Beach Challenge, Den Hague (5 km)

09/07/2011
5 km (Beach Challenge)
Den Hague, The Netherlands
23:59
4:48 min/km
171 hrm

Today with Marcin (running) & Michal (supporting us) we went to Den Hague for the "Beach Challange" (it was nice to have some company!). I wasn't sure whether participating was a good idea, given that I run a race last Sunday. But I thought 5K wouldn't hurt. Well. It did :).

It was a bloody tough race and the Challenge in the name was, apparently, for a reason. We gathered on the beach; not too much crowd, around 200 people or so. The first 3K were in the dunes. Up and down. Up and down. I was waiting impatiently for this roller-coaster to end. Wrong. It got worse. Because then we entered the beach. First we had around 200 meters to cover in the dry sand. If you ever tried racing in the sand you would know what I'm talking about. But even upon reaching the waterline we were running exactly against the bloody wind. And, oh boy, was it strong. It was an excruciating experience. The good thing was that I tried my FiveFingers for this race and they worked pretty well.

I was hoping to finish in around 20 minutes. Instead I did 23:59. 23:59?! I have some doubts about the distance as my GPS showed 5.60km at the end and my Polar seemed to somewhat agree with that. But it doesn't matter much. It was not a kind of race where you set your personal best. It's a kind of race where you fight to survive. And I did. Barely.

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