Running through the night

The good news first: I finished.

The bad news: 00:58:47 for allegedly 10.6k.

My excuse: A hurting ankle. (Still hurts btw.)

The truth: Not enough training (excuse No. 2: too much work) and too many crisps (prawn cocktail flavoured; my favourites; have never been anywhere near a prawn, hence suitable for vegetarians like me).

Why "allegedly" 10.6k? The official advertisment said 10.16k, but when Anna and I were waiting in the start area, a loudspeaker voice informed us that the race was actually going to be slightly longer due to a building site that we would have to run around. Anna thinks they said that it was 10.6k. I didn't care. The only thing my mind heard was: "it's longer"! And it immediately despaired. Mentally I was prepared to run 10k and 10k only! So all along the race I pretended that it was indeed just 10k (it gets a bit difficult at the end, when you have passed the 10k marker and the finish line is nowhere to be seen...).

General question: Why is that? You are prepared to run let's say 10k and at the finish you feel any additional meter would have been impossible. But if you run 15k, it's the same thing. The 10k marker then is only a point where you take an interim time, but not where you feel ready to break down (ok, sometimes you do, but that's a different story). But come the finish line again you feel you couldn't possibly go on. Is it mental? Or do we really use up our energy so well timed that we truely cannot run any further?

There are no pictures on the internet yet, but I will add them once they have been published. A night run is something special. It wasn't dark when we started at 9:15 pm, but an hour later when I crossed the finish line, the sky had turned into various shades of dark blue. Like something out of a painting by Turner. Beautiful.

It's a holiday here in Germany today. But the sky is grey and it's raining. We will stay indoors and lounge.