Cursa de la Mercè 2013 - 10k

The second race of the new Challenge season, the first for me, with still sore legs of the first speed training we arrived nicely on time at Plaça Espanya this grey and humid sunday morning. My daughter Emma and I started our warmup while Jordi and my wife Montse looked for a place near the finishline.
Emma needed less warming up than I did and about 10 minutes for the start I went to the red box while she more or less stayed were we warmed up since she had no official time yet for a 10k and then you start in the last group.

During the warmup I already felt that I would have to take it easy today. So when we were shot away I deliberately held back on my pace and the first 2k went by just within 3m50 pace. Onto the 5k marker I lost some time on the 38 minutes schedule already and passed in 19m20. From there onwards I just tried to run as relaxed as possible and in the end I finished in 40m05, which is quite ok judging the way I felt and without sprinting. Montse and Jordi waited just beyond the finish line to take a picture of me with the job already done.

Meanwhile Emma was still running. Since 17000 runners signed up for this race, it took here quite a while to cross the start line and start her race. The first 5k went very well in 30 minutes. From there on she took it more easy to finish in 1h07m which is a great time for here first 10k, without any training at all!!!  I could not get a clear shot at here near the finish, but the big smile on the fotos after the finish say it all!!!