Changes in Latitudes

Today I revisited the race which was my first half marathon. One of the races that started it all. I was there for two things: get a new PR on the course and become a Fjord Viking. Marius dropped me off and we took a quick look at the sports expo (not super impressive), and then I rushed outside to start warming up. We were really lucky with blue sky and warm temps...well sorta lucky. I really don't like running in the heat because I need more water. More water stops = slower finish. Marius cheered me on at the start and then had to go because he has a soccer game today too. Between the 4th and 5th kilometer, I saw Marius' car driving towards me with the sunroof open and he was holding a little American flag out of the roof of his car. I got a good kick of adrenaline then, but then I was really starting to struggle. Bigger races have more runners, which also usually means more people cheering. It's amazing how much cheering pumps you up when you're racing. So I...

March 29th was the half-marathon in Madrid that I got from Marius for Christmas. It was my fourth half-marathon and I trained a solid 15 weeks to earn a new personal record. Prior to this race, my personal record was 1:47, set in Lisbon in March 2013...I was around 30 seconds shy last year when I ran in Bergen coming in at 1:48 - I forgot the exact seconds. We had a few days in Madrid before the race, but I will write about those later when I can get the pictures from Marius' camera. The course looped the northern part of the city and finished in a very nice park. There were nearly 17,000 runners, and I definitely blended in with the crowd. Marius was much easier to spot with his blond hair. Even though I wore my American flag shorts, there were so many people that it would have been difficult for Marius to spot me through the crowd. So I encouraged him to do his workout and keep an eye out for me at 10:45am.  The course was not flat, like I had thought it would be. Rathe...