Les Hivernales de Boitsfort 2009 - 19,2km - 1h29:05

Less than one full day after blogging about how to run races, I joined over a thousand other running enthusiasts to brave the zero degrees plus windchill factor at the Avenue de la Hulpe, in Boitsfort, for the traditional Hivernales de Boitsfort ("the winter event of Boitsfort"), consisting of two concurrent races, a 10k and a 19,2k.

After tiring myself out too early at last December's Mdina - Spinola in Malta, today I made it a point to start cautiously. It could hardly be otherwise since the initial loop around a number of Boitsfort streets was very crowded. After a couple of kilometres we entered the Foret de Soignes, which was the rather hilly, but also pleasant and quiet setting for the remainder of the race.

For me, it was an exemplary race. After running about a third of the distance at a comfortably moderate pace, from the 7km mark I began to set my sights on the next runner ahead and aim to overtake them. This went on right until the finish, and I was happy to note that the long distance training of the past few months has been successful - I never, at any stage, felt tired. In fact I was hoping the race would last longer to enable me to overtake even more rivals.

It was therefore a bit of a disappointment for me, after what I considered to be such a strong run, to discover that the finishing time - 1h29:05 - was more than a minute worse than the previous year's. There may be various explanations for this. First of all, the fact that I'm not getting any younger means that statistically, all other factors being equal, my times are eventually bound to get worse. I may also have been over-cautious in the early stages, which would easily account for the extra minute. There's also the fact that my training is endurance- rather than speed-based. This last factor, i.e. that I'm better at long distances rather than at speedwork, is in fact quite encouraging in view of the Malta marathon that I should be running (flu and unknown other mishaps permitting) in four weeks' time.

Altogether, it was a very pleasant occasion, and I do hope to repeat the experience next year. Besides, a finishing position of 325 out of 931 finishers is not a bad placing at all.