After living in Gothenburg for over 5 years, and even having applied for Swedish citizenship, I finally decided it was time to take part in Göteborgsvarvet. This is advertised as the largest half marathon in Europe, but I wasn’t aware of that until I moved here. There are usually over 50,000 people who register, but not everyone shows up to run. The first two years I was here it was cancelled due to the pandemic, and by the time it resumed I was less keen to participate due to having lost a lot of running form. However, this year Miriam had timed a work visit specifically so that she could run the Varvet, and kept messaging me to check if I’d signed up yet.
The race sold out in January (over a month earlier than usual) and I was left without a spot. I decided to follow a training plan anyway, and assumed that I would be able to buy a place from someone who dropped out (they allow transfers until 3 or 4 weeks beforehand, though it comes with an admin fee). After 3 or 4 weeks of telling everyone I knew that I was looking for a place, Henrik Kopp Söderstrom came to the rescue. He had returned from a trip to a destination marathon to find the Varvet sold out, but there were still company places available. He promptly registered Återvinningsbilen[1] for a Team Brons place, which requires a minimum of 4 runners – and he had 3 already. I got the 4th spot. Corporate entrants usually start in special waves, but you can also apply to start in a seeded group if that will result in an earlier start time. I therefore gave them my time from Jönköping in August 2023, which they accepted, and received a group 5 start position. There are 22 numbered start groups, and it takes about 3 hours for everyone to set off.
Race preparation
Rather than following the Strava plan I had followed for Jönköping, I decided to use the Garmin coached plan this time. This was partly because it claimed to adjust based on what I actually did in training, and partly because it would let me set the race day as a Saturday. I only missed maybe 3 workouts in the 12 weeks. I was following a 5 runs per week plan, and it had a reasonable amount of speed work, but fewer long runs than I was used to. I also struggled, and often failed, to hit the speed targets on things like progression runs. I was improving though. I liked that the workouts were based on time rather than distance, though it did sometimes end up with me misjudging distance and having to run a bit further than expected or to get a bus a couple of stops home.
Race day – pre race
Although I had been put in an early start group, the race doesn’t begin until 13:00, and my start time was 13:19. It was important to get there early as, though the bag drop is very efficient, the queues for the portaloos can be very long, so I ended up in a bit of a rush to catch the 11:14 tram to Marklandsgatan. I was lucky enough to get a seat: a few stops closer to town and it was standing room only for the rest of the way. I ate a peanut butter sandwich on the tram, and, on disembarking, followed the crowds towards the race village. Brian called me, and thankfully managed to find me, and we headed to the bag drop. The queue for the portaloos took around 30 minutes, and it was after the time we were supposed to join our start group. Miriam was messaging me from her tram, which had to stop due to a car collision, and was concerned we wouldn’t make it on time, but Brian has done this race a couple of times before, and said we could jump in over the grass verge when the group started moving towards the start area. In another WhatsApp group, Leonardo and Sebastien were making plans to meet at the roundabout, but we were still in the portaloo queue at that point, so I messaged them after we were on the grass verge and they found us. We also bumped into Johan[2], but after fist bumps he went off to watch the start of the elite race and we didn’t see him again.
By 13:17 we hadn’t even started moving slowly towards the start line. Leonardo said our predicted start time was now after 13:30. That was group 6’s starting time. I wondered if we had joined the wrong group (they weren’t clearly numbered start areas, at least so far as I had noticed) but most of the people around us were group 5. We later found out that they had started the back of group 5 with group 6, leading to a mixed group and a lot of congestion. I read later that there were over 47,000 runners. The organisers assume that around 17 – 18 percent of those who have registered will not show up to the race, but this year only 13 or 14% did not show, leading to it being more crowded than usual.[3]
The race itself
Brian and I had agreed to run together for the first stretch, but our start group was so busy that I had lost him before we even crossed the start line. Miriam had apparently seen us and shouted at me, but I hadn’t heard her. I did however hear a tall guy with a beard (not narrowing it down much) who was cheering me on by name and gave me two thumbs up. I didn’t think I knew him from anywhere, but shouted “Tack så mycket” and gave him a thumbs up back. A couple of hundred metres further on, I wondered if maybe he worked for Återvinningsbilen, or was a friend or relative of Henrik. Maybe it was just the neon yellow t-shirt which led to him singling me out. Having people’s first names on the bib numbers is a great idea, and at least half a dozen people I didn’t know did cheer me on during the race, which was much appreciated, especially since very few of the people I knew who were spectating spotted me, and my partner had fled to Stockholm for a long weekend to avoid the event (he claimed it was a business trip, but I think the Eurovision party they had on the Saturday night was the main selling point for him).
The first two or three kilometres of the race are in Slottsskogen – a large and beautiful park a little south of the city centre (the name translates as the castle forest). But it is also hilly. We ran up past the penguin enclosure and a young woman jumped out of the bushes and continued running. I’m guessing she perhaps hadn’t left enough time for the portaloos before her start time. It remained really crowded all the while we were in Slottsskogen, and I couldn’t get into a rhythm. Though I could see Brian a little ahead of me, it was hard to find gaps to overtake, and he was also overtaking a little where possible. The group pace was more relaxed than the estimated finish times would lead you to hope for, and the first kilometre buzzed in at around 5:57 – and I had trained for 5:10 pace. Though this was a little frustrating, I was loving the crowd support. Apparently 200,000 spectators come to see the race, and there were no gaps in support along most of the route. I was really loving the atmosphere.
The race heads out of Slottsskogen into Majorna, and there were crowds here as well. I finally managed to catch up to Brian, and we ran together until Älvborgsbron, the largest (and hilliest, and windiest) of the two bridges on the route. I’d gone wide to overtake someone in order to get to Brian, and a guy in the crowd shouted “Bra ute, Pauline” (“Nice overtake”, roughly translated) which Brian laughed at. The field was still really packed, but Brian said it would start to ease off soon, and would be more spacious at the bridge. Sure enough, Älvborgsbron is much wider than the streets of Majorna, and they close one side of it to cars. Brian didn’t want to push it. Neither did I, but I wanted to go a little faster, so we parted company. A few cars tooted support, which was nice, and the marshalls were also encouraging on the uphill. I was trying to stay near the centre to avoid the wind as finally there weren’t enough runners to provide a complete windbreak.
I reached the 5km mark at 27:32. I did some quick mental arithmetic and realised sub 1:50 was definitely not a possibility, and I was also a little behind pace for 1:55. Those were plans A and B. Plan C (sub 2 hours) was still well on target though, depending on how crowded it was on later sections of the route. I decided that since the time goal was out of the window, I was going to treat it as an experience and enjoy it. I wasn’t running as hard as I usually would in a race, but I was still overtaking some people and was feeling really good. There are 10 or 11 music stations along the route, and I was clapping the bands and high-fiving small children (only the ones offering high fives though, I wasn’t just randomly hitting minors). Although I was carrying water with me (a soft flask in my Flipbelt) I decided to take some water at the station after the bridge, and Brian went past me, saying that he had stopped at a previous station and didn’t need more. I kept him in sight but didn’t make too much effort to catch up with him.
The Hisingen section of the run includes a few nondescript roads, but the route takes in the riverside as much as possible, which is both beautiful and very flat. I suspect the average pace of those running around me picked up, as I clocked a couple of faster kilometres in this stretch without overtaking too aggressively. I also noticed a few pacers along this section. I had thought about trying to find the 1:50 pacers for our group at the start, but didn’t see any. Now, though, two 1:50 pacers went past me in Eriksberg, and I guessed they had probably started in the group after us. A pair of 1:40 pacers also went past me in Lindholmen, as we were passing close to the science park where I work, from two groups behind us. This made it temporarily more congested as the people following them tried to get through. I thought I spotted Sebastien ahead, so shouted his name. Nobody turned around. It was not Sebastien. This was clear from the fact that the guy was wearing green trainers, whereas Sebastien had bought a new pair of red/ orange trainers for the event. Sebastian was a bit further ahead though, and he spotted me as we were getting close to Hisingsbron. I’d gone past Brian at another water station shortly beforehand. Sebastien said I was doing well. I told him I was feeling fantastic, but that I wasn’t sure if I would be saying that in 4km time. I had remembered to take the first bite of my Clif bar though (gels don’t agree with me) at the 10km point – which I had crossed in 54:07, bringing 1:55 back into the realms of possibility. I hadn’t felt the need for it, but with solid nutrition you need to take it much sooner than you feel the need. I also went past a pair of 2:00 hour pacers who I had slowly been reeling in. They had started in our group, and I asked them if they were going a bit too fast, but they said they were almost exactly on pace, so I told them I needed to run faster and went on ahead. Perhaps they started at precisely 13:30, nearly 3 minutes ahead of me.
Hisingsbron was a bit crowded, but I did manage to overtake a little whilst enjoying the views, and turning right onto Operagatan it widened out and there was suddenly space to overtake more easily, plus another band. This was the 15th kilometre and I ran my first and only sub-5 minute kilometre here, crossing the 15km checkpoint in 1:20:54. I did some mental arithmetic and worked out that at 5:20 pace it would take 26:40 to do 5km then another 6 minutes and change to do the remaining 1.1km. But my watch was buzzing at 2 to 300 metres before the kilometre markers. So, 1:54 was doable depending on how much further I had to run than my watch thought was left.
There were even more crowds around Avenyn, and the route gets quite narrow as you’re heading up towards Poseidon. It’s also a slight but very long uphill. It wasn’t easy to overtake much on this section, so I remembered to have another bite of my Clif bar then soak up the atmosphere. Near the top of Avenyn I also got to watch the runners coming back down the hill, maybe 500 metres ahead of us, which was nice. I stopped to get water at the water station around the back of the art museum (no sign of Brian at this one) then enjoyed the downhill before heading left along Vasagatan. With only a couple of kilometres to go, I was still feeling pretty good. I thought about taking another bite of Clif bar, but decided I didn’t need it. I did use a Power Up button though. A few guys went past me on the slight incline here, but I was still going past more people than were overtaking me so I was relaxed about that, even though I did get elbowed and jostled a couple of times. I also accidentally elbowed someone on the final stretch before the stadium, at a section where it narrows and goes through an underpass somewhere past Botaniska. Apparently there were more people running this year, due to fewer than expected drop-outs, which may account for how crowded it felt in a lot of sections.
The final section takes you to Slottsskogsvallen – the athletics stadium on the southern edge of Slottsskogen. It was now maybe 3:15pm and there were still runners heading out from Slottsskogen, just beginning the race. Although I was still feeling pretty good, I was happy to be approaching the finish. I wasn’t keen on doing another 21.1 kilometres. I had sprinted up towards this section (which got a cheer or two) but then my watch decided to end my workout! The training plan had the race as my workout for the day, so that was what I was using to track it. As it showed a countdown of distance, I was aware this might happen, but I thought they should have programmed it to understand that the race is however long the route is, not however long GPS thinks it is, or however much gets added due to weaving through the pack. But nope, it stopped, and took 3 or 4 seconds to let me resume, so it was going to get my time slightly wrong. It’s a mistake I won’t make again.
Heading under the bridges towards the stadium, I started pushing the pace, and was surprised there weren’t more people doing so. A guy overtook on my right, shouting a warning to keep left, and I followed him, shouting the same thing. Thankfully we only had around 100 metres sprint on the track, not a full loop. It felt like I was sprinting fairly impressively. My race video however shows a comically different story. I crossed the line at 15:26:43, and my watch said 1:53:43 when I stopped it. My official time turned out to be 1:53:44 – even though I had started it a little early and stopped it a little late, the shutdown meant my watch got it a bit wrong. I slowed to a slow jog, and a marshall sprayed me in the face with water. The kind of bottle you use for watering/ misting plants, not from a power hose. It was not unpleasant. There were showers spraying more water if you wanted that, both along the course, and one at the end too. Directed off the track, I collected a medal, was handed a banana, and went in search of Leonardo. And cake. I found both pretty quickly. Leonardo had run a personal best, but I think he could take a good 5 or more minutes off that later this summer at a quieter event. Brain soon found us too. He’d had me in view until after Avenyn, then I apparently sped off and vanished. Sebastien also arrived, then Stefan and Gaurab who had been in the start group after us. Monica, who was visiting from the USA and has met us at parkrun a couple of times, recognised me and joined us in eating cake. There was a really good atmosphere in the race village. What was missing was reliable internet, which made it impossible to find everyone we wanted to, though we did thankfully manage to find Miriam. We also met Rita, who had beaten her time from last year by over 10 minutes, despite having a cold during the final training week. She’s confident she can improve on that next year too. We hung around for a while, before joining the crowds heading back into town for dinner.
Final thoughts
Despite having to throw the time goal out of the window in the first few kilometres, I absolutely loved this race. Viewed through the correct lens, it is the best racing experience I have had since I paced my Dad to a sub 1 hour 10 km in Glasgow in 2005. The crowd support is phenomenal, there is such a party atmosphere, and the event is very well organised, if a little busier than expected. If you were really keen on getting a personal best then it could be rather frustrating not being able to get into a rhythm and having to aggressively overtake all the way. But if you view it as a really fun mass participation event then it becomes an amazing experience. If you really want that PB, you can head to a smaller event in the summer. You might get the PB, but you probably won’t have as much fun.
I finished in position 13,163 which is my lowest ever finish position (even including Chicago marathon). I was 2080th female (which probably puts me in the top 12 or 15% of females, but I can’t find exact figures for the number of female participants – it’s said that around 40% of the runners are female which would be around 19,000) and 148th F45 – 49. Those are not particularly impressive numbers, but the event was so much fun, and, as a bonus, I hardly had any DOMs afterwards. If you enjoy mass participation races and don’t think that only marathons are worth travelling long distances to attend, this half marathon should definitely be on your bucket list. I’ve already registered for next year. If you decide to sign up for 2026, I might even see you there.
[1] http://atervinningsbilen.se/ is a recycling business. If you’re reading this and live in or nearby Gothenburg, you may be interested in some of the services they provide.
[2] My original Skatås parkrun nemesis. He’s too fast to be my nemesis now though, having achieved his dream of beating “the old lady with the grey hair”.
[3] Göteborgsposten reported on the trängsel (crowding) on the route https://www.gp.se/sport/lopare-missnojda-over-trangseln-under-goteborgsvarvet.3ba3fabd-14ad-413c-937b-2e5fed8092c1
