Last Saturday, it was the midnight run in Stockholm, a big 10 km running event in the evening with over 30000 participants. The midnight run is a famous event which takes place every year in many cities in Sweden and in Helsinki in Finland. This was the second time I participated, and it was so much fun. Like a big party with lights, music and happy people running through the city in the evening.
Even though I love sport, running has not been my strongest side. I have only ran 10K three times before in my life. I participate in this distance because it is challenging to me (since I never run 10K normally when I practice) and I want to test my endurance. And of course, I participate because it is fun!
The last year in midnight run my result was 58,18 min and I was pretty disappointed, so this year I started to train much earlier. When I practice running, I normally practice HIIT (High intensity interval training) on treadmill or run 5-6 km outdoors.
Running is a very little part of my training, I spend much more time on taekwondo, dance and gym. During this summer I was running once a week to prepare for this race.
At 10pm in the Saturday evening, I was standing in the city with my group consisting of hundreds of happy and enthusiastic runners, prepared to do my best and hopefully hit a new personal record. I felt ready and my legs felt strong. During the first 3K I was running in my normal pace, trying not to speed up to much. There were so many people at the start and sometimes it was so crowded that I had to run on the grass on the side to pass by them.
After running up a tough hill and reached 5K, my legs were still strong and it actually felt that I was running on clouds with easy steps! I had found a very good flow. When I past 6-7K I still had the flow but started to feel a bit tired in my legs. Many people were cheering alongside on the pavement and from the windows from their apartments. Even taxi drivers left their cars to come out and cheer for the runners! The atmosphere were great and somehow I also think that this cheering helped me to keep on running. It gave me energy.
At some point at 8K, I felt that I maybe could run a little bit faster, but didn’t dare to do that, because I was afraid of getting too exhausted to run up on the last hill that I knew would come before 9K.
When I had past 9K I started to run a bit faster, quite surprised that my legs where able to do that. With only 500m left I speeded up even more, and at last 100m rushed into the goal with my arms raised up: Yeah, I made it!
The last kilometer was also my fastest kilometer in the race! So awesome!
The total time was 55,57min and I was happy with the result. Although I didn’t beat my personal record (which is 55.40 from another race 2015), taken into consideration the course with the tough hills, it actually felt like I got a personal record!
This was absolutely the best 10K I have run so far, and I never felt that I was so tired that I wanted to slow down or stop.
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This photo is from midnattsloppet.com