Stockholm Halvmarathon '09

The one obligatory half-marathon for 2009 is now behind and the feelings are quite mixed. On one hand the entire trip to Stockholm was great and the run was good. But on the other hand I missed my target time by 21 seconds. It may seem like nothing when we're talking about a 21 kilometer run, but it's annoyingly close. Had the difference been many minutes, that would've been easier. Now I can't help but start thinking that had I in fact been just a bit faster at the drinking stops I would've been able to go under two hours. But oh well, such is life. And here's some statistics about the run (from the HR monitor, so the time is slightly different):

• Duration: 2 hours, 0 minutes, 28 seconds
• HR (average): 179
• HR (peak): 187
• Energy: 2553 kcal

And then the times that the organizers recorded for me:

Distance	Total time	Lap time	Pace
5km	0.27.17	27.17	5.27/km
10km	0.54.52	27.34	5.30/km
15km	1.23.42	28.50	5.46/km
20km	1.53.56	30.13	6.02/km
Finish	2.00.21	6.24	5.50/km

Overall it's somewhat difficult for me to analyze what the issues were. I guess one thing that can be derived from the numbers is that I started faster again and then slowed down towards the end instead of being able to run with an increasing speed. But then again, there was only one point in the run when I actually felt really tired and that was around the 18km mark (the 17-18km part took me 6:18.7, according to my own measurements). Besides that, the run was quite decent, but I couldn't have gone any faster. So in this respect I'm somewhat satisfied with my run. Next time the target time is 1.55.00...