The Trail of the Vikings, Denmark
By Line Kolbe
or Vikingesporet, which is the actual name, is the half-marathon I did this past Sunday.
What a trail run! They claim it's the most beautiful half-marathon in Denmark. I can only agree. The route starts at the Viking's museum by the fjord in Roskilde and then heads out to the forest near by, and there it's path is on the mountain bike trails up and down and up and down on the hills in the forest. It's a very tough if you aren't used to steep hills. You get to run on sand beach, stone beach, gravel forest roads, a little bit of asphalt and then as mentioned mostly narrow trails in the forest.
The route:
I absolutely love trail runs like this and when I first read about this run I just knew I needed to do it. I stayed at Berit's (a friend of mine who lives in Copenhagen) the night before the run so I didn't have to drive that far in the morning and I got the run in good time. Got a perfect parking spot, had no line to the toilets, got my number and chip, had some carbs and then just relaxed and waited for the start.
I placed myself in the back of the crowd before the start so I could run slow and not slow others down. That was a good decision. I had not been able to train as much as I probably should have to this run since I've had some issues with my left foot since the half-marathon I did in November last year. So I've had to work up the milage again, and I hadn't really run that much. So taking it slow was an absolute necessity. There were no km markings on the route so I had to go by time as to how far I'd come and that was not what I was used to. I had no idea how far I'd run. I only knew that at 10 km there would be a water/energy drink station. My feet, legs, everything felt great for at least the first hour, then it started to get tough.
After that we ran together for some time and then I slowly started to run from her. We had not come to that water station yet. The time had passed 1 hour and 15 mins and I was already starting to get tired. I started to question if I could actually do this, started thinking to myself "just run, just focus on not stopping, just run, one step at a time, just run" Then finaly the water station came and I knew that I was halfway. I had brought some energy gels and I had one of them at 1 hour and 30 mins and then one again at 1 hour 45 mins. The path was getting more difficult, more up and down hills and I was getting more and more sore all over. My calves started to really get tight and I could feel I was not used to steep hills like that. I actually got into that runner's high feeling about the time I had those gels. That feeling I also got at the last half-m I did. The time sort of just disappeared. I looked at my watch and then when I looked again, just a moment later, a half an hour had passed. The nature was amazing. I was running alone and I suddenly saw a young dear running near me. It looked like it was searching for it's mom. The light green leaves on the trees with the white flowers on the ground and the birds singing. I was in heaven. Even though I was hurting I felt like I could just go on and on and I kept on running.
At around 2 hours and 20 mins, and with a lot more pain, I got to one more water station. I was still running but very slowly. Still focusing on just keeping on running and not stopping. The guy there asked if I was ok, I guess I looked pretty worn out, and I answered that besides the pain all over I was doing just fine. I asked him how far there was to the finish and he said that it was about 4 km. Great I thought. That's not that far. I can do that. Then my knees started to hurt. I cursed those extra km I'd run wrong and thought that if I'd just not made that mistake I'd be at the finish line now without knees that hurt. It was mostly the right knee. I tried if walking was better but then thought to myself that then I'd take forever to finish and immediately started to run again. I also concluded that if I could run some 20-21 km I could run 4 more. My willpower once again won over my common sense and sound mind and I just ran. When I got to the finish area the other runners, who already had finished but were still there, cheered on me and the speaker announced my name and number and my time as I ran over the finish line. 2:51:09 was my official time for my run that was "a bit" more than a half-marathon.
When I left the run I had more to drink in my car. I was so thirsty. I was going to pick up Berit. She had also run a half-marathon that day. The BT Half-marathon. We both changed clothes where I picked her up and then we went out to eat afterwards. What a great day!