I had been waiting for it ever since I decided to register for the run at the beginning of this year and I just wanted to get it over and done with. Luckily the weather was just perfect for the day, about 15 degrees - not too cold nor too hot ;) I left Stockholm at around 9 with the train and I arrived in Gothenburg at 12:20. I hopped on the tram that took me to the place where the number pick up was. I was starting with the charity group as I was running for Barncancerfonden, the organization of my choice. We were over 2600 people that were running for charity and together we raised over 1.3 million SEK.

My goal was to just finish the run without doing any walking. I was thinking beforehand that it would be nice to run with a pace of 10km/hr to complete the run in 2:06:00 and I was dreaming about getting a time of under two hours. My start was at 14:50 and I was very eager to start running. The course circles the city crossing over two bridges. After the first couple of kilometres I started feeling less nervous and it felt good running. The first 10 kilometres felt great actually and I passed 10 kilometres at 53:35. When I got to 12-13 kilometres my knees started hurting a bit. A while later when I reached 15-16 kilometres my legs were getting really sore and my knees hurt even more but I was determined to keep on going. After another couple of kilometres - at around 18 kilometres - I started wondering if I was gonna be able to complete the run at all as my legs were so sore and my energy levels started dropping. I still kept going but at a slower pace as I was getting really tired. I looked at my watch like so many times before and realised that time was ticking away. But after another few kilometres I finally finished the run and the time I got was 1:58:42!

I'm so happy and proud of myself for doing it. This was a personal challenge I had set for myself this year and I did it!! :) Thanks to all of you for cheering me on, it meant a lot to me.

I took the train back and arrived to the central station in Stockholm at just before 22:00 that evening. F was kind enough to come and pick me up and I was in pain walking to the car I can tell you. But after putting on some tiger balm and a good night sleep I felt great again. I actually thought I was gonna be more sore than I was.

Yesterday F and I went to Brunnsviken with the boat where we stopped the engine and did some sunbathing. We had some bubbly and just relaxed together, it was so nice. After a while we went to café Sjöstugan where we had some lunch and then we went back to Djurgårdskanalen where we met up with F's friend for a coffee. We had such a great Sunday in the sun and I'm already looking forward to taking the boat out again ;)