1.13.59


Photo: Ismo Kallioniemi

I did it! Full results are here. It felt good to finish third among 4000 runners and lead most of the way until about 18K. This was without doubt the best run of my whole career – so far.

The thrill at start was one of those moments life comes down to. Just an exceptional feeling. I didn’t sleep very well the last night and I was totally uneasy during the morning. I kept on counting time and loading up sugars at a friend’s doctoral disseration. High expectations, successful training behind, “this must work out now!”

Finally the starting gun released all the stuff in the blood into action. I wasn’t that surprised when I had a 5 metre lead after the first couple hundred meters. I really didn’t feel like running at all, I was just 100% thrilled! The first 1K went like 3.07 but I felt I could have done it sub 2.50 without much pain.

3K, 10.01, easing out and letting others lead. Then came the first uphill and my thrill kept on pumping! I flew the hill up and went on to lead again. I think I lead most of the run and never looked back. It was very easy until something like 12K. Then there was some wind around Huopalahti, and after 15K there was like 2 quite steep hills in Central Park. But it was like an hour done until I felt like I’m not going to win this. When the guys went their way, my job was just not to lose the pace.

The first four 5Ks went like 17.02-17.21-17.46-18.13. Slowly going down, as expected…. The finishing time counts something like a 3.30/km average speed… After the race Jari was enthusiastically proposing that 2.40 is too conservative target for the full marathon. To contrast, my dad questioned whether I could do it sub 2.45 based on that “half” which doesn’t include anything like the “35K wall”.