Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.

Today I finally kicked off the new season — later than usual compared to previous years. Bad weather had taken care of cancelling every planned race up to this point.

Still, I was feeling pretty confident going in. Training had been going really well, and with a lot of base miles in the legs but no targeted race prep, this half marathon was going to be the first serious fitness check. I only knew part of the course from the Heidelbergman triathlon — in hindsight that turned out to be a slight disadvantage, because the course is genuinely brutal.

So I lined up without much of a plan, hoping it wouldn’t be quite as savage as the elevation profile suggested. I ran the flat opening kilometers conservatively and got passed plenty of times. That changed the moment we hit the first climb — the Philosophenweg. From that point on nobody passed me again and I started picking off places one by one. At the top, the trail dropped sharply through the woods, and at the bottom it immediately ramped straight up again toward the Stift. That was the hardest stretch for me — flying downhill at full speed, then grinding up a steep ramp at a crawl. I caught the first female athlete there.

After the next steep descent we had a short flat section, which I used to grab some fuel and recover a little. The final climb to the castle was the real sting in the tail — my lack of course knowledge cost me there. Very steep to start, then easing off significantly — would have been useful to know in advance. The aid station halfway up was handing out beer… too bad I was in a hurry 🙂

On the last descent I made up three more places, though it cost me a pretty savage calf cramp. I hobbled across the finish line feeling like I was running on one leg, in a time of 1:24:14. That put me 34th overall and 7th in my age group.

The verdict is positive:

  • Fitness check: passed
  • Running form is already in pretty good shape
  • The race is fantastic but genuinely hard — you should definitely know what you’re signing up for 😉