24 May 2009 - Tervuren Parkloop, 10.8km - 0h47:37

Tervuren is a suburb of Brussels that is one of the most popular places of residence for expatriates around the Belgian capital. It is dominated by a beautiful park, built by the flamboyant King Leopold II in the late 19th century, and housing a grand African museum.

One could hardly expect a race held in Tervuren not to feature the local park prominently. There were, in fact, no surprises, and the route quickly headed into the park where we negotiated numerous paths under the shade provided by the tall trees on this gorgeous May morning. The ground conditions were generally fine since it hadn't rained for quite a few days, so we could concentrate simply on racing each other and on the changing inclines, mostly not too challenging, and alternating over and over from slightly uphill to slightly downhill.

The race distance wasn't advertised very clearly at all. The Watermolen Cup website gave the distance as 14 km in one place, and 10.2 km in another. On the spot, before the start, it transpired that it was the latter case, so I reckoned if I did well I would finish in my 'standard' 44 minutes for 10k plus a further minute to cover the extra 200 metres - adding up to 45 minutes.

I ran at a moderately strong pace, overtaking a large number of rivals throughout the route while going uphill as well downhill. But still, at the end, I was just a little bit disappointed for two reasons. First of all, in the last few minutes I almost tired out, allowing two of my rivals to catch up and overtake me. Besides which, the finishing time was worse than expected - 0h47:37. Oh well, I thought, my 'standard' 10k must be getting slower with the advancing years, and my preferred race distance is pushing evermore toward the longer distances...

Until I discovered that the actual distance run was not 10.2 km at all, but 10.8, which is 600 metres longer than expected! Which accounts for my getting tired in the last few minutes, since I had been targeting an earlier completion, as well as for the extra two and a half minutes. Conclusion - my 'standard' 10k pace hasn't deteriorated, yet... 88th out of 312 finishers, 24th out of 68 in my age category, isn't such a bad placing after all.