Time to catch up with race reports! Goal: have them all written before doing the next race. Which will probably take place next week. And there’s much to do: this one here, Zytturm Triathlon Zug, Gigathlon, 5150 Zurich… let’s go then!
Wylandlauf was my 7th race of the ZüriLaufCup series this year, i.e., I was about to produce a void result because only the six best races count towards the total. It is also the second longest race of the series (not taking Zurich Marathon into account) but at 14.85 km still not really long.
I did the race last year already, a rather cold and wet memory, and finished in 1:01:36. The weather was not very promising, but at least it was not raining when I arrived. I had missed a train connection, but because of a bike race my start was delayed by 15 minutes, which gave me enough time to warm up.
During warm-up, I bumped into Beni from the Tuesday intervals group, his brother, and Julie who were about to end their warm-up. Because they hadn’t heard of the delay yet.
It was still not raining when I joined the crowd in front of the starting line, but it was rather cool – ideal conditions. The elevation profile of the course looks like this:
Flat for three kilometres, hills for the next three, flat for another three, hills for two, flat until the end. Or, seen from above:
My goal was to run a sub 4 min/km average, beat the hour and maybe “place within the women”. You know, my secret personal race against the women. We started and there was some pushing and pulling as the road became more narrow after the first left turn:
Oh, and if you look very closely, you can see me:
In front of the yellow giant, wearing a white shirt. (The giant is “Interval Beni”, by the way. Former handball player.) And behind Beni in the green shirt is Julie.
The crowd started to thin out a little (still around the first kilometre here):
And again, some zooming reveals me:
The surface was rather dry with a few puddles here and there, but so much better than last year where it was more mud wrestling than anything else. I ran the first three kilometres with a pace of 3:45; after this, the hills started. I was behind the leading two women, Luzia Schmid and Maja Luder-Gautschi – the same two who won Flughafenlauf a few weeks earlier. This time I didn’t even manage to get close, I just saw them go further and further away, so the “Benj vs. The Women” race was lonely.
Of course there were other runners around, but still.
I tried to keep a steady pace over the hilly part, didn’t pass many people and was not passed by many. Towards the end of the hills, just before the long descent, people starting cheering whenever I passed, but it didn’t take me long to find out that some celebrity of sort must be running behind me. The “celebrity” finally passed; turns out it was the third woman, Olivia Kurtz. She had been third at Flughafenlauf already, but didn’t manage to pass me there.
I never caught up to her again but didn’t lose sight of her either. The last flat bit went well: it’s a very varied part of the course with a lot of turns, paths, streets and forest bits. Until you’re back on the final stretch. About 1.8 kilometres just straight. I remembered 2010 when I really hated that section and thought about three times too early “Finally! Done!” Just to find out I wasn’t.
I managed to pass two or three guys on the straight bit and finished strong; just five seconds behind Olivia, with 55:57. Goals: check. Beni and Julie arrived a few minutes later and everybody was rather happy with their performances. (And in addition, I was happy that there was no rain for all of the race.)
We stayed for the award ceremony because Julie finished second in her age group:
Just behind Olivia.
I scored another 870 points for the overall cup and voided the result from Dietikon, gaining 138 points:
This is still a flattering overall standing for me, but again, there are a few very strong runners not having six results yet. And there are still four races to go, starting in September with Rütilauf. We’ll see how that one turns out!
