H.C.Andrersen marathon
Odense, Denmark
28.9.2014


Summary

Finish time: 3:26:25
Ranking: 322 / 1558
Pace: 4:53 min/km
Weather: 13-16 C
Link to result

Splits

  10k 20k 30k 40k
Total time 0:43:05 1:28:12 2:17:01 3:14:15
Pace 4:18 4:30 4:55 5:43

Marathon route

Why Odense?

Motivation for the marathon born because, after the spring marathons (Paris and London), the tightness and aching in my body had disappeared during the summer, and all the shorter distance competitions had went better than in the past few years. This inspired me to look for one more marathon in late Autumn. A marathon that would appear after the following short distance competitions: Kuorevaarahölkkä 9 km (13.8.), Kuopio half marathon (6.9.) and Joensuu trail run 20 km (13.9.). Optimal timing would be the weekend 27-28.9., two weeks after the trail run. To make the preparations even more perfect, I squeezed in one more shorter distance run, 6 km Kukkojuoksu in Lieksa for 21.9. Some people fit their training program to their target marathon. I did the opposite. All I needed to find was suitable marathon for this training program.

But why Odense? At the same time, Alexander Stubb ran 3:11 in Berlin, and Kimetto made new world record 2:02:57. Surely fast race was available there. Lidingö loppet was also around that time, Amsterdam, and probably few others. However, registration to Amsterdam and Berlin had already closed long ago, so I had to look for some smaller event. I had to settle with some smaller nearby option. An extra motivation if it were in a country where I had not yet visited.

Under these conditions, Warsaw turned out to be an interesting choise but all available flight connections were expensive and complex. I had to return by Monday afternoon for my lectures, and the only suitable return trip would make a detour via Kiev and St.Petersburg, and from there on by train. Too complicated. On the other hand, Finnair had very good and reasonable price (235e) connection Joensuu-Helsinki-Copenhagen allowing return already sunday night. Great! So Odense in Denmark was my choice.

I had never travelled inside Denmark before but the train connection turned out to be smooth, and Odense a convenient nice small city worth to visit. It is also the birth place of the famous author or many children books: (satusetä) H.C.Andresen. This was also the name of the marathon. I was ready. To explore the city, and to see whether I still could run 42 km fast.

Race report

I had trained well and all previous results in shorter distances had been good (Kukkojuoksu 1s, Trail running 2nd, Kuopio 6th, Kuorevaara 4th). So what happened? Well, I was running allright but then the ugly dugling (ruma ankanpoikanen) crossed the road near the river and I falled down into the river when trying to avoid him. In the river I met little mermaid (pieni merenneito) who did not want me to leave her but eventually I decided to continue running as I was trying to make a good time. My clothes were wet but got replacement from a local tailor who gave me great costume originally meant to the local Emperor (keisarin uudet vaatteet) but now came in good use for the marathoner from Finland. However, something was wrong with the clothing and they mentally slowed me down even if they physcially felt lightweight. Then I met a girl who claimed to be a princess. I quickly visited her home and put 42 peas under her mattress to see if she was a real princess or not. She reported later that she could not sleep well, which proved that she was a real princess indeed. Nevertheless, all these episodes slowed me down a bit... until I woke-up in morning of the real race day! :-)


During the summer, my forever-troubling body was in a relatively good shape but in the late autumn small signs of problems started to re-appear. Trail running itself went well but the next week, 17.9., I made a small but probably decisive mistake. Although the day had been summery warm, the temperature made a quick drop down to +5 C by the evening when I was doing my long run. Without realising this sudden change, I wore shorts and t-shirt. As a result, my muscles around hips and buns became tight, and the previous years' problem re-appeared, and had remained persistent ever since. Wheather in Odense was ok, in principle, +12..+16 C but it was sopmewhat windy. Again, I selected shorts and t-shirt as anything more would have been simply too hot. Although I did not feel cold at any stage of the run, the light wind was probably too much and the muscle aching slowly increased and started seriously to slow down my steps. The GPS trackings below reveales how it all went. 

0-4:   Typical race. Good start with nicely rolling steps.
       4:05 min/km       3 km 884 m

4-12:  Tighetning gradually starts. I decided to reduce speed.
       4:26 min/km       8 km 079 m

12-15: City center, increased adrenaline. Possibly GPS errors.
       4:13 min/km       2 km 860 m

15-32: Reality hits. Aching increases and speed decreases as a result.
       4:46 min/km       10.3 km
       5:06 min/km       5 km 256 m
       5:22 min/km       1 km 908 m
       6:10 min/km       415 m

32-35: City center again:
       4:56 min/km       2 km 136 m

35-42: Running has changed to crawling:
       5:55 min/km       6 km 772 m

Finish line: Slight "sprint" towards the end:
       4:51 min/km       521 m

The aching cut out the speed very effectively, and it just refused to disappear even when I tried to decrease my speed. Running faster was not possible and I even experienced kind of electrical shocks in the muscles. As a result, certain muscles were burden significantly more than normally, and soon become exhausted than the other typical muscles used in running. It caused overall tireness way too early.

Over-optimistic speed in the early kilometers was another reason for the poor performace. It is so easy go with the flow, and possibly, push just a little bit too hard what I should have. In London, I had very good balancing of the energy, mainly because it was one week after Paris and I had just learned the proper speed for my day's condition at the time. Now I had 5 months recover and training since the previous marathon. Long enough to get into a good shape, but too long to remember the previous mistakes anymore. One thing to note is that, despite all the problems, it never developed to cramps or such. The pain merely shorten the steps.

To sum up: even though the result was far from what expected, I enjoyed the jorney overall. It was a nice experience and I enojoyed Odense, inlcuding the running, even though the report here focuses more on the physical performace. That's the runner's life. :-)