Wow...another PR and replacing one that is only 3 weeks old...needless to say, im ecstatic!! My level of fitness has been really high since coming to Germany, ive been putting up more mileage then ever plus i've had to walk everywhere, so my body is responding very positively. The Freiburg Marathon event is quite largee, we are talking approximately 4500-5000 runners for the half and another 1500 for the full. This was the event that I had originally hoped to PR at before I decided to jump in the mercedes hm 3 weeks back. My wife and I signed up before we left for this race and it was one of the focal points of the trip. After having PR'ed 3 weeks back, this race could have been an anti-climatic victory lap, but I decided to shoot for sub 6:00 per mile pace, something that has eluded me at longer distances..and frankly something I thought that was a year or more off at least. Turns out, it is something I can do did. Pre-race woke up without having to worry about too much travel. An 11 am start time meant sleeping in til a few minutes before 7. I love "hometown" races! Ate a piece of gluten-free bread...which was kind of a gamble but not really. I know you're not sposed to change things up on race day, but white bread (my normal pre-race food because of its low-fiber) has been given me indigestion lately, so I decided to switch to this prerace. About 9:45, my wife and I boarded a local bound train since the start was about 6km from where we are living. Apparently everyone and their dogs took advantage of the "sonderzug" or special train organized for runners...and as a result our train was literally packed with people, you could not move there so many stuffed into the train car. It was only a 3 minute ride, and everyone was in good spirits though, so definitely not a big deal (i love how runners in general are so happy-go-lucky, even here in Germany). Got to the race, warmed up, line for the bathroom was very long, so like everyone (well all the men here in germany), just went outside wherever there was a spot haha. On a side-note, my wife was participating in her first HM, a big deal for her, and so she had some pre-race jitters as well. Another side note, weather was near perfect, mid-40s, light to moderate winds later in the race, but overall, ideal racing conditions.
The race Got to the start line after they let the handbikers go, standing there at the front of such a huge field is an awesome feeling. At first it kind of reminded me of the train ride since we were packed in the starting line, but then I could feel the energy of 6000 tapered, "raring to go" runners being held back for that magical but arbitrary time to start running. AWESOME! gun went off and got out clean, settled in to a pace immediately and was initially surprised by the amount of runners at that pace, but I know a half is a long race and things would settle out. (all splits are in KM, goal was 3:43 per KM, which is roughly 1:18:30 pace)
1- 3:38.8 spot on 2- 3:40.0 3- 3:40.3 (10:59, 5:51 mile pace) settling in and weeding out some fast starters, always looking for new people to draft onto as the wind is decently strong today 4- 3:36.8 (a little faster as the pack started thinning and I had to go or get left in no-man's land, decisions that are important early in a race) 5k- 3:40.6 (18:16 for the first 5k, that is 5:52 mile pace, faster than i had hoped, but i was feeling good and had people to run with) 6- 3:48.1 marker was likely a touch off, not too worried by it 7- 3:42.2 8- 3:36.3 another mile where I had to move and find people to work with otherwise i was at risk of falling all alone, it may be faster than desired pace, but so often getting left alone is a death nail when shooting for good races, 8k in 29:23, 5:53 per mile 9- 3:41.7 10k- 3:42.8 (36:47, pretty decent 10k split, 5:53ish pace, probably one of the better 10ks ive run as i never race this distance it seems like) 11- 3:53.8 tough KM here, for whatever reason, my legs got heavy, in long races I know that sometimes you feel good but you get rough patches, this was a rough patch, i was worried I had maybe run the first 10k too fast, but i kept reassuring myself I had to go out that fast to hit my time goal, nonetheless, i slugged it out and got through this rough patch 12- 3:47.0 13& 14- 7:15.4 (3:38ish per K) missed the split cuz i was gettin water, by this point I had got back on the horse and was feeling better, 2 other factors also helped, 1. we had come to a part of the course I run almost daily and do ALL of my speedwork on, its a little downhill but its familiar, 2. I had by this point been running with more or less the same group and we were all encouraging each other, when they were feeling bad, i motioned for them to come with and vice versa, even over here with langauge gaps, running is about comraderie and that is awesome! some of those guys saved my race today in the 10-14k stretch 15k- 3:38.6 (55:22, a new PR for 15k as i dont really race this either, 5:54 mile pace) starting to string together a nice patch of kilometers here and this time was 38 seconds faster than my 15k split 3 weeks ago) 16 & 17- 7:34.3 (3:47ish per K) water stop again at 16k, but given that pace, my 10 mile split was likely around 59:20, which is around 5:56 pace) 18- 3:43.0 running right near where we live here 19- 3:46.5, feeling good knowing that a PR is about to be earned
20k- 3:39.2 (1:14:05, 5:58 avg mile pace, a new PR for 20k, which I dont run very often as well) also, 56 seconds faster than 3 weeks ago last 1.1- 4:10, 5:57 mile pace for the final kick HALF TOTAL-- 1:18:15, 5:58 avg pace, new PR!!! post race thoughts I love in Germany how after the race, all the runners are served water, bananas, and BEER! culture baby! (Side note- beer is actually a good recovery tool as I felt okay on my cooldown) another side note- I finished about the same exact time as the winning lady, so maybe in any videos you'll see me in the other chute as she breaks the tape, pretty neat, she ran a great race!) Reflection over coffee
I ran this one about as well as I could of, it hurt much of the time and I had to coax my body into not slowing down, but if its easy then you're not doing it right. My 5k splits tell the tale of my training in that they are very even: here they are in order: 18:16, 18:21, 18:35, 18:43, (plus the 1.1 change afterwards, another 4 min) I'm super happy with these splits, they are lightyears ahead of even where I was 3 weeks back. 2 10ks faster than my fastest 3 weeks ago, a 36:47 followed by 37:18, only a 31 second positive split compared to a 21 3 weeks ago. Overall, my training helped me and I am moving in the right direction, but in the meantime, i am going to celebrate another 1 minute 5 second PR...in 3 weeks I took my PR (set in 2009 by the way) from 1:21:13 all the way down to 1:18:15, thats 3 minutes! Sorry to all those who made it to here, that was a long RR, but its nice to reflect for later on, plus im pretty jacked up on coffee!! Here are my splits on the results page: First (and likely only) American! Click Here
Thanks for reading, happy running!
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