Running race 38:29 [4] 7.8 km (4:56 / km) +400m 3:56 / km
Gempenlauf - 6th place women 20 and 13th place overall women.
Not my best race. Started out fast (maybe too fast?) without crossing the lactate threshold and felt ok until 1.5 km. I started to feel a side stitch comming, and at 2 km I had to slow down due to the pain. Therefore I just had to let the group I was in run away and the next 3-4 km I had to let a lot of people catch up with me and run past me. At around 5 km we got some refreshments and up the next hill the side stitch faded away and I finally was able to start pushing again instead of just running on a pace which kept my side stitch on an ok pain level. So I gradually increased my speed, and I could overtake a lot of people which had past me the previous kilometers. After the town of Gempen I really started pushing and with only 1 km to go I was sure to make it, but I pushed too hard that last steep hill. And when the sign of 500m to go came I though it would be only 200m. Without knowing how I could possible run 500m more and with high lactate levels I focused on putting one leg infront of the other and somehow made it over the finnish line.
A bit of a strange race with 2km in good speed in the beginng than 5 km balancing the side stitch with the pace, before I in the end ran 1 km in ok pace and the last 1km in overspeed. So eventhough the biggest part of the race was in a lower pace, I still felt totally out of breath and almost sick when I crossed the finnish line. So all in all a good training, but with 2:30 min behind the best women, I will have to come back next year in order to run a good time.