Cursa del Poble Nou - 10k

After running through many different landscapes the last two months we are back to the streets of Barcelona. After a bit more than one week of more serious training a first 10k to kicks things of with and try and see how much speed I lost in the holidays. The pre-race was far from ideal, coming home very late and waking up very early after a busy day yesterday, but around 8h45 I started my warmup. It was very warm, so soon I was sweating quite a lot without really putting any effort in yet. After a really last minute visit to the toilet I found myself a place in the front pack and at 9h30 we start our run. The first hundred meters were a bit restless, with some people crossing in front and some pushing but from than on we had space to run comfortably. I did not see the first and second kilometer mark so to my surprise I passed the 3k marker in 12m00! I seemed to be running at much slower pace than I thought! The next kilometers went by somewhat faster in between 3m50 and 3m55, but after the halfway mark I felt that I would have a struggle to finish inside the 40 minutes today. It was very warm and I really had to focus to keep a reasonable pace. After kilometer 6 we run in the shadow for more than a kilometer and I feel some better. The last 3k the course has a lot of turns which does not help to keep pace. I pass the 9k marker with more than 4 minutes left to stay below 40 minutes. I try to run faster but I feel my hamstrings complain and preferred to not risk any injuries since next week I wanted to run another 10k. After all I finished in 39m57 and after measuring the course on the internet it seemed to be longer than 10k, but anyway, there is a lot of training to be done if I want to break the 37 minutes barrier this season!