Ever been chased by a Viking horde??

Probably the most “fun race” I’ve ever done was the Peachtree 10k road race every year through the middle of Atlanta on the morning of the 4^th of July.  The whole city gets behind it and by sunrise, the streets are lined with people cheering, bands playing music and kids waving little flags.

Last Saturday I ran in the equivalent race here in Stockholm – my coworkers were telling me about this from the day I showed up here.  And while I don’t think people were camping out at sunrise – that was only because the first heat of runners took off at 930pm that night.

Showing up at the race, there were A LOT of people (30,000 runners I think?), all wearing the same blue race shirt (mandatory).  They were also all REALLY ready for this race – I’ve never seen so much running in circles and stretching.  For some reason, my boss and I are in the third group – the first group after the semi-pros!  I look around and realize that I am surrounded by
tall, Swedish dudes ready to get after it.  Naturally, my boss pulls me to the front of our section, and we get ready to go.

They start everything off with a short speech and then everyone raises their hands in an oath.  Seeing 30,000 blond haired hands rise up at once was a little disconcerting, and being all in Swedish didn’t help my mood.  My boss explained that everyone promised to run nicely and not trip or jab elbows at others – which made me feel better.  He then explained that they also issued a warning not to die on “the hill” – which did NOT make me feel better.

Then we were off!

My goal at the beginning of the race was 1) don’t get run over and 2) beat my boss.  After the first 200 meters, I was pretty confident that I was going to strike out on this one.

I had quickly started weaving my way to the right (e.g. slower) side of the course, and was keeping a good pace for a little bit.  Then I made a mistake to look behind me and saw the crush of Vikings coming at me – really, really quickly.  I have run in a good number of races before, and (mostly because I sneak in or haven’t trained), I am usually in the back of the race to start and slowly pass a few folks as I go.  This was the first time that I remember getting passed consistently, and it was not fun – it really felt like I was standing still.  Especially once I realized that everyone in my heat had already passed me, and the second (or third) wave was upon me.  Not a good way to go.

The saving grace was that the race weaved through the “hipster” part of Stockholm, and the neighborhood was out in force.  For the first few kilometers (one of the weirdest parts of the race that the 10k was actually marked out by kilometers, not miles like in the US), there were a few fun bands and a good amount of people cheering us on.  Once I hit the “hill”, which was basically a half a kilometer straight up a mountain, it really got nuts with light shows, huge gospel choirs (at the top of the hill was a good halleluiah moment) and once we got to the bar areas, a LOT of happy drunk hipsters.

As we wound our way through the island I realized that I had literally never felt worse during a race.  I think it was because of the previously mentioned “getting constantly passed” thing, but I really felt that I was going to be caught by coworkers that started 20 minutes after myself.  The fear of facing these folks on Monday morning kept me going and eventually I found myself close to the finish line. 

At the end of the line they hand out some fun medals to everyone, and quickly hustle you through the line.  After grabbing my bananas, granola bars and water, I started making it over to the Ericsson tent.  Along the way I realized that I needed more water, and saw a table coming up to refill quickly.  As I got closer I saw runners moving away from the table with their paper cups, but I didn’t see the row of cups that were on previous tables.  I then noticed the big dispensers on the table and  by the time I saw the little creamers and stirrers, I was disgusted – the Swedes were passing out post-race coffees at 11pm.  I know that I shouldn’t be surprised anymore about Swedish coffee-love, but that was too much for me.  (Although, I did grab a beer 15 minutes later hanging out at our meeting spot, so I’m not sure that was much better).

Also, due to the late-night aspect, they had a huge costume-runner section.  And they had a big dance party in the pavilion after the race - weird, but fun.  

As all of my coworkers were leaving that night, we actually found out our times, and I was shockingly pleased with mine – but the best part was the application on the website that we found on Monday.  If you click on the link and enter “ferland, jonathan” and press play you can watch me run around the course (I’d recommend increasing the speed to 48 – 96x).  If you really want to have fun, add in “lama, ababa”, who was the race winner.  I think our work spent a solid 2 hours playing with this that Monday.  

http://results.midnattsloppet.com/2012/stockholm/?pid=tracking&lang=SE

All in all, I am “pro” late night races – it was a fun atmosphere and definitely unique.  The major negative is that it makes you not want to do anything during the day before, so you don’t get tired out, and then you don’t want to do anything the next day because you went to bed right afterwards and your legs hate you.  And while my time was better than I was expecting, I don’t see myself doing another race again very soon – being chased by hyped-up Swedes is not something I want to make a habit of.