Hello,
last Saturday I finally got the opportunity to take part in a real running event in Bremen – 2. Bremer Brückenlauf. The half marathon took place in the evening which was a nice change to the normal routine where the most races take place in the daytime. The later evening as the time for the event also ensured that the temperature already was a bit lower than during the warmest afternoon hours. Nevertheless the temperature was high enough for a runner that mostly prefers running temperatures under 15 degrees Celsius.
The start shot was fired at 06:30 PM and hundreds of runners headed to the route that followed the outskirts of the river Weser. I chose not to try too hard and try to maintain a pace of about 4:45 mins/km. At the beginning this was pretty comfortable for me and I didn’t have any big difficulties but I also was pretty certain I couldn’t proceed with a higher pace – at least not for a long time. The sunny weather was nice, but due to the warm temperatures I tried to drink a lot more than I usually do during a half marathon. Normally I would hardly drink anything, but this time I did and I think it was a completely correct decision.
Due to the many bridges the running route was not completely even, but with several smallish down- and uphills. In the end this did not have too much impact, but I would say it did have a minor influence on the running. The foremost fact that made my running slower towards the end of the race was that I haven’t done any long runs during the past few months. Due to this the kilometres after the km 13 were pretty harsh and I really said to myself I have to include the long runs in my running schedule soon. Otherwise the marathon in the autumn will be a huge event of pain.
Despite the hard kilometres in the end I could finish with a passable accomplishment with a finish time of about 1:41:00. Next time I would, however, like to snap 15 minutes out of it. 😉 The organization worked great, there were enough drinks available along the route and the food and the drinks at the finish were absolutely great. I can warmly recommend the event and if possible I will be there also in a year (06.07.2019). Cheers!