2017 is already 16 days old and so far it has been awesome! :)
In the first second of the new year, the New Year's Marathon Zurich was started, where I participated in the half marathon this year. It was quite cold, around -3C but at least it was dry, no rain, no snow, no ice, just some fog. Since I had some good results in the last few years (it was already the fifth year in a row that I was participating!), I was allowed to start in the special elite area at the front of the start line. That was really convenient because the toilet queue was so long that I would have had a really bad start place otherwise... ;)
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! Instead of toasting - we did that two hours later tough - we ran. I did the first 500m quite fast to get out of the biggest mess and then settled for a pace around 4:20mins/km. That was my goal pace and felt quite good. I was able to run the first round smoothly, always checking my pace. The cold air was hurting a little bit but otherwise I felt good. Since I did so many training runs with my headlamp lately, I felt at ease in the darkness.
After the first half, we came through the finish area which was a nice boost. I had no idea in which position I was racing. I knew there were a few girls in front of me but I was not sure if they were doing the 10k or the half marathon or even the marathon race. They seemed to be a lot faster than me so I thought maybe, just maybe, they were 10k runners and I was actually in the lead.
Before I could dwell on that thought for too long I started feeling my legs. I had already started the race with sore legs. Well, hiking 21k with a lot of ups and downs the day before the race was probably not the smartest idea... but hey, I had a visitor from Denmark, so I had to show her the Swiss mountains, no?! :)
On the second round I tried hard to keep up the pace. I tried to run as fast as I possibly could for every step. However, looking at the times later, I lost around 1.5mins on the second half. That's for a negative split. Whatever.
In the end I crossed the finish line after 1:34:05 as the first female, which was not only a new personal best time for me but also the official IAAF worldwide fastest half marathon performance for 2017! Well, at least for one day I was 2017's fastest girl on 21.1k, then my time got crashed by some professional runners in China ;)
I was super happy about my race. There could not have been a better start for 2017! Although my time could have been faster, all things considered (night time, the cold, my sore legs) I think I am on a pretty good way to Transgrancanaria 125k on 24 February! 6 weeks to go, yay!
