Lidingöloppet 2014: 1:57:55, 74th place
Well, all went well for 19k of the 30k...then I pulled a muscle in my back\right shoulder which pretty much finished it for me as a race :-( But meh, what can you do, that's life...! I think had it been a smaller race closer to home I'd have quit straight away, but after coming all this way I was determined to finish, although I think I've taught some Swedish kids a few new English swearwords up the last couple of hills!
This was actually my first Sweden race (or even trip) outside Skåne in my 2 years here, since it's a been a bit impractical given the Aarhus-Lund commute, so it was part-race, part-seeing another part of Sweden. Best way to get there was by SJ train, approx 4.5h from Lund, and best place to stay any Stockholm near tunnelbanan (metro), since this makes getting around much easier. I collected the number from the stadium Lidingövallen on the Fri evening (recommend this - it's quite busy on Sat morning), where there was a free bus from the end of the line Ropsten metro station over the bridge onto Lidingö. I expected a major queue for this bus and a traffic jam up to the start on Sat raceday, so I got to the metro station about 10.30 on Sat morning 2 hours ahead of the start and half expected to have to walk the 4k there. However, after doing this race 50 times I think they have organisation down to a T, the queue for the bus was all of 5 minutes and very little traffic up there, so I got there at about 10.45!
Conditions for the race were pretty much perfect: about 13-15C and sun.
There was a moderately strong wind, but that didn't really matter since
it was a circular lap with most of the race in the woods. It had rained the night before, so some areas of the trail were muddy, but nothing serious. Trail shoes arn't necessary for this, in fact they probably give a disadvantage on the road sections. The start was about 2k uphill from the stadium - you have to be careful to leave enough time to get up there and go to the right start for the race length (30k was at Koltorp). The start area has lots of toilets and water plus places to sit, so there's actually little point hanging around at Lidingövallen. Iit was clearly marked out where you should start from, except for my 1A group at the front, but I think we we expected to be able to work that out for ourselves!
In our 1A front group were about 300 people, then a 200m gap back to the 1B\1C groups, then about another 200m to the 15,000+ others. The start was a gentle uphill grass area, but with a hard path through it, so people tended to bundle\aim themselves towards that. The aim at the start was pretty much the same as any cross race with a mass start: whatever you do, concentrate and stay on your feet else get trampled! (at least you're not going to get a cross spike through your leg though!) After about 750m of grass the race turned onto a hilly road section, where it got a bit crowded - don't expect to set a fast time on the first k, but then it's a 30k race so it doesn't matter. The first 5k is very up and down, lots of small hills and quite a testing start. At around 5-6k you hit some serious downhill, where you have to keep your wits about you just in case someone behind comes down a bit too fast (I saw one guy run straight into the back of another...doh!). 5-10k is pretty flat; my first 10k split was pretty much bang on 36min, as I aimed for. After that the hills get going again, with some twisty woodland sections until you reach the other side of the island, where it gets back to up\down again.
I managed to pull my back on a hill somewhere on 18-19k; I think I just carried too much momentum into it, then tried to push on upwards too fast. I managed to keep going though, although by the time I'd got to 20k I'd had to drop the pace, which was somewhat depressing as a lot of people started overtaking. This was at Grönsta, where the finish was, so I could've quit fairly easily (as a few people ahead did), but I decided to carry on. The final 10k had the toughest hills, including the largest on the course (Abborrbacken). The hills however were not especially steep, especially not compared to the midtjyske Søhøjland races such as the Himmelbjergøbet or Midtjysk Bjergløb - there were no 100m high climbs at 10-15% gradient. Through here it was really a case of gritting the teeth and getting to it, despite it hurting. The worst I found was Karins backen at about 2k from the finish, one final nasty steep hill that you don't really see coming (except for the crowd of people at the start of it). I got passed by quite a few people through this final 10k - I think had I not injured myself, it would've been the other way round, since I was feeling pretty good beforehand.
Just about managed to finish inside 2 hours (I even managed a bit of a final sprint), although just finishing was more than enough. Strangely, you don't see the finish until the final corner where you're about 400m from it, and there is a dogleg away from it in the final k - so you hear the crowd at the end, then seem to get further away, before suddenly you're there! My time was good enough for the silver medal they give for those finishing within 2.10, which was quite nice. I was quite hungry at the end - remember to bring cash: there are lots of places to get food on the way back to the bus at the stadium (I forgot and had to walk past them all). Overall, excepting the injury it was an excellent race and very well organised (as big races have to be).
I think probably 30k was a bit too long for the distance of training I'm doing. I've been limiting myself to no more than 100km/wk since my ankle injuries, in fact closer to 90k during the summer; this race probably needed 130-150k+ over a good period of time. I certainly couldn't have gone another 12k to marathon length. The pulled back muscle, although not too serious in the long term, is likely a result of this lack of distance. I'd probably have been happier blasting it round the half (15k) distance, but this would've seemed a bit of a cop-out: that way didn't even include the big hills!
Well, all went well for 19k of the 30k...then I pulled a muscle in my back\right shoulder which pretty much finished it for me as a race :-( But meh, what can you do, that's life...! I think had it been a smaller race closer to home I'd have quit straight away, but after coming all this way I was determined to finish, although I think I've taught some Swedish kids a few new English swearwords up the last couple of hills!
This was actually my first Sweden race (or even trip) outside Skåne in my 2 years here, since it's a been a bit impractical given the Aarhus-Lund commute, so it was part-race, part-seeing another part of Sweden. Best way to get there was by SJ train, approx 4.5h from Lund, and best place to stay any Stockholm near tunnelbanan (metro), since this makes getting around much easier. I collected the number from the stadium Lidingövallen on the Fri evening (recommend this - it's quite busy on Sat morning), where there was a free bus from the end of the line Ropsten metro station over the bridge onto Lidingö. I expected a major queue for this bus and a traffic jam up to the start on Sat raceday, so I got to the metro station about 10.30 on Sat morning 2 hours ahead of the start and half expected to have to walk the 4k there. However, after doing this race 50 times I think they have organisation down to a T, the queue for the bus was all of 5 minutes and very little traffic up there, so I got there at about 10.45!
 |
| Start: 1A group in the front |
In our 1A front group were about 300 people, then a 200m gap back to the 1B\1C groups, then about another 200m to the 15,000+ others. The start was a gentle uphill grass area, but with a hard path through it, so people tended to bundle\aim themselves towards that. The aim at the start was pretty much the same as any cross race with a mass start: whatever you do, concentrate and stay on your feet else get trampled! (at least you're not going to get a cross spike through your leg though!) After about 750m of grass the race turned onto a hilly road section, where it got a bit crowded - don't expect to set a fast time on the first k, but then it's a 30k race so it doesn't matter. The first 5k is very up and down, lots of small hills and quite a testing start. At around 5-6k you hit some serious downhill, where you have to keep your wits about you just in case someone behind comes down a bit too fast (I saw one guy run straight into the back of another...doh!). 5-10k is pretty flat; my first 10k split was pretty much bang on 36min, as I aimed for. After that the hills get going again, with some twisty woodland sections until you reach the other side of the island, where it gets back to up\down again.
I managed to pull my back on a hill somewhere on 18-19k; I think I just carried too much momentum into it, then tried to push on upwards too fast. I managed to keep going though, although by the time I'd got to 20k I'd had to drop the pace, which was somewhat depressing as a lot of people started overtaking. This was at Grönsta, where the finish was, so I could've quit fairly easily (as a few people ahead did), but I decided to carry on. The final 10k had the toughest hills, including the largest on the course (Abborrbacken). The hills however were not especially steep, especially not compared to the midtjyske Søhøjland races such as the Himmelbjergøbet or Midtjysk Bjergløb - there were no 100m high climbs at 10-15% gradient. Through here it was really a case of gritting the teeth and getting to it, despite it hurting. The worst I found was Karins backen at about 2k from the finish, one final nasty steep hill that you don't really see coming (except for the crowd of people at the start of it). I got passed by quite a few people through this final 10k - I think had I not injured myself, it would've been the other way round, since I was feeling pretty good beforehand.
 |
| End... |
I think probably 30k was a bit too long for the distance of training I'm doing. I've been limiting myself to no more than 100km/wk since my ankle injuries, in fact closer to 90k during the summer; this race probably needed 130-150k+ over a good period of time. I certainly couldn't have gone another 12k to marathon length. The pulled back muscle, although not too serious in the long term, is likely a result of this lack of distance. I'd probably have been happier blasting it round the half (15k) distance, but this would've seemed a bit of a cop-out: that way didn't even include the big hills!
Ingen kommentarer:
Send en kommentar