Midnattsloppet, Stockholm, August 17, 2024

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Stockholm Midnight run! 


Still running at midnight!

A 10km road race at night around Stockholm one week after the Vasa MTB race. This is a hard, but really fun race with over 30,000 participants. 

As my sister's apartment is practically on the racecourse, I had the advantage of walking to start. The evening was perfect, no rain and the right temperature around 18C (65f). The start is very festive with music, fireworks, lasers and everyone wearing the same shirts and being in a good mood. I had a fairly early start group at 10 minutes past 10 in the evening and warmup felt good. I still decided to take it slightly easy as I recently had 5 weeks break in training from illness. Last year I set a load of speed records on this race, and I ended up at 6th place in my age group which is not bad as some of the best runners participate. 

I positioned myself in the middle of my start group and I felt like I was cruising all the way until I reached the hills at Katarina church around km 4. Last year a had to walk a short bit on the steep incline, but not this time! There is a second substantial uphill around km 8, and last year I was really suffering there. This year I passed the hill without drama. The first time I gave max on the course was when I saw the finish line in front of me.

I was surprised at being almost a minute faster than last year. I finished at 5th place out of 70 completing in my age group, less than 2 minutes from 2nd place and under a 9-minute mile. Starting easy clearly pays off! There is no way that I am in better shape this year. The only thing that was advantageous this time was that I was wearing carbon plated shoes. That might have been it.

On the way home, the streets were still filled with runners well after midnight. This race is one of my favorites.

 

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