First race in a long time and I've never done this one before.
On the way up with Steve, we discussed the course and made a note of the
hill after the lake. It looked pretty steep.
We got there seriously early, as the motorway was empty and were parked up efficiently
by a multitude of officials in yellow vests with walkie talkies. Took around 20
seconds to swap our letters for the dossards with micro chip so we then had
nearly 2 hours to kill in Kerzers. So we checked out where to leave the bags,
where to shower, the start and finish and so on. The we dumped the bags and
split up. I went for a run then found a warm up party with a bloke gobbing off
on microphone in German with two girls behind him on the stage trying to lead a
basket ball pitch full of people in a warm up routine. It was entertaining
enough and ran down the time to race start.
I made my way to the start and was pleasantly surprised to find my section
(section F) had magically moved from half way down the road to nearly at the
start. I jumped the barrier and made my home in the middle of the section. The
guy holding the giant F checked that I did indeed have an F on my dossard.
12 minutes to go to my start time and it went quickly as every few minutes
they set another section off and we shuffled nearer and near to the start until
it was our turn.
The gun fired and we were off. Too slow - I knew it was too slow straight
away. I weaved my way through the field but even with the staggered start it
was a pain. Then a slight hill and the lady next to me groaned in frustration
at the "runners" slowing down for the incline - they should not have
been in section F.
Picked it up and moved through more and more and then it was finally a bit
more strung out after the 2nd km. At km 3 my race changed. I heard a guy
puffing behind me and then he overtook strongly. Bald head and orange Lausanne
2011 finisher top on. He became my pace maker. We ran side by side all the way
to the hill at 9km. Over taking together, sometimes me slightly ahead sometimes
him. I noticed it was a pace much faster than I intended, but I felt fine and
was enjoying the race so went with it.
It got harder to overtake by the lake, but it was very pretty if narrow and
he went low and I nipped past people by going off piste between the trees.
I spoke to him when a photographer took a snap of us side by side, but he didn’t
speak French, so that was that. I gelled up as we hit the big hill.
I felt the perceived effort sky rocket and decided almost immediately that
this hill was one for walking up. So I did. I over took many people attempting
to run up as I could walk faster than they could run. My pacer pulled away as
he could run up the hill properly.
At the top he was some 200m ahead and I figured I had time to get him. Went
though 10km in 43:10. Started picking people off and noticed that my pacer was
no longer overtaking people, but I was. Took it steady and controlled and let
the gel work its way into my system.
At the 13km sign we drew level. I loved the look on his face. Side by side
until the 14km marker. Neither of us made a move and then I did. Ratchet one.
Less than four minutes to the line I'm thinking I can do this km very quickly.
He matched and adds his own ratchet I match and hold his pace. Now I think
twice around the track, go! I kick hard and he does not follow. I see a 500m
sign next and kick again. I'm running on air and way past the red line. 200m
and the crowd is massive and noisy and I can see the finish. I'm going as fast
as I can and I feel like I am floating in the air as I fly past whole groups of
runners. Over the line and I look back, my pacer finisher about 20 places
behind me.
Collected my bag which contained a rather nice towel. I added apples,
carrots (yes carrots) and bananas. The Rivella was very welcome too. Got
quickly back to the sports hall for a shower (only waited a couple of minutes)
and then went outside to jog and stretch.
Checked the splits on the Garmin and was very pleased. I'd been hoping for
1h 10m and to come in with a time of 1h 3mins was just brilliant. I averaged
6:47 min miles so all in all, super pleased.
Found Steve and was glad to hear his leg had held up and so we treated
ourselves to some cakes. I had an amazing heavy sponge with custard icing.
Garmin
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