Now the running season has officially started, and with a good kick-off. Yesterday I ran the 21km of the studentenmarathon, and I am really glad with my result. My time this year was 1:25:19 (8 minutes faster than my time from last year; and 7 minutes faster than my previous personal record for the distance). I crossed the finish line as 44th of the 247 men who ran the half-marathon.
The route was a bit different this year. There were more hills than the previous year; at least that was my feeling during the race. But somehow the times this year were lower. If last year I had run as fast as yesterday, I would have finished the race in 22nd. My personal theory for the fact that so many men ran under the 1:20 yesterday is that the level of the runners was a bit higher (more fast runners) in comparison with last year.
Something funny/interesting that happened yesterday was that for the whole first half of the route I ran practically together with a guy wearing a red T-shirt (the same color of the T-shirt I had on). We just kept running next to each other and passing other people gradually - like team mates. I had the feeling that I was the one determining the speed, and that he was just following me. And from the way he was breathing I was sure that he was going to blow up at some point and would not be able to follow me anymore. But neither he or I blew up. What happened in the second half was that I kept running in the same speed - I could not run any faster - and he sped up a bit. I tried to follow him, but he was too fast.
Without my companion with the red T-shirt I ran the second half of the race practically alone; there was no one around running at the same speed any more. In the last kilometers some people passed me. But I just kept on running as fast as I could. When I saw my final time I was really happy to realize that I hadn't slowed down in the second half, even though I was quite tired.
With this time I can start dreaming of running a 3 hour marathon somewhere in the near future.
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