Since I’m living in Bremen since 2011, the swb Marathon in Bremen has been an obvious choice several times, because the travelling effort to get to the race is small, and you also get to your own shower and bed pretty soon after the race. During the past few years I haven’t however been there as participant due to various reasons that I’ll list and discuss later in this post.
The marathon in Bremen is nowadays organized on the first Sunday of October. The time should in most cases be pretty optimal for an autumn marathon, as the hot weather is fairly improbable at this point of time. Moreover, there’s plenty of time for the training during the summer, even though one had participated on some spring marathon. On the other hand Berlin Marathon is usually a week before the SWB Marathon, which may partly cut down the number of the participants in Bremen. During the past few years the race has had an increasing number of participants, mainly in the 10k and half marathon race. All in all there are over 6000 people running and for instance this year about 1100 of them ran the marathon.
The marathon route follows the beautiful scenes of the river Weser during the first kilometres mostly on asphalt covered roads, with some sections on gravel/sand road. After the 15 kilometres the race proceeds in the urban, but green city environment (Schwachhausen, Horn), whereas at about 25 km mark the wonderful park Bürgerpark is reached and crossed. From the city district Findorff the race proceeds to the harbour area, and the common walking area Schlachte. During the final kilometres the home stadium of Werder Bremen (Weserstadion) is visited and run through which for many runners is a unique experience. Then there are the final few kilometres before the finish line. In summary the route is pretty even with no great height distances, and for many runners it is a further benefit that you don’t have to run many rounds.
From my experience based on the past three marathons in Bremen I can state that mainly the following three things bug me: if you are a marathon runner with the expected finish time of 3:00 – 4:00 hours, you’ll probably have to struggle with the rush of runners during the race. After having run about 25 kilometres a huge crowd of half marathon runners suddenly appears in front of you near the Bürgerpark. In that phase of the race it can be really devastating and disturb one’s performance. Secondly, when I run in Bremen for the first time in 2011, the weather was unexpectedly warm – about +25°C during the race which made everything harder than normally. As there weren’t any extra service points along the route, some participants got severe problems with the heat, so it might be wise to add a couple of service points along the route. Additionally, when you are living in a particular city, its outskirts become pretty quickly familiar to you, if you are doing any serious training. This may – or may not – be a further drawback. At least for me it is an evident drawback.
Compared to other races in Germany that I have participated at, SWB marathon in Bremen is a well-organized event, the route is generally very good and with enough variation. There are not nearly as many people along the route as in Hamburg – naturally partly due to the lower number of people living in the area, but enough cheering can still be expected.
7. SWB Marathon 2011