Races in 2004

27-Nov-04: Arolsen Marathon

10-Oct-04: Gießen [HM]

26-Sep-04: Kronberg [20k]

05-Sep-04: Großen-Buseck [HM]

29-Aug-04: Koberstädter Marathon

1-Aug-04: Langd [10k]

7-Jul-04: Nightrun Frankfurt [3*5k relay]

03-Jul-04: Eberstadt Volkslauf [10k]

06-Jun-04: Brunnenfestlauf Oberursel [10k]

31-May-04: Pfingstlauf Krofdorf-Gleiberg [10k]

23-May-04: Oberhessenlauf Staufenberg [10k]

09-May-04: Mainz Marathon

25-Apr-04: Gießener Frühjahrshalbmarathon

22-Feb-04: Wallernhausen [15k]

15-Feb-04: Kreis-Cross Langsdorf [3.4k]

Hecticness

Oh dear, I am at home that's good but I have to work that's not so good but you might think you get managed a nice moderate run BUT... The whole week my laptop is running, I have to be reachable by my mobile, and ´there is at least one daily conference call with the Spanish guys. And, it's getting dark at 5pm and my wife likes also to go out w/o the kids... And in the morning I am just tired... So, when to run?
Today I could squeeze a 10k run just before getting dark and the conference call started. I ran 10 minutes with a slow pace and then did some intervalls with 90sec pretty fast (probably 4mins/k) and 90sec pretty slow. In total I did that 12 times. Finally I had 48min on my watch. Nice run anyway, short but nice! After having run my last competition in October I really like to go again for some speed work. But I am currently not in that desired overall shape for a real 100% race. Let's start next week with the "real" training...

Snow

So, now I am a valid discussion partner of all these Canadian runners because it snowed! And eventually I had my first run on snowy underground for this winter, yeah.

Week 3/4 summary

That's the summary for the week. Due to my business trip and other things (=XMas ;-)) going on I was not able to manage my long run of 25k to 30k which I have planned. Anyway, at least I could manage 4 times running and made some moderate intervalls:

20-Dec: MO - Rest day
21-Dec: TU - 11k
22-Dec: WE - Rest day
23-Dec: TH - Rest day
24-Dec: FR - 15k
25-Dec: SA - 10k (15*75sec fast/75sec slow)
26-Dec: SU - 14k

Merry Christmas

I wish you all the best, hopefully you can enjoy as you like to.



See above our two kids Amelie and Luca-Henri. They really enjoyed Christmas Eve today although we had really not-Christmas-like weather! Anyway, maybe the presents made them lucky enough to forget to be bothered by this rainy weather ;-) We started the day with a light breakfast after Sabine came back from making the last shopping of food to "survive" the next three days. Afterwards I went for a short run, the family took a nap, and then we went to the church for the nativity play. Afterwards we enjoyed our food at home, wow, and it was 6:30 pm and time for letting the Christ Child stopping by and take the presents, yeah ;-)

Christmas Run

+8 degrees C, oh man, some days ago it was about -10 degrees C. This is not really Christmas-like weather. Off course now snow but rain. Anyway, I could get out for a nice easy run of about 15k when every other family member took a little nap.

Going Back Home

Returning back from 20 degrees C...

Boring

Oh man, this is really boring. I am back in Barcelona, having a good hotel with the Princesa Sophia but running on a treadmill as I did today is really soooooooooo boring. Anyway, I could manage nearly one hour with alternating speed from 10k/hr up to 14k/hr, in total it was 11k.

Feeling Good

In total I have completed the week as I planned:

13-Dec: MO - Rest day
14-Dec: TU - 14k
15-Dec: WE - Rest day
16-Dec: TH - 15k
17-Dec: FR - Rest day
18-Dec: SA - 25k
19-Dec: SU - 10k (incl. 20*1min fast/1min slow)

I was really lucky on Saturday and Sunday with the weather. It was forecasted heavy rain and strong winds but it was not that bad the whole days. Especially for Saturday's long run I don't know if I had completed the 25k with bad weather. I had no company for the total 2:15hrs and that's hard for a guy who doesn't like too much the long runs. Anyway, what I recognized that after more than 2 weeks of regular running I feel better and better with each run. During the first runs I always felt a bit tired and some little pain in my legs and muscles but during last three runs I felt pretty great.
So, it seems, I am back and will try to continue like this.

Week 2/4

My plan for this week:

13-Dec: MO - Rest day
14-Dec: TU - 10k
15-Dec: WE - 15k
16-Dec: TH - Rest day
17-Dec: FR - 15
18-Dec: SA - 25k
19-Dec: SU - Rest day (Departure for Barcelona)

Weekly summary

This was a pretty successful week compared to my low-milers during the previous months ;-) I had some really nice runs, slow but nice. Today it was a sunny day with minus degrees (about -5 degrees C). This weather is really great!

This was my week:
06-Dec: MO - 15k (1:22:30)
07-Dec: TU - Rest day
08-Dec: WE - 15k (1:22:00)
09-Dec: TH - Rest day
10-Dec: FR - 10k (0:53:00)
11-Dec: SA - Rest day
12-Dec: SU - 21k (1:53:30)

Pace was always pretty moderate between 5:10 and 5:30 per km. Actually this was the first of four "preparational" weeks before the real 10-weeks marathon training will start. I like to run between 60 and 80km each week w/o loosing to much energy.

Lunch Pictures

Did you really expect pictures of food ;-)

Slowly

I shifted my run from yesterday to today. Again, lunchtime = running time, but this time I was early enough to have a run + lunch, just entered the canteen some minutes to 2 and got a huge plate of Pasta ;-)
The run today was pretty nice, easy, and, off course, slow. Started at 12 o'clock to get out of the factory area (where the gym is located), then I have two options: left or right. This time I chose left what means that I have to run approx. 2k right beside the street and then I am able to enter a little forest with some hilly paths. In the forest and nearby I can make a pretty nice and diversified round of nearly 6k. 1 1/2 round with some smaller loops summed up to 80min run. Cool!

Lunch Time

Back to (local) work, i.e. no flight to Spain is scheduled for this week and also not for the next week, that's good. So, I try re-creating my habit to run during lunch time. Today was a slow but nice one. Just ran about 80mins on some country roads nearby. Actually it's not that cold anymore and no rain, no wind made this run a pretty comfortable one. I plan to have up to 5 runs this week and start to build some mileage to be in shape for beginning of January when I intend to start my marathon training.

Intended runs this week:
MO - 15k - done
TU - 15k
WE - Off
TH - 11k
FR - 15k
SA - 20k
SO - Off

Arolsen Pics

Here are some pictures of myself, Georg, and Robbie from last Saturday's marathon:

Back from Spain (again)

Hey man, I am really busy at the moment. I think it will be still worse in the next weeks. But from mid of January onwards I expect "easy" living (maybe not easy but...).
Actually I wanted to post some updates on my last marathon. Yeah, I ran it last Saturday, oh man, was this a tough one. Especially when considering that I am not trained at all at them moment. During the last three months I ran in total 38 times with 437 km, i.e. less than 40k/week. See below the table of how often I ran which distance:

Dist. Number
5 km - 1
7 km - 4
8 km - 4
9 km - 2
10 km - 8
11 km - 4
12 km - 5
13 km - 3
14 km - 1
15 km - 1
17 km - 1
20 km - 1
21 km - 2
23 km - 1

You can imagine the pain I had running the marathon ;-) But more details, actually the Advent marathon in Arolsen at end of november is more or less a sort of cult. Nearly anybody likes to go there for season closure, despite the fact that it's nearly always bad weather and a pretty tough course with pretty hilly sections and a lot of mud.
At 11 AM the crowd started directly at the Twistesee, and, off course, it rained and was pretty cold. After the first 4k I sweated pretty much as we were "climbing" into the forests. Anyway some time later I was nearly frozen as the rain was heavier and heavier. Off course, I didn't like it too much but we were a pretty nice group together with Robbie and Georg and made a lot of jokes. We reached Half Marathon at around 1:54hrs, actually this should be a pretty slow pace for me but my back killed me so I didn't feel like this is an easy pace especially when considering all these ups and downs on the course... Anyway, my friends left me at km 32 and km 38 when I said to them that they should go and not wait for me I will be in better shape next year to beat them ;-)
In the end, I clocked with a 3:38:51 and a 141st place out of nearly 700 runners. I don't intend to run that one again but it was good to make it, especially because my job kills me currently but I needed this as a strange sort of these mental things ;-)