Alisa Vainio broke her new half marathon record in Seville, Spain. Earlier in December, he ran a record marathon.
12:30•Updated 12:30
Alisa Vainio has run his record in the half marathon in Seville, Spain. Vainio, who finished fourth, ran a time of 1.10.20, so he improved his record by more than two minutes.
Vainio’s previous record of 1.12.22 is from Rauma in April last year. With his new record, he is immediately second in the statistics of all Finnish athletes Annemari Kiekaran (nee Sandell) after. Kiekara ran in 2000 with a time of 1.09.58.
– I was a little nervous before the competition, as I have been training for two or three weeks in Monte Gordo, Portugal, quite hard and there was no lightening for this competition. I had a really hard time training this week. Everything worked fine though. I felt like I was ready to compete, Vainio commented in the press release.
According to Vainio, the race went without any problems, but the running weather was really cold.
– At the 5 kilometer mark, you could blow on your fingers. It must have been two degrees warmer.
– However, the weather warmed up and I was able to run up to 15 kilometers in a good group. Then the pace picked up and I couldn’t keep up. I haven’t been able to make enough bets yet to put myself in a tight spot.
The half marathon in Seville was won by a Kenyan Betsy Saina on 1.08.25. Second and third place went to the Germans, Alina to Reh and To Deborah Schöneborn.
Vainio improved his marathon record earlier in December. Vainio ran Finland’s third fastest time of all time with 2:28:41 in Malaga, while the previous record was 2:29:56 in Rotterdam.
At that time, Vainio was even on pace for the final time of 2:23, but the difficulties that started after half the distance slowed down the pace.
– It was painful from 24 kilometers onwards. It was a brisk start, but on the other hand I thought there was nothing to lose. And the run felt easy. But then suddenly the lights went out. Then it was time to fight, Vainio commented to in December.
At the time, Vainio believed that his results in 2022 would have been even better if the coronavirus caught at the time of the European Championships had not caused a setback.
Vainio plans to run his next marathon in February in Seville.