My first ultra

So, finally the day had come. The day when I was going to break the 42, 195 m barrier by forcing myself to go 7805 m longer to finish Sörmlands Ultra Marathon (SUM), which also happened to be this year´s swedish championships in trail running.

My weekend in Stockholm started with a short flight from Ronneby, everything went really smooth for once, no cancelled flights, no delays and no lost bags, thanks for that SAS :) 10 pm I arrived at Stockholm central, and got picked up by two of my favourite runners and friends, Michael and Daniel, who I spent many hours with during my time in Lund forcing myself to the limit during our hard intervalls. They were basically the ones getting me into running from the start, 3 years ago. We got into bed around 1 am, and I had some problems falling asleep at first, which is not very normal for me....but what else was normal about this weekend...

With a big bowl of porridge and a mars chocholate bar filling up my stomach, I started the race at 10 am together with 63 men and 13 women in different ages. I forced myself to start off really slow and found a group of runners keeping the same pace...reaching the 10K marker after 44:30 scared me, maybe I had started too fast...my goal was to get to the finish line within 4 hours, but not at any expense, the most important thing was to finish. I slowed down a little bit, but everything felt good. Soon after that the trails got really technical and hard to run...a lot of roots and rocks and steep climbs now and then. The runners I had followed so far, were simply quicker than me on this trail, and I had to let some of them go. I told myself that patience and moderate pace was more important than trying to keep up with them, hurting myself in the process.

After 15km I tripped on a root for the first time, and hit the ground pretty hard, my left big toe started to ache after the fall, but I soon forgot about that. The surroundings were very nice, and looking at the nature was a great way to keep my mind on something else than my legs, which now began to feel heavy. I found a guy who kept a pretty good pace, and I followed him up until 30 km, passing half way (25km) after 1.53. Now my legs were really starting to protest...Michael and Daniel met me after 32km, which was great, because I needed some cheering and company. They stayed with me until 37km, and I had 4 runners in sight in front of me. Just when I was about to pass them, the trail got more technical again, which made me slow down again, loosing the good pace I had kept for the last half hour.

I lost my concentration two times during the following 20 min, resulting in pretty nasty falls, one of them leaving a big pain in my biceps...it still hurts. The tricky trail up until 45km was the hardest part of the whole race...I had to take one step at a time, keeping my eyes on the trail at all times...last water station was at 47 km, and I quickly swallowed a cup of Coke. I tried to enjoy the last 3 km as much as my extremely sore legs allowed me. Crossing the finish line in 9th place felt really great. And I had managed to get there in 3.51.43. Almost unable to walk to the shower, I was met by Micke and Daniel again. I was very glad to see them, after having been alone in the forest for 1.5 hours.

Micke and I spent the rest of the day eating Ethiopian food, which was excellent, and watching Rugby in O´Learys...I slept really good when we got home.

It was great breaking the mental barrier of marathon being the longest distance I could do. Now I know that once I decide to do something, I can do it, no matter how hard it seems from the start. 3 years ago I had never run longer than 10 km, now I have done 50 km. Who knows what I will be doing three years from now...