23 May 2011

My Experience of Copenhagen Marathon!!

I finished Copenhagen Marathon in 4 hours, 43 minutes and 33 seconds!!!



First I want to say that I had a fantastic first marathon!! I enjoyed it very much and would gladly repeat the experience again :-)

I arrived at the start area at 8.50am on the morning of Sunday 22nd May 2011. The atmosphere was already charged with nervous energy.

After a quick trip to a friends home to borrow the toilet, (the queues for the ones in the start area were REALLY long), I found the 4:30 pacesetters and lined up with them.

The weather seemed to be a bit of everything. There was sun, rain, clouds and wind but it was actually quite pleasant to run in :-)

At 9.30am the first runners set off on their marathon. I, on the other hand, still had a 15 minute wait to pass the start line. As usual the pacesetters went off way to fast so I decided to ignore them and run my own pace of around 6:20.


When I reached Rådhuspladsen (the town hall) at 2k Lena from Running Copenhagen Sightseeing Tours was there to cheer me on with some others and also the Running Copenhagen car. I was running in one of their BRIGHT orange T-shirts so it was easy to spot me :-)

I then headed off towards Nørreport and Østerport train stations and then on into Østerbro itself. After this I was running in Nørrebro where there were some fantastic people cheering us all on :-)


Then it was back into the city and up towards Enghave. Around 12 it started raining but didn't last long so it just cooled me down a bit. I did have to take my name off my top though as the ink had started to run and was going everywhere.

Once at Enghave I had run 20k and was still going strong and trying to keep my pace somewhere around 6:30.

At the drinking stations I was either having one energy gel with some water and one energy drink, or just having an energy drink. I took a lot of my gels in the first part of the race because I knew it was important to take them before you get into trouble.



At 23k we started doing my favourite bit of the course which I have trained alot. This was from Fisketorvet, through Nyhavn and all the way along the water front to Kastellet.

At Amelienborg Slot, which was 26.5k into the marathon, my wonderful husband and my two boys were waiting for me :-)
My husband said I looked so fresh compared to many other runners that had come past them!
I then gave them all a kiss and carried on my way!

After the 28k point I found I had to concentrate more on my running and breathing. I decided to use a strategy that I had read about in my training book.

This I started to use at 30k. I told myself that I was now starting a 10k race! I knew if I could get to 40k where my 8 year old son was waiting to 'run me in' then I would finish no problem. So the next two water stops were at ca. 3.6k and 8.2k in my mind and my son was at the finish line that just happened to say 40k on it :-)

This worked SO well and I am in no doubt that using this idea made the final 12k so much easier for me.




At 40k my son joined me and we had a gentle run up to just past the 42k mark. Here a VERY mean official told me that my son wasn't allowed to cross the line with me even though it was only 100 metres away! Not impressed!!

Anyway my son stood over by the side and, because I wanted to get back to him as quick as I could, I sprinted the last 100 metres as fast as I possibly could :-)
I must have looked very strange!
I got my medal, went back to my son and we spent the next half hour eating and drinking.

What happens now this project is finished? I'm, of course, already deciding which marathon to run next!!!

10 comments:

  1. Hi Lynne,
    Got a chance to view results on a real computer here finally....you did great on the pacing! No huge wall, yay!

    I like the way the results show ones place at each 5k split...both of us passed a lot of people in the last third of the race 8)

    Glad you are already anticipating a next race!

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  2. Thanks Paul :-)

    My next blog post will be about NO WALL YEAH!

    And other than some muscle pain, a couple of blisters, and a toenail hanging off (it's been a pain for months) I'm feeling great :_)

    Hoping to get a place in London next year otherwise thinking of Berlin 2012!

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  3. CONGRATS! It was fun seeing you around the 21k mark! I ended up following the 4:20 group and finished in 4:25, I felt amazing up until the last 1k :) I too am scanning the Marathon magazine for my next one, what a great day!

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  4. Hi Candy,

    Glad you enjoyed it too :-) And what a fantastic time you got!

    It was great seeing you :-)

    I think I'm going to try and get a spot in Berlin for 2012 but feel that I could another marathon this year!

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  5. Hi Lynne,

    You make it sound so easy :-)and it looked like you were having a great time when we saw you! EXCELLENT!

    Well done to both you and your little boy.

    Hopefully see you running the streets of Copenhagen in that T-shirt very soon :-)

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  6. Your little boy is adorable! My five year old son is very interested in running too and we have done a few 1 or 2 k jogs together. Maybe my next marathon we'll do what you and your son did, the photos are just too cute! Hope he enjoyed himself!

    I am still so happy and surprised at how much I enjoyed the race, can't wait for the next one. I think my next one will be in Stockholm next Summer but I will also try for a spot at the NYC marathon in Nov. :)

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  7. Never thought of doing the Stockholm one!

    I love Stockhlm and really want to visit again so maybe that should be the one for me too :-)

    My problem now is that I want to do another one this year if I can ;-)

    Isn't it great when you have a little one you can run a bit with. My son spent 2 months making sure he was ready for his Copenhagen Marathon 2k :-)

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  8. Did you look at the marathon schedule in the Distance Running magazine that was in the goody bag with your start number? It has a complete list of all the marathons all over the world. There's the HC Andersen Marathon in September in Odense. I am going to do a half marathon in Malmö I think in August. It will seem like a breeze compared to a full marathon! What I really want to do is the Loch Ness Marathon in October though, but can't justify flying anywhere to do a Marathon just yet. :) One day...

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  9. Yes I've looked at that :-)

    As Berlin don't have any places left I'm thinking of Dublin in the Autumn.
    I love to travel away for city breaks and now I can travel and run a marathon at the same time :-)

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  10. Dublin sounds great, I hope you blog about your training for your second marathon? I am so curious how I will train and do the second time around. :) Keep us updated!

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