Sunday, 18 January 2026

La Mitja de Granollers - 21km

On the 29th of January, the day after the race in Castelldefels I made a wrong move training in the gym and injured my lower back. The day after I had an appointment with a Physiotherapist at KINEA, so instead of doing leg work we fully focused on the lower back. With a list of exercises to do every day and no running for what I expected to be at least a month my first concern was to at least be able to travel for work on the 12th of January.  The first week all movement was complicated and a week later at the PT and more release massage on the whole of my back the PT suggested to try some running to see if the body would tolerate that counting on muscle memory. So the next day I went to the gym to do an easy upper workout and then tried to run one kilometer. It was very uncomfortable, but at least I could finish 1k. Two days after I repeated and this time it was slightly more easy to finish 1k. The week after I did some slightly long runs of around 4k with some strength training in between and eventhough I was not at all sure I could run on sunday I did pick up my bib number for the half marathon of Granollers on saturday.


Back home I went to the gym to try and run 3k on the treadmill at a normal pace, and much to my surprise that went very well. So I decided to try for the impossible and go and run 21km.

The weather forecast was not too good, predicting rain througout the morning. On saturday it already had been raining very hard, so hopefully it was just less rain than the day before.

When I arrived and parked my car it was already raining, so I was happy to have taken with me full gear for bad weather.


I walked to the sports center where we could drop of a bag and changed into my running gear, more or less dressed as I would do for an ultra. 


Some people in spite of the cold and rain still went out in minimal clothing, but I did not want to risk catching a cold today.


Just about when I arrived at the door to see if it was still raining it seemed to have stopped so I left for a a short warmup run. It soon started raining again, and it didn't seem to be stopping soon. I went to the starting area and around 10h30 am we started our run.


My plan was to first just go slow and see what pace that would be. After the first very crowded kilometers it seemed like a good pace was around 5m15, which maybe would allow a sub 2h time. I passed the first 5k in 26m21 and I was just mainly trying to go easy and avoid the puddles that were every where. Slowly we left Granollers on our way to La Garriga where we would turn around and go the same way back. Around 7km the front runners came by already heading back to Granollers. Meanwhile I was battling the short uphill stretches before reaching that town and passed the 10k marker in 54m13 already running 5m30 pace. 

finished

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