Vejle Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I was standing at the back, talking with Jette. It was her first ½ marathon. As we were running with Champion Chip, there was no need to start in the front. That was a mistake, as I had to pass a lot of runners for the first 3 km's. That gave me a "slow" start, not that it's was the reason for my slow finishing time. After the fisrt km's I found my spot and kept a good pace, giving my some extra second each km. I had planned for a race time of 1:45:00 (5:00/km). At 7 km I was 45 seconds ahead of my schedule. If I could hold this pace, I was close to my PB from 2005 (1:43:03). But already at 9 km I started to drop in speed, and at the turning point I was 7 seconds behind. At 15 km it was getting harder and I dropped futher in speed. At 17 km I was sold out, and dropped almost a minute/km. This was very hard mentaly, but I kept going. Unfortuatnly I had to walk 100m at 18km, this was not my plan. Had to walk again at 20. Pulled my self together and ran the rest of the way.
I had my heart rate at an avg. of 163 all the way, rigth were it was surposed to be, but my speed was just to low.

TRAIN, TRAIN and TRAIN!

Had some warm soup, bread and a banana, waiting for Jette to arrive. She was at the turning point at app. 1:00 so maybe she would finish at around 2:00. Waited for her until 2:05, and the went to our car to get some warm clothes, as it was cold standing in the ligth wind. Jette finished in 2:09:28, just below her target of 2:10:00, so she was happy, but very tired and cold.


Simply - lack of training


This year there was a limitation of 1000 participants. The route is on a small track, and 1000 is to many. They need to make 3-4 start groups.
Very good race, will do it again next year, but with a better result.