Notes
Didn't do that much preparation for this but more than the zero from last year. I ran home a few times from Vreten (untimed) only. Only goal was to run the whole thing and get under an hour - both accomplished.
For the first 2km I tried to take it easy and I panicked a bit when I saw 5:19 for the 2nd km. I purposefully slowed down but was not feeling great at that stage and when 3km I had worked out that I only had to run 6:10/km to scrape under an hour. The next km duly came in at 6:10 although that included Sofia kyrka's hill - which was nowhere near as bad as I remembered.
After that I hit a rhythm and started to feel comfortable. Was very pleased at every km when the times were all under 6mins. I knew at 7km that the hour was going to be broken. I held off pushing until the final km and only really pushed hard for the last 500m when I could see the goal. Wasn't out on my feet like last year and had more in the tank but had been afraid of going too hard!
Negative splits too! First 5km: 28:41 Second 5km: 27:59