Männedörfler Waldlauf 2012

Last Saturday I went to another running event: Männedörfler Waldlauf, a run through very nice woods on the eastern side of Lake Zürich.

It was a somewhat hot day (the race started at 15:20), and it was a bit more difficult than the last race, and just a tiny bit longer (11.5km); all this plus not enough training in the past two weeks resulted in me doing a worse time: 5:38/km according to my Garmin. At least, the race was my last run in March and it concluded/achieved my overall running goal for the month: 100km (was in fact ~107km). I known I have to raise this for longer races, but I’m not in a hurry—I think I need a couple of months at this level before increasing the training level.

Results aside ☺, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place and the lively crowd—possibly because of the nice weather. The run was also nice, both through woods and through open hills; the only small downside was crossing about four times circulated roads (of course, with traffic stopped when runners were crossing it). The view from the hills east of the lake is very nice, especially as one is nearing the end of the race.

I’ll have to see if at the next race I can improve my time—it should be a completely flat city run, so… I mean I can still blame the heat, right?

And in somewhat related news, Garmin’s training effect index is surprisingly accurate. It “knows” when I’m not pushing myself hard enough, and instead of a 4.5-5 (out of 5) score it just gives me a meh-level 4.0 or even 3.5. Quite nifty, using one’s own conscience as motivation ☺