Karmøy Maraton Weekend
|
29 November 2020
This weekend finds me in Haugesund, famous as the burial place of Kong Harald Haarfagre, the king who unified the kingdom of Norway back in the 10th century. I came to run my one and only marathon of the year, the Karmøy Maraton, circumnavigating a nearby island. Fittingly, the finisher's medal and t-shirt feature a picture of a virus. I rode the bus down Friday from Bergen, a 3 hour journey which was nicely broken up by a ferry ride in the middle. I also received word that after two years and prior rejection the Norwegian government has finally accepted the divorce petition making me a legally single man!
Race morning started off at the hotel breakfast with other runners who had come from out of town for the marathon. Because it was limited to 200 runners and only 133 signed up, the race started at 10 AM and we were able to run in daylight. I would've actually preferred the half, but that one had filled up before I discovered it. Not having done alot of running this Fall I had some trepidation about attempting a marathon, however last weekend's 25K run convinced me that I could probably handle 42. Still, it would be a test.
I started off at roughly a 6 min per kilometer pace which I knew I could maintain for a long time without any lactic acid buildup in my leg muscles. For a good part of this I ran alongside a man named Kjetil. A few years older than me he was up from Stavanger running his very first marathon, and ended up leaving me behind when he decided to speed up around 18 km. He ended up finishing in 4 hours, so kudos to him! The road around the island had a paved path, the Karmøyrunden, for most of the way, but there was some watching for cars in the parts where path and road merged. I maintained my pace for nearly 20 km before dropping to around 7 min per kilometer until I hit the wall around 30 km. At that point my legs mutinied, and I was forced to mix walking and running while stopping to stretch every kilometer. Squatting like a frog seemed to be the most useful stretch to get me going again. Those last few kilometers were just a test in enduring pain, and I finished at 5:22:07. This is more than a half hour behind my best time three Novembers ago in 2017, but faster that either of my marathon splits in the ultras I did last year.
Yestereve saw me bussing back to Haugesund to grab a pizza and a flick: Druk (Norwegian subtitled as Et Glass Til). It was a film very set in Scandinavia which gave a theatrical exposition of the positive and negative effects of alcohol. Having my own mixed relationship with the substance I thoroughly enjoyed it. None of the evening's activities could completely distract me from the pain of my legs - man, they were sore!
The best way I've found to get past soreness the next day is a recovery run. This is an easy 5 km or less in the morning mostly at a slow pace to start, but mixing in a little sprinting if possible on the way back. Since king Harald's grave mound was roughly 2 km from my hotel, this I took on as a goal. Two blocks into the run I almost turned back from the pain, but I was able to remind myself of the necessity and power through it. Now after second breakfast and a shower my legs are thanking me for it, feeling limber rather than stiff. I'm going to catch up on some work now while I wait for the bus back to Bergen.
