Posbankloop – Race recap

And I am back with another race recap! Just over a week ago I participated in the Posbankloop, a tough race. The official course is 15k and it’s known to be very hard. They also have a 6k route, which I did. The course goes uphill for the first half, ending in a, for the Netherlands, nasty hill: 650 upwards with an average incline of 7%. From then it is mainly downhill to the finish. It is a beautiful course, with a big part going through the forest.

At first I did not want to participate, because it is 20% longer than what I train for and I do not practice a lot of hills, even though I should. But after going on a 9k (!) training run with a few friends they convinced me to sign up. I decided just to participate for fun and see what would happen.

After warming up my trusty race buddy and me were all excited to get going:

Lining up at the start:

It really was a hard course. Because we were going uphill, though almost unnoticeably, it was hard to find your rhythm and I kept wondering why I was feeling so out of breath already.
Going up that horrible hill. Really it was like being in hell, man it was tough!

That hill was also a race on its own. It was timed separately and there were prices for the fastest people on just that hill. I did the 650m in 3.57min. At least it was faster than walking. After this, it was downhill and I was able to catch my breath a bit. To my surprise the Boyfriend and my brother showed up right after the evil hill to support me. They then raced back to the finish to encourage me there.

Almost there:

 

My finish shot. I was looking so angry! I remember feeling only determination. I put on my serious face, made wrists with my hands and just kept running repeating a mantra: must pass the old lady. must pass the old lady. There was a grey-haired lady running in front of me and I gave it all to pass her, and I did!

 

My time was 38.47 min. I aimed for a sub 40min race, so goal accomplished! I am very proud of this achievement, I couldn’t have done better that day. I spread my energy across the course and finished going all out. AND it was my longest race ever!

I did this race just 2 weeks after the last one, that was also a reason why I didn’t want to do it at first. But I am glad I did. I already signed up for my next race on October 31th, and it’s going to be special. So stay tuned !

I want to change the format of my blog a little bit. I would really like to post more about day to day stuff going on and I am currently figuring out how to do that, because nowhere in the world am I going to have the time to do this the way I would most like to do that.

Ok, I am off I have two birthdays to attend tonight and I still need to have dinner. Bye!