Notes
Official times:
5 km 25:12 (25:12)
10 km 51:30 (26:18)
Hadn't ran for 3 weeks prior to this race due to coldness and laziness. I did play football quite a number of times though (8 times?) in that period, so it wasn't exercise free.
Ate breakfast and a twix before the noon race, although didn't have dinner the night before and had a headache when I woke because of this. Didn't seem to affect me once racetime approached.
Went out pretty quick at the start and had to tell myself to slow down once or twice. Was afraid I would run out of energy but I seemed to have a strength that I haven't had before (due to the half marathon?) and was able to keep going albeit at a slower pace. The course was abit up and down, through underpasses around Hässelby/Vällingby and there was a very long hill at about 7.5 km that seemed endless. Was daunted when I saw it but it didn't seem to pose too many problems to me, was in a bit of a rhythm at that point.
Initial goal was to beat my training PB which was 55 minutes. Set the Garmin to go for 54 mins and felt slightly pessimistic about achieving it. In the end I got 51:30 which was miles better than what i hoped for. 50mins doesn't seem so far out of reach as it did previously.