Another race while on vacation! This time in Vienna, Austria. This was the original race I intended to run while on vacation in Europe in September. It was the only one I could find close to Prague that was a reasonable enough driving distance away. Originally, I hadn’t signed up for the half marathon, so this was to be my only race while on vacation.

I didn’t know much about this race other than that it had an exceptionally long name I didn’t understand (Babenbergerlauf), it was a 10k race and it was in Vienna, roughly a 4 hour drive from Prague. A friend from Germany (an ex, actually) had offered to drive to Prague, pick me up, and then drive us both to Vienna where we could do the race together. Always up for a fun adventure and a challenge, I definitely wanted to do this. It was my last weekend in Europe before I flew home to Toronto so I really wanted to squeak this last race in.

The Babenbergerlauf 10K is a varying distance run (there’s a 5k, 15k and half marathon track that sets off at the same as the 10k we were doing) that has very, VERY few people in it. The 10K we did actually only had 40 people in it! Definitely the smallest race I’ve ever done and had some of the fittest people I’ve ever seen running this thing. Seriously, I think I was the heaviest one there.

The race takes place on a paved path through one of central Vienna’s parks. It’s right beside the Ernst-Happel Stadium, a huge soccer venue.

I had been kind of hoping that the path would be through a shady area of the park, but a lot of the run turned out to be in the incredibly bright sun. The forecast had also under-predicted the temperature at 14 degrees and instead it turned out to be an almost blazing 22 degree day.

So the deal with this race is that I had stipulated to Nilo was that, given all things equal, a man should be 10% faster than a female. A (somewhat healthy) competition got started then between us, but it quickly deteriorated into him saying “well I hope I just beat you”.

😐

(I’ll also point that he’s an entire foot taller than me, too.)

Anyway, I didn’t know how well I was going to do. This was a race done at the very tail end of my vacation. I had already run a half marathon the week before and I had been eating and drinking like it was going out of style (because really, what ELSE do you do on vacation?!). Realistically, I knew I couldn’t beat my previous fastest 10k time (55:14), but I had small fledgling hope that I’d find some burst of inspiration during the race and bust out at a 50 minute 10k (baaaaaaaaahahahah yeah no).

So we set off and it was fine. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot of the run. It kind of comes to me in waves, my thought process being:

• <1k: Okay, Imma beat him. Imma beat him! *goes fast*
• 2-4k: Why am I doing this? This is stupid, you’ve been on vacation for a week or more, what are you trying to prove? *goes slower*
• 4k: God it’s hot out here, where the hell are the water stations?
• 4.2k: Oh man, that sun is REALLY shining down on me.
• 4.4k: WHERE. ARE. THE. WATER. STATIONS.
• 4.8k: EESH there’s the water station, why the heck wasn’t there one sooner??? *grabs two glasses and gulps them down*
• Perpetual thought throughout the entire race: Why are there so many chestnuts on the ground? This isn’t safe! I’m going to roll my ankle!
• 5-6k: Halfway there, this thing is almost done really.
• 6-9k: WHYYYYYYYYYY AM I DOING THISSSSSSSSSS? (seriously, this whole chunk is a blur)
• 10k: I’m done! THAT WAS AWESOME! Let’s go again!

In the end, Nilo beat me which I entirely expected. I finished in 56:24 which is the same finish time I had for that entirely downhill 10k in Toronto in April so I’m pretty pleased about that. Nilo finished in 54:07 which is a solid two minutes faster than me… but still wasn’t 10% quicker! (So really, I think I won this challenge!)

Race Results

• Finish Time: 56:24
• Pace: 5:38 per kilometer
• Overall placement: 29/39
• Age group placement (Women 30-39 years): 3/5
• Gender placement (F): 8/13