7th September
The Big Day
The culmination of three months of training, and the planning of our South to North journey across Europe. It was bound to have its thrills and spills – indeed, it had plenty of both. The railways in Germany and Sweden were a challenge (wholly expected), and seeing Uli and Senta was thrilling.
After the race, we will face further thrills and spills, but just now, we face the biggest challenge – the 21.1 km run around Stockholm.
We had carefully planned our morning to eat and drink proper and timely nutrition before the race. However Chris’s sleep suffered from poorly-closing curtains, with light from across the alleyway shining in his face, making for a disturbed night.
We delayed the boat trip by an hour so that Chris could catch some shut-eye. Unfortunately the boat trip set off late, which meant we were short of time to get ready and eat something appropriate before the race.
Our Royal Canal boat tour was a lovely distraction, both physically and mentally. The sky was blue, sunshine glinting in the choppy waves, and it was deliciously warm. Chris experienced this beautiful city from the water, learnt some history (both of the city and of his dad’s past life here) and enjoyed the late summer sunshine. It certainly whetted his appetite for a longer visit in the future.
Our pre-race nutrition now consisted of a late banana and protein bar snack each, with orange juice.
Lynne and Peter had ventured out while Chris caught up on some sleep, trying to establish how best to get at our starting group corral. According to the plans, we needed to go in a long circle and approach via the official entry gates. However, we wanted to enter just 100m up the road from our hotel. Attendants gave us conflicting answers, so we left our hotel in good time to make sure. Of course we just slipped in to Chris’ corral by the hotel, and so had 40-50 minutes to wait. The queues for the toilets wound round the corral.
Chris was anxious, as his recent work and travel schedule had prevented him training sufficiently, and he had also had a poor night’s sleep. Lynne was scheduling when to take paracetamol and ibuprofen for her sore ribs, concerned that she wouldn’t be able to finish at all! The race had cut-off times for slower runners at 12km, 17km and in the last kilometre, after which participants would not be allowed to continue.
Her confidence took a further knock when it was too painful to put on her socks by herself. Peter was also rueing that we had added unnecessary pressure on ourselves by the week’s travelling together with carrying a heavy rucksack.
The loudspeakers announced that there were 16,500 runners. They were organised in groups, or corrals, the fastest passing the start line first, and the slowest last. Chris was in a mid group, while we were two groups behind. Comfortingly, there were a further two groups after ours.
The start was well-organised, with blue and yellow fireworks set off from Strömbron bridge where the start line was. Our start group left 10 minutes after Chris’, but seemed to be pushing ahead a bit fast for us. With so many runners, it’s difficult to strike a slower pace, so we went faster than we had planned for the first 5km.
We ran together for the first 10km, but Lynne was struggling to run efficiently with her sore ribs and encouraged Peter to press ahead regardless.
There is an academic study which has determined that after the age of 40, a runner’s speed reduces by 1% compound per annum. As we were near the rear, we had less time to make the race cut-off times. This spurred Lynne on, who wanted to finish even though it wouldn’t be pretty.
She was complimented several times on her flowery running outfit; surprisingly by one passing runner who actually designed it, sporting something similar in red!
The vibe was great; lots of music, people cheering encouragement and great service at the refreshment stations, although we tried to avoid the water showers. This was normal running temperature for us in the South of France! The city was beautiful, with the Royal Palace, the grand Parliament building, the Royal Opera House, the Grand Hotel and Stadshuset, City Hall and of course, the waterfront.
We all three met up at the finish line, where Chris posted a brilliant time of 1 hour 47 minutes (he was aiming for 1 hour 50 minutes), while we arrived within 7 minutes of each other, in Lynne’s case a full hour after Chris. But she didn’t miss the cut-off times and we all felt exhilarated to have done it. Lynne and Peter more so when we factored in the 1% formula, which meant we attained equivalent times to a younger person of 2 hours 9 minutes and 2 hours 2 minutes!
It was then that Chris was notified by email that his midday return flight the following day was cancelled. British Airways had moved him to an early morning flight on Tuesday. What a disaster! Even an early morning flight on Monday would make him miss some important client meetings, so poor Chris had to shell out for a very early morning flight with Norwegian to Gatwick, leaving the hotel at 5.45am. So BA had shortened his 60 hours’ stay in Stockholm to a mere 34 hours!
Peter had booked dinner at the Grodan Brasserie at the Opera House for 8.30 pm, so that involved quite a rush to freshen up and get there. This was compounded by the barricades for the race not yet being dismantled, blocking entry to the restaurant. Grodan (Swedish for “the Frog”,) was cavernous and beautifully ornate, and we were the only diners! It had been completely full shortly before we arrived by opera-goers, that were now attending a performance, above us.
The food was excellent, the crémant and Pinot noir delicious. We were regaled with stories of escapades in London by our rather imposing but friendly sommelier. An early night followed as Chris had to arise before dawn for his earlier flight home.
Chris’ frustrations with his aggravated short stay in Stockholm were mitigated by his excitement about the race and his successful race time. What can he achieve next time, with more sleep, keeping to a training programme and less travel tribulations?
Lynne and Peter were pleased just to finish, although both of them were disappointed that the they were not in as good a shape as a week earlier. Lessons carefully logged for next time.
Well done The Eds.
Makes the rest of the family look lazy!!
Congratulations, dear Lynne and Peter! Only now do we get round to appreciating your really colossal achievement. It really sounds dramatic, and in spite of little hiccups you should, you just have to be immensely proud!!! We also loved the dining scene wth the adventurous sommelier and the fugitive opera clients, it’s like a 70s Truffault film. Now do relax and be pleased with your triumphs – hey, and hello to young Chris, too! Yours ever so proud Uli&Senta
Well done all of you, fantastic achievements! 💪🏼🎉👏👏