Half Marathon

…it would have been a new personal best over the half marathon distance, but only just — 3 seconds short. Still, I’m very happy with it. The reasons why: The time came straight out of training — by Saturday I already had 15 training hours in my legs, including a 5-hour brick session the day before I ran the downhill sections noticeably more cautiously than last year and took no risks I almost got lost once, and only a spectator shouting after me and pointing me right saved it (cost about 5 seconds) The “old” PB came from 2010 in Mannheim — famously a completely flat course I improved my old Heidelberg PB from the previous year by 2 minutes and 31 seconds I improved my overall finish position to 16th place The bare numbers: ...

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. ...