On Sunday, the Copenhagen Half Marathon competition took place in Denmark, where the Lithuanian Giedrius Valinčius performed well. The athlete made his debut in this distance and immediately improved the national record of the half marathon. G. Valinčius covered the distance of 21.0975 km in 1 hour 3 minutes 27 seconds. and World Athletics ranked 21st in the gold-level competition.

The previous Lithuanian half marathon record since 2022 belonged to Remigijus Kančius (1 hour 3 minutes 49 seconds).

“I had told myself that I would be happy to run the entire distance at a pace of 3:00-3:05, which is between 63 and a half to 65 minutes. I managed to run at a pace of 3:01, so I did the best I had set for myself and I am very happy. I really didn’t expect a record for the first time, it had to be getting to know the distance.

I am very happy that without a big plan, without special preparation and in less than ideal conditions, I managed to run so well. I will definitely want to repeat the half marathon when he is more prepared. The feeling is that I don’t know what I’ve done yet, I don’t really understand. Achieving a national record with your debut without much preparation is a lot of fun, a very good indication and great emotions,” said G. Valinčius after the finish.

In Copenhagen, Kenyan athlete Nicholas Kipkokir won (58:23 minutes), and Kenyan athletes took the first 6 positions here.

“I really wanted it not to rain and it didn’t rain during the warm-up, but a few minutes before we left, it started to rain and it rained from the very beginning, it was even cold before the start, but the mood was good.

The first 5 km I ran with a group of female leaders, they ran with a “pacer” who aimed at a time of 64 minutes. I was running with the clock, but I turned off the function, which takes the time every kilometer, so I didn’t know the exact pace. At the beginning I ran with one “pacer” who told me that he was aiming for a 65-minute finish time, I thought it was too slow for me. I caught up with the faster ones, ran 5 km with them, but they ran faster than necessary, at a pace of 3:00.

Then several people separated from the group, I thought that those 5 km were easy for me, I started running with them as much as I risked. But I enjoyed running, even though it was raining and I was all wet, it was still fun and good. After 10 km I saw the intermediate time, it was maybe 30:13 minutes, I realized that I was running at a good pace, which gave me an energy boost and I ran really well up to 13 km.

Then I felt the first difficulty and thought that I would have to slow down, but two Britons caught up and a few more runners caught up and brought me new energy. I got hooked on them, ran together and even accelerated a little. We ran in a group, one after the other others fell away from the group, and I rose in positions and motivation only increased. The kilometers were spinning, I was even able to accelerate, I ran second from our group and I was very satisfied,” G. Valinčius told about the course of the race.

G. Valinčius’ coach Jonas Žakaitis says that the acquaintance with the half marathon distance was successful and tells about the preparation for this run.

“We started talking about a possible autumn half marathon maybe a year ago, and the goal was to make a non-binding, but fun start to the beginning of the season, with the idea of seeing how he does in longer distances. Giedrius certainly did not set a goal to improve this record. The most important thing is that he went to this competition after a break, exercising in a structured, but very easy mode for only a couple of weeks. It is definitely not in peak form now.

So far, it seems that the longer the distance, the better he does. This was also shown by studies conducted at the University of Sports, the data of which showed that his horse is physiologically and otherwise longer distances. It is very gratifying, without in any way detracting from the previous achievement, that we managed to improve the record without special preparation and peak form. This shows that Giedrius can push this limit very significantly forward in the future,” said J. Žakaitis.

We remind you that in February, G. Valinčius also improved the Lithuanian 10 km road running record (28 minutes 44 seconds). This is already the 19th national record improved by Lithuanian track and field athletes this year.

lengvoji.lt, Love Streams Running Club Information

Photo by Alfredas Pliadis