After 12 weeks of training I did the 20km of Brussels race yesterday! Considering the fact that I reduced my training and the warm weather, I'm proud of my time.
The day started early around 7 a.m. with a good breakfast for a race: pasta!
Brussels is one hour away from my home and the race was at 10 a.m. After a stop at a reception (a sponsor received us in a great building not far from the start) we headed to the starting line while running to warm us up. There are more than 40,000 runners so once in the park, it was very difficult to move and go the our box. The start is divided into 6 boxes and each box starts 5 minutes apart from each other. We reached our box just one minute before the start (we were in the first one so we needed to be there at 10 o'clock).
As you can see, there are a lot of people:
All the people in front of me are in the first box, there are 5 other boxes behind me.
10 a.m.: it's time to start!
Despite the fact that I was in the first box (but I was at the end of the box) it was not easy to run a my pace at the beginning. I did my first kilometer in 4'32" which is quite slow considering the descent. Quickly I though it was going to be impossible to do my objective of 1:25 which is a pace of 4'15"/km because I was blocked by other people regularly. It was not a problem, I still wanted to do my best!
During the race, there were 6 "supply" (I don't know if it's the right term in English) of water and one of the sport drink Isostar. I took them all but I didn't drink everything since it was bottle of 0.33 liter. I also put water on my body to cool it down. I had one cereal bar and one gel with me that I took after 30 and 60 minutes. I didn't feel any difference but it's hard to tell. Maybe I would have done a lot worse without that.
It's really after 13-14 kilometers that I felt really great and I knew I could accelerate (maybe because I started a bit slow). Maybe the long descent allowed me to recover and gave me that energy.
However, I knew to big climb was coming at the end. It was of course very hard but I managed to keep a good pace of 4'52"/km. After that it's flat but the difficulty lies in the fact that you can see the finish line 2 kilometers before the end. You have thus the impression that you will finish in a few seconds but it's almost 10 minutes of pain! Many people speed up during this part and some pass out at the finish line.
I finished the race in exactly 1:26:33 (with an objective of 1:25). I'm still proud of my time for several reasons:
- I reduced a lot my training during the last 4 weeks
- It was really warm
- It was difficult the pass other runners
Moreover, if we look at the ranking, it says that I did 14.14km/hour which is a pace of 4'14"/km. And this pace is just below my objective. It means that the race was 20.397 km long.
As you can see I'm 786th out of 40,000 (even though all the runners were not there) and 63rd in my category. My ranking is better that I expected.
The finish line (as well as the starting line) is situated in the famous "Parc du Cinquantenaire" in Brussels. Here are some picture of the end:
Now I'm going to take some well deserved rest! I almost don't feel any pain today but I have one nail a little damaged (it's not new but it's worst now).
Check the Steem Running Project and the RunForSteem Challenge if you are interested in running.