Kassel Marathon

My 21st marathon, but an important one. After last year with very few training, a bad marathon in over 4 hours and an unfinished ironman I started a regular training in January and had some very first signs of better performance at the Strongman and the Lichtenwald half marathon. So my goal was to finish a marathon in under 3:30 h for the first time since the end of 2005. And I did it. 3 hours and 27 minutes and I saw the finish line under this extremely hot and sunny conditions. It's a nice track with nice people cheering during the race. The photo below has been shot by Astrid just minutes before the start.

Lichtenwald half marathon

Only 7 days after the successful mud run I went to a small village in the Swabian Alb to take part in a mountain half marathon organized by a friend. It's one of my favorite runs where I have been the last three years already.

Besides meeting friends of my marathon circle I was really fast and became 19th overall and second in my age group. The continuous training since January finally pays off.

Some marathon statistics

Last weekend I ran the 25th Frankfurt Marathon. It took 4:11 h to finish.

While updating my training log I saw that it has been my 20th marathon since September 2003, when I ran the first one in Berlin.

Of the 20 marathons I ran have been
- 9 flat city courses,
- 9 mountain and/or ultramarathons and
- 2 marathons within an triathlon.

And I never needed over 4 hours for a city course, except last Sunday in Frankfurt. What is also interesting in this context is, that I continuously reduced my overall training kilometers without reducing race kilometers. In 2006 I ran already over 50% of my kilometers in official races (338 out of 641).

So, just one more statistics for the moment. Tonight I have been bowling with collegues and customers. I had an average of around 50 to 70 per game, one of the worst. This is definitely not my sport, even it is a lot of fun. ;)

Marathon Preview

I am currently in Bremen. Sunday will be the marathon. But more important is that we had a cool night out in the pubs.

Bremen Marathon

I just came back from the Bremen Marathon in the North of Germany. I've got a new personal best of 3:03:20 h, so I'm quite happy, even if had speculated to crash the three hours barrier. ;)

CU, Jolle!

Hamburg Marathon...

...in 3:09 h. Plus warm and sunny weather. Plus meating friends and family. Quite much for "just one" of the year's 52 weekends. I'm happy!

Luebeck-Hamburg Run

In 20 hours I'll start my most challenging sportive event of my short career. 75 kilometers in a relatively flat terrain will be a new experience for me. I plan to finish in Hamburg after about seven to eight hours. But time is not important, my only goal is to finish in a good condition. I plan to run in a group with some other members of the ForumTeam. Hopefully we'll find a common speed. Otherwise it will be quite a lonely run, cause 80 participants easily spread out over such a distance.

The weather forecast is around zero to two degrees with a bit of snowfall. Well, I don't care about the snow, but hopefully we'll not have the wind against us.

See last year's report from Manfred (in German) including some photos if you're interested.



Wish you the best, Jolle!
PS: I've got a job in Mannheim starting in March. Therefor I'll have to move next week. But first I'll concentrate on running :), so more on that later.