Part two of my stupidly planned two post-Ironman races was on Sunday in Oppenheim. It is part of the Wingertscup, and I wanted to run it as a back up race, in case I am injured, ill or busy for one of the last two races of the year ( I need 4 results from the 6 races to be in the final leaderboard) In the morning I was in Worms supporting Katja in her half marathon, where she ran a big 5 minute PB and won her age group too! We waited after the race until she got her prizes, then had to quickly leave to get to my race for 15:30. I had put the 'address' into google maps and 'Turnacker' came up with an address somewhere not far from the station in Oppenheim, on the Rhein side. We got to the station at 14:50 and went to the Turnacker, except that wasn't where the race was. After some descriptive chat about where the run is, we were told that it is on the other side of town. It was 15:10 at this point and Katja's legs were tightening up nicely!
She couldn't run up the steep hill and stairs, so I decided to go on up the hill to the race alone, though it was a forlorn effort given that it was 15:20 by the time we got back to the station. I went as fast as I could and found a restaurant with some people parking. I asked if a race was being, or had been, held there? They said there was, but pointed me towards some trees, apparently I had to go through the forest to get to the run. I arrived at the start sweating like a pig at 15:28, but as so many people had had problems finding it, they had moved the start to 16:00! Lucky me!
The route was a bit unclear, even though they had drawn a nice map!
I had seen that the guy that always wins was there, along with the guy who was 1 place behind me in Wallertheim (the challenger). After a name call of every runner on the start line, we eventually started at about 16:10. Immediately 3 people went ahead, but that was all, the fastest, the challenger, and a girl. The girl fell off the pace after about 800m, leaving 2 ahead of me. They were running together about 5m ahead of me. I felt in control and was hoping that the challenger would over-do it trying to get away from me, and blow near the end. Just after the first lap, they started to edge away from me, I couldn't do much about it.
At the turn on the 2nd loop, I saw that 4th place was actually only about 50m behind me, so 3rd wasn't in the bag yet. At the turn on the 3rd and final loop he was maybe 15m further back, and 1st and 2nd were well gone, so I thought 3rd was mine barring a blow up. I didn't blow up, and cruised in 3rd place in 40:07.
My heart rate was sky high again, I think my body really needs a break after the ironman. I can't usually run a 10k with a 181bpm average, but I did it today! I am happy I did the race, for 4€ I got 3rd place, a medal and a bottle of wine, so I can't complain! I can complain about waiting over an hour and a half for the awards though! I actually had to leave just before they finally got to doing the podium, otherwise I would be stuck there for an hour before my next train arrived.
Now I will take at least a week off, then a week or two of just very easy running, then I will try to pick it up a bit. I want to get some form going for Zornheim in late October, and really be on it for Ebersheim to try for the win.
Zornheim should be my next post in the blog, unless someone persuades me to do some stupid run in the meantime!
Have a good one!