On Saturday, I ran this year’s third race, and second of the ZüriLaufCup series. This time, it was in Winterthur, my home town; another 11 km run.
I arrived fairly early and tried to remember where everything is from last year, but since (unlike last year) there was no snow, things didn’t seem too familiar. Some guy in the crowd streaming out of the gym said “hi”, and it took a while until I recognised Tony from the famous Irish Rovers:
I’m used to him wearing all green, that’s why.
In the gym, I spotted Karin and Henrik. Karin, who claims to constitute one third of all my readers (another third is my mom, she says) specifically asked to be mentioned, and if possible in bold print. As a first step to famousness. Here you go:
Karin.
With about 15 minutes until the start, we went outside, I headed for the loo and then warmed up a bit. It was much colder than a week before in Bremgarten, but still not super cold. About five minutes before the start, I joined the crowd near the starting line, went to the front, but not too far – about where I thought I belong. After some discussion with my neighbour about how our watches had trouble finding satellites and how my watch is much bigger than hers, the gun went and we were off. (The satellites were found by then.)
I managed to get myself into one of the official race pictures, taken just after the start:
Fine, you have to look very closely. Here, the guy with no moustache and no headband, that’s me:
The profile of the race is pretty mean. Well within the first kilometre, the first ramp is waiting:
After that, there’s a valley to cross, another hill to take, and the last three kilometres are downhill and flat.
Even though I ran the race a year ago, I didn’t remember much. I felt pretty good, but not as strong as the week before, yet whenever I was checking on myself, everything was okay. On the first flat bit and across the valley, I passed a few familiar faces, like Maja Luder-Gautschi and Nicole Lohri who often place very well within the women.
I also realised that the biker a few hundred metres in front of me was riding next to the leading woman, I just couldn’t see who she was. I was running with a group of about four guys, among them Roger Kaufmann, founder and president of the New Year’s Marathon Zurich, the first marathon worldwide every year.
My splits were, apart from the hilly sections, consistently below four minutes, so that was good. At one point, about after seven kilometres, the guy in front of the group accelerated quite a lot. Since that was just before a downhill section, I figured I’d try and follow him; I like running downhill.
Just before the hill at kilometre eight, I caught up with Tony who had a few encouraging words for me and then sent me away. I tried to obey! After that hill, the fast finishing stretch started. I didn’t remember that it would be like that until the end, but I certainly didn’t mind and tried to stick with the guy who had upped the pace before.
The first woman who had disappeared for a while came back in sight, but she was quite far away. One of the volunteers, a funny old guy, told me that I should go and catch her, but that seemed pretty hard to accomplish.
I was very happy with my pace on the last three kilometres, even though the flat bit hurt quite a lot. I finished just behind the guy who had gotten away, a member of the Winterthur Finishers, and was absolutely satisfied with my performance.
This is what the overall course looks like:
I chatted a bit with the guy from the Finishers, and he jokingly explained his sophisticated racing strategy. All head games, you know.
I then saw which girl won: it was Marketa Maly-Polackova who ran, for example, last year’s Hallwilerseelauf in 1:19:08 and won Silvesterlauf. No shame in not catching her!
While sipping on my ultra sweet isotonic beverage, somebody tapped my shoulder. I saw a familiar face, but couldn’t quite remember who that was – then I realised that it was Daniel who writes about his (very fast and long) running endeavours on his “Seckle” (Swiss German for running fast) blog. I recently commented on something he posted, because he participated in that running shoe study, like me. He recognised my shoes, and turns out he’s a super nice guy.
A few minutes later, Karin Karin and Henrik arrived, and we headed for the changing rooms. Fresh and clean, we collected the goody bag: some muesli and sweets were in it. Here the sweets with Karin and Henrik:
Me with Karin and Henrik:
And the sweets with edible logos on their own (they didn’t survive long after that picture was taken):
My overall pace was almost as fast as the week before, and given the somewhat more difficult profile, I take it. I’m still not quite sure what has happened since January, but somehow I shaved 20 seconds off my kilometre pace, which puts me roughly to the top women and the top 13% of my age group, whereas it used to be (for ZüriLaufCup races) no better than the top 25%.
I should put a mental checkmark next to “running” and address that swimming problem. And start cycling outside. After all, there’s this sprint tri coming up in April.
Read all about it in my 2011 race preview!
What a cliffhanger.
