Chasing two rabbits II - Oxford Half 2017

The second rabbit is caught, too! 

What a wonderful experience Oxford was a couple of weekends ago! Not only because I actually achieved my goal of improving my half marathon time, but even more because it was a weekend shared with so many friends and so full of precious moments. We were a total of 37 people who traveled together; 33 runners from our club Varegg and 4 supporters. Like in Holmenkollen in 2015 and Amsterdam in 2016, traveling and running with friends is like being on a school trip, with so much laughter that your cheeks and your stomach ache the whole time!

The trip was incredibly well organized by our friend Karl-Magnus, and for the rest of us it was simply to follow his instructions. Most of us stayed in the same hotel, which was 200 meters from the start, full of history and charm, and perfectly convenient. We arrived late Friday night, and the race was on Sunday, so we had the whole Saturday free. We spent it sightseeing Oxford, relaxing and visiting the race village. My friends Mette, Marit and I were placed in start pen E, which read finish time 1:50 - 2:10. We found this a bit too slow for our goals, so we decided to change start numbers to pen D, for 1:45 - 2:00.

The start of the race was 9:30, and the start of the hotel breakfast was 7:30, which I found a little too late. Frank and I had instant oat meal in the hotel room already at about 7 am, and then we went down to breakfast to have coffee and meet the others. At around 8:30 we went out to warm up, around 9 we were back in the hotel to leave our jackets and so on. It is so convenient to have a hotel room so close to the start, exactly like we had in Trondheim. There was no need to leave a bag at the race village.

For the race my intention was to follow the 1:50 flag for as long as I could. It was so pleasant to start at an easier pace than what I usually do, and the first 10 km felt really easy. Around half way I started to struggle a bit, and I saw that my heart rate was a bit too high. At the same time, we caught up the 1:45 flag, which made me decide to slow down a bit. At the slowing down I made a mistake. I was watching my average pace thinking that it was my current pace, so I slowed down a bit too much and discovered it only after a km. After that I managed to get up my speed back to the intended pace, and managed to keep going more or less at steady pace until around 18 km. Until that point I could see my flag guy a couple of hundred meters ahead of me.

Then my stomach started acting up. I have never experienced this during a race before, but suddenly I had a very urgent feeling of having to use a toilet. I didn't know what to do. It was impossible to keep the speed, but could it actually pay off to stop? I calculated that if I took the time to use a toilet (or go behind a tree), I would lose my chance of a PB. But finally I actually stopped completely, and waited a few seconds. Fortunately the short stop helped a lot, and when I started running again the stomach did not bother me more. But now I had to really speed up to be able to go below 1:53, which was my goal. The last kilometer was tough, and I gave it all I had, and had to spend a little time on the ground to recover after the finish. The time read 1:52:22. About a minute better than my previous PB from Tromsø!

Fortunately the feeling of fatigue disappeared quickly, and then it was time to celebrate! Many of my friends got PBs, and some of them by several minutes! The course is very flat, surrounded by many historical buildings and interesting sights, so it is a very pleasant half marathon. Perhaps the best part was the race bags we got at the end. Free long sleeved t-shirts for everyone! They had separate bags for men and women, the t-shirts in men's and women's sizes, and the bags containing goodies, specially designed for men and for women. Really a very nice touch.

We were all impressed by the quality, the design and the functionality of the shirts. No commercials, just the race logo. I've already used mine a couple of times! I must make a comment on race t-shirts in general. Also in Trondheim the race t-shirts were very nice, with no commercials. They were not free, but really cheap when ordered at registration (75 NOK, about 8 EUR). As you might remember I rated Trondheim above Tromsø, I can also add that Tromsø race t-shirts cost 450 NOK (about 50 EUR)! Yet another reason to give thumbs up for Trondheim and Oxford.

Six half marathon races so far this year, which is more than ever before, PB in each of the courses, and overall half marathon PB twice.

2017 is turning out to be a good rabbit year :-)