Hi there,
here’s one tired man writing this post. I did it after all – Off I went and participated at the Hannover marathon. I did that mostly for my friends who I hardly meet nowadays. I was aware that my workouts have been lousy during the past few months, but thanks to the fundament I could rely on that I would be able to finish as long as the pace would not be too high.
My friends had booked a nice apartment through AirBnB and it was located a couple of km from the starting location. I travelled a bit later to the Hannover due to other responsibilities, but I wanted to have a good night sleep before the race so this time I didn’t travel on the day of the event. Hannover is a nice greenish city, located about one hour and a half from my home by train so it would have been possible to travel on Sunday. On the other hand that would have brought some extra stress I didn’t need this time if ever.
On Sunday we didn’t wake up too early, had a light breakfast and after preparing ourselves to the race we had a nice jog of a few km to the starting grid. The morning was brisk, but with a glorious sunshine and giving a full flow of energy – I was happy to be part of the great atmosphere. The Hannover marathon is not one of the biggest, because on the same weekend there are some other big competitions in Europe. Most runners in Hannover decide to take the half marathon – this time it was also the German championship race in the half marathon distance with some elite runners participating, such as Sabrina Mockenhaupt, Anja Scherl etc.
After a short wait we heard the start shot and could make on our way. Our strategy was to run really carefully from the start with the objective to finish below the 4 hours’ mark. My longest run during the whole winter was 21 km and there hardly have been any good training sessions after October so this suited me fine. Running with some good pals is something special and it was for me the most important thing with this race. I hadn’t prepared in a special way when it comes to the nutrition or liquids. This time I wanted to rely on the race organisation’s offer.
The race went pretty nicely until 30 km, after which it was evident that no long runs had been done. We moved on to the strategy of run – walk – run – walk… By doing this we were able to finish at about 4 hours which is about 45 mins more than by best accomplishment, but this time this was fully acceptable. After the finish I have been full of excitement and feeling like to start training again – once this exhaustion gives in…
I’ll try to sum up my experiences from the marathon in a more focused way during the next few days; now I’m off to bed 🙂