Matt Gedye

Running Long in Copenhagen

There are no sleep-ins on Sunday mornings during a marathon training block. I don’t enjoy running in the morning as much as the evening, but for long runs, there are two essential reasons for doing so:

  1. The race usually starts early in the morning, so it’s good to get the practice in.
  2. By the end of the training block, the run is starting to get up to, or exceed, three hours in length. Finding time for that in the afternoon, is much tricker.

Interestingly, since moving to Copenhagen, there’s been a third reason I’ve wanted to get out early for a long run, and that’s to explore.

Part of the challenge when mapping out long runs is determining where to go so you don’t run out of distance before getting back home, and balancing this with avoiding the monotony of running loops. I never had this problem in Melbourne, because our bike trails go forever in all directions. But here in Copenhagen, I’ve had to be a bit more deliberate in thinking about where to go. At least, that’s how it was in the beginning. But after only a few Sundays, I was able to establish a route that not only filled the distance criteria, but took me through much of the more well-known parts of the city, doubling up as a sight-seeing expedition.

Every run starts from the front door of our rental near the Lergravsparken metro in Amager Øst. I begin by heading north, running towards Christianshavn (my favourite part of Copenhagen so far). Once here, I follow the canals, arriving, before too long, at Nyhavn (the famous coloured townhouses). Being here in the early morning is fantastic. It’s one of the most popular tourist spots in the city, but at this time of morning on a Sunday, it’s dead quite. So I can snap as many photos as I want without swarms of people crowding the shot. Then, only a few hundred metres further along is Kongens Nytorv, the large, central public ‘square’ (it’s a circle) and from here, I disappear into the pedestrian-only street known as Strøget. This is the central part of the city known as Indre By, which roughly translates as ‘inner city.’ During the day it’s a hub of activity as it’s a major site of retail and hospitality. But on a sleepy Sunday morning, I’m surrounded only by other runners as I make my way through the silence towards The Lakes. Depending on how long I need to run for, I might do a couple of laps of The Lakes (roughly 6km to get around all of them). It’s a delight to cruise around with the early morning sun reflecting off the surface of the water. I often see swans and other water birds going about their morning activities alongside the other recreationists. It’s usually at this point where I think about heading back, but on my last long run before tapering for the marathon, I pushed a little bit further into Nørrebro, again to snatch a couple of photos of well-known sights with very few people around.

Quiet Nyhavn on a Sunday morning

I’ve been training for the Copenhagen Marathon since before we arrived, so every long run I’ve done in the city has been building to the race. As a result, I’ve often needed to inject some goal race pace efforts into the run at some point. In my most recent marathon in Melbourne, I was running well until about the 30K mark, when I came undone with severe cramping. In addition to the usual stuff like hydration and electrolytes, I also suspected I wasn’t conditioned to run at race pace while glycogen depleted. While training for the Melbourne Marathon, I did all my race pace efforts earlier in the run. This time, I’ve tacked them all onto the end on tired legs. So, despite my dislike for running loops, my long runs in Copenhagen have all ended at Amagerstrand (Amager Beach), where several bridges allow to me to run continuously in an approximate 5km loop without having to worry about needing to stop to cross a road. It’s a stunning spot and I feel very lucky to live so close to it. On a clear day, I can easily see the gateway to Sweden, the Øresund Bridge, as well as some of the taller buildings in the Swedish city of Malmø. But it’s the beach. So it’s windy. Some days it was just impossible to hit intended race pace with the head wind and I just had to push at the heart rate that I hope corresponds to that pace. Of course, after heading back the other way, I’d get the tail, but it never seems to compensate. Thankfully the course on race day doesn’t venture anywhere near this part of the city.

When the run is finished, I’m never too far from a bakery or a supermarket where I can grab a pastry and a chocolate milk and can enjoy a leisurely walk back home.

P.S What I’m doing now.