 All right guys, it is three days post-race. I ran a 10k race last weekend in Oslo. It's called Centrumslöpa. It's one of the biggest races in Norway, thousands of people, really good vibe, lots of people and just lots of emotions and yeah, thousands of people in the capital of Norway. So I had a great time, ran a personal best. I want to talk about my performance. I want to talk about my pacing throughout the race, my experiences, my thoughts along the way and all that good stuff. So stay tuned for that. Check it out. Here's the medal, pretty cool medal. Here's everyone lining up at the start. So I was in the first starting group, the first wave, so I was just behind the elites or pretty well back in the group, but you know with the elites in the front and the gun goes off and we're all headed off onto a very tough course. It is a hilly, rough, brutal course. It's not a flat race by any means, so it's brutal. But anyway, let's reel it back a little bit. I was feeling great on the day. I did a warm-up together with Thomas. He was on his electrical scooter sort of coaching me and he was going to chair me on out in the course and take some pictures along with my parents and my brother who was also out on the course. I also met up with two of my coaching clients who have been coaching towards this race for a while. So that was really fun meeting them and discussing their race prep and their race experience as well. But anyway, I did my warm-up, felt great, super nervous, like extremely nervous. I just, I get so nervous. It's not a negative feeling though. I'm not dreading it. I'm looking forward to it and excited about it, but I just get very nervous. But legs were fresh, really lots of power. My body was ready to go and I lined up and the gun goes off. All right, so going into it, as I talked about in my pre-race video, if you watch that, I knew that I was probably in about sub 39 shape for a 10k, but that's on a flat course though. And I knew that this course was pretty hilly and to be in sub 39 shape on this course, I'd probably have to be in sub 38 shape on a flat course, which was a little bit of a stretch. So not only was the course hilly, that's excuse number one, excuse number two is that it was also a little bit warmer than optimal. It wasn't hot by any means, but it was warm. 16 degrees Celsius, which is fairly cool, you know, but direct sunlight, pretty strong. So I think probably the course is about a minute slower than a flat course, and the temperatures probably added about 20 seconds to the total time, approximately. So, yeah, I actually ended up running 3945, which I'm very happy about. I'm happy about it because, A, I gave it everything I've got. I could not have gone a second faster, or maybe one second if someone pulled a gun just right before I crossed the finish line or something like that. But honestly, I suffered a lot. I ran my guts out and looking at the pacing, it was perfect. I couldn't have really pasted any better, I think. So we'll get into that. But basically, I gave it everything I got, and I'm very happy with the time. I'm very happy I got below 40 minutes, which was like sort of my beagle. And also, I'm happy because it shows me that my estimations of my own fitness were correct. I am in sub 39 shape on a flat course, probably 3830 or something like that, which sort of confirms that I'm on track with what I'm doing. So that's good. I have been progressing. Obviously, 3830 is a better level of fitness than a 12848 half marathon, which is what I did last September. So that shows me that my winter training, my preparations for this race have been going well, and I have been progressing and improving. It makes me really happy and satisfied. So now I'm just looking forward to the next thing, and I'm going to get back into training after a week of no training now, this current week, just taking a sort of a seasonal break. Anyway, back to the race. So I had a plan in terms of my pacing. I knew that I was going to have to start conservatively and then maybe pick it up towards the end. I fairly quickly though realized that sub 39 was unrealistic, and I was probably going to be fighting for a sub 40, which is what ended up happening. So if we go through the course, I'm just looking at the course and my splits here, the first 500 meters of the race, it's up. It's just up. Okay, so you have to start very carefully. A lot of people just go too hard on that first half kilometer. I knew that from experience. I've run this race once before, not all out though. This was my first 10k all out, but I knew I was going to have to be careful. So even though I averaged 359 for the race, right, I actually ran that first 500 meter in at about 430 per kilometer. So 30 seconds per kilometer slower than my average pace for the race up that first hill, just very careful. But really, that was an optimal way to start. So looking at the profile, it goes up and up and up until about the 5k mark, I guess, or 4k at least, it's net uphill, it's just climbing a lot. My parents and my brother and Thomas were sort of, were waiting around that two kilometer mark and then again, around four kilometers. So that was a sort of bonus for me. I was sort of working my way up that long gradual hill, essentially, that was for those first 4k. Looking at my watch, a little bit worried that the average pace was a little slow, but I knew that because it was, I knew that the hills would slow me down. The second half of the race is much faster. I ended up negative splitting with 30 seconds, meaning I ran the first or the second half, 30 seconds faster than the first half, which I think is optimal in this particular race. If it was a completely flat race, it would probably be better to be a little bit closer to even splits. So maybe running a 15 second negative split, where the second half is 15 seconds faster than the first or something like that. But in this course, with the hills, etc., you could even argue that I could have opened even a little bit more conservatively, perhaps even, and ran even a little bit, been able to sort of increase my pace a little bit more during the second half. And maybe that would even out and it would be the same, just less painful, or it would be faster, could be, but just by a few seconds. I'm pretty certain that this is a fairly optimal pacing strategy for this race. So I just, you know, my splits bearing in mind that I ran 39-45, you'll know that my average pace for that race then is obviously then 358, 359, something like that. And bearing that in mind, this is the kilometer splits for the first 5k. 407, 351, 356, 356, 356. Okay, and 354 is sub 39 pace. 400 is 40 minute pace, obviously. So I was under 40 minute pace for that first half, which sort of tells me that maybe I could have even opened a little bit more conservatively, to be honest, and run even faster. Maybe, maybe it's difficult to say. Anyway, that was good. My heart rate, 195, 197, even touching on 200 on almost every kilometer from the first one, and through the last one. I was peaking at 202. My max target is 205. So again, pretty perfect effort, to be honest, for a 10k, which is a brutal distance, honestly. It's a brutal distance because it's, you know, 5k is faster and harder, but shorter. It's pretty short, right? So you could sort of endure it more easily, whereas half marathon much longer, but very controlled in terms of the intensity. A 10k is just in the middle where it's, it's both long and hard. It's, I think it's honestly one of the worst distances, I think so. So I was in deep suffering mode already after just four kilometers. I, it was hard. And I was thinking, Oh my God, how am I going to even get through this, you know, but I was not going to give up. That was just not an alternative. Throw in some pictures here from, and video maybe from, from the race taken by my parents, my brother and Thomas, feeling free, you know, somewhat fresh, I guess, at this point in the race, two kilometers in, four kilometers in, feeling pretty fresh, but definitely noticing that the intensity was, was hard. I was, I was working hard. But, you know, I settled in, I kept my plan. I ran very steady at this point. Going into the second half, there's a little bit more downhills. It's a net downhill, so it can be a little bit faster, hence the negative split. But there are also some hills there that are pretty rough. My kilometer splits for the second 5k is 405. There's a big hill there in the, in the sixth kilometer, 349, 357, 401, 355. All right. So pretty steady again, a little bit of up and down affecting the pace there. At one point I had a pace of 320 per kilometer, which is a lot faster than my average pace. That was towards the end when I was really, really working hard. I got at around kilometer seven or something like that. I was at a point where I cannot do this anymore. Now I need to quit. Like my brain was telling me to quit. I had negative thoughts. I had doubts. I was like, this isn't possible. I cannot possibly keep this up, let alone increase my effort to, to, to finish strong. How, how is that going to be possible? I chose to just ignore those thoughts, let them be what they are. Just let them be there. Not trying to fight the thoughts, but just letting them be there and telling myself, just be here now. Just focus on this moment and don't think too much about what's left. Just keep working. Just keep working. Don't give up. That's what I did. I didn't give up at all. I didn't have a moment of giving up. I kept pushing and it got extremely hard. I, I, it's the hardest race I've done in my life for sure. It was brutal. But yeah, I got, I got through it. 39-45. Very, very satisfied with that performance. There were a lot of people cheering, but I don't, I don't remember any of them except my, my friends and my, my family of course, but just I didn't, I couldn't pay attention to anything. I couldn't even look for a moment at a spectator. I couldn't, I didn't take in anything. It was just me in a sea of pain and just working on maintaining my mechanics, running well, keeping at it, not giving up and just going, going, going. It was, it was hard. It was hard, but fun in a strange way, right? Like why do we feel like something that hard can be fun? But that's how it is to be a runner. It's fun because it's a good experience to see yourself improving. It's fun to, to participate in such a big race situation where there's a lot of people and there's a lot of good emotions and, and just, it's just for me, it's just, this is what my life is about. So I, I love it. So happy about the race. My coaching clients also ran well and hopefully next year, Thomas maybe will, will also join. Let's see if I'm going to do that race next year. I don't know. I'm kind of hooked on running fast times. So I might want to go for a flatter course the next time, but certainly I am going to do this race again at one point because it's just a big, big race, right? It's, it's a prestigious race in Norway and an important race to do sometimes. Let's wrap it up. I could talk forever about my performance probably and talk about all the details, but you can actually just go in and look on Strava yourself and you'll see my, my written race report and you'll also see all the details, my pacing, my heart rate. It's all there. So there's a link to my Strava profile in the description. Go check that out. Also my Instagram, where I post almost daily. Go follow me there. I'm just very happy to, to, to see progress, to see development, to, to have the opportunity to do this race without being injured. No pain anywhere after the race, except for general soreness. And so that's just, that makes me really satisfied. So thanks for following along. Post a comment down below. Let me know what you think about my race. Any comments? What's on your agenda nowadays? Do you have a race coming up or maybe you just did one? Let me know in the comments how it went or what you're thinking about the next race for you. As for me, I'm thinking marathon. So I'm doing a marathon in October probably and summer is just going to be epic. Base training for a marathon, getting in lots of volume, lots of kilometers. And right now I'm in a seasonal break, as I've mentioned. So next week I'll be starting up slowly building back towards solid marathon base. All right. Thanks for watching. Subscribe if you haven't done so already. Follow me on various platforms, links in the description. And of course, if you're interested in coaching, I'm always happy to help. So thanks for watching. Have a nice day. Bye.