Yesterday was once again the time for the marathon in Braunschweig. It was my third time as participant there, as I really like the atmosphere of the event. It is adequately small so that you can run your race without struggling with the queues or having to worry about crashing to fellow runners. On the other hand, the chances are pretty high that one has to run alone the most part of the race.
Like the previous years we had our stay in the Frühlingshotel in downtown. The hotel is conveniently located near the starting spot, but even though it is located in the city centre, its rooms are large, pretty quiet and peaceful. Also worth mentioning is the great breakfast that provides a good fundament for the running event. The benefit of having the marathon on the particular weekend was that the switch to the normal time occurs then. An extra hour when preparing for a marathon is mostly very welcome.
I woke up at around 7 o’clock and after the family was ready we went downstairs to have some breakfast. After having eaten I wanted to have a short rest before going to the marathon start location. The good thing about participating at same running events over and over again is that you don’t have any extra hassle about the arrangements but can save your energy and nerves and don’t have to spend any extra time waiting for the start.
I was at the start location about 7 minutes before the start and could get a position among the top group (from the previous years’ experiences I could tell that the overall quality of the participants is not that high so that I had the courage to do so). The start shot was fired and off we went – 42,195 km ahead, two rounds in the beautiful Lower Saxony environment. I had a feeling from the first meters that the race probably was not going to be the best run ever. This doubt was unfortunately confirmed during the first five kilometres – my heart rate was considerably higher than normally during a marathon. Usually my heart rate rarely exceeds 160 hits per minute during the run, but this time the heart rate was from 165 to 169. However, I felt pretty good at this point so I wanted to stick to my plan to run at the average pace of 4.35 – 4.45 min/km.
After the half marathon (the time at about 1.38) I expected that it still would be possible to run below 3 h 20 mins or at least 3 h 30 mins. The running began, however, to feel harder and harder; I really had to struggle to be able to reach below 5 min/km pace any more. Gradually it became more difficult to run and I had to occasionally walk shorter distances. The last 10 km felt the longest I have ever run in a marathon, but in the end I felt happy for finishing. The time at the finish 3.34.xx was a disappointment, but this time I couldn’t do better. Only many questions remain: maybe I had too few long runs, maybe the recovery time from the last marathon was too short, maybe the condition simply was not good enough, During the next months I intend to analyse what went wrong and try to learn something.
Anyway now it’s time for recovery and to have some days off from the running.