Kiel Halbmarathon: First 2011 Race

This Saturday, I ran my first 2011 race, the half marathon in Kiel.

The race

It was a nice sunny day, but it was still pretty cold and there was some westerly wind that made running into it a bit uncomfortable.

The first few k (with the wind) felt really easy. I briefly debated weather I should try to go a bit faster, but quickly managed to hold back a bit. For the first loop of 10.5k, I was running at the faster end of my goal pace of 4:30/k. If I managed to hold that pace, I’d be able to come in at under 1:35h.

However, during the second loop I was running into some issues and holding the pace was getting harder and harder. At the 15k mark, I decided to walk a few steps and get some Coke down for some extra energy. But that didn’t last too long, into the wind my pace dropped to around 4:45/k and I came in at just under 1:37 – a bit disappointed, still a pretty good result considering I was not willing to dig really deep for finish just a few seconds faster.

Looking forward

After all, my next race is just a scant week later, and it’s a full marathon! So this week is mainly easy sessions of 30 minute runs in order to recover and hopefully arrive at the start line rested and ready for a nice long run. My planned pace is about a full minute slower than for my half marathon, and I hope that this will enable me to run the full distance (save for a few steps at the aid stations). A 3:55 full marathon will be more than okay at this time of the year – if I manage that I’ll be getting more and more optimistic for my May marathon in Hamburg. For now, I’m feeling okay and hope that I manage to get some extra hours of sleep in during this week. It’ll be interesting to see how I’ll feel by Friday.

Upcoming Races: Kiel Halbmarathon and Husum Marathon

After almost two months of 2011, it is almost time for some more races.

The races I have lined up are:

• Half Marathon in Kiel on February 26th
  The plan for this race is to have a good long tempo run, if possible a bit faster than the time I want to run my spring marathon. The dream goal for that would be a 3:15, which would require a 4:36/k average. A more reasonable but still ambitious goal is a 3:20 – a 4:44/k average. So I’ll see where I end up running, with a goal time of under 1:40, preferably under 1:37.
• Marathon in Husum on March 5th
  This will be mainly a long run, around my new long run pace of 5:30, which would translate to a sub 4h marathon.

The tricky thing will be the recovery between the two races .. hopefully my half marathon effort will not be so high as to impede my ability to run a full marathon a week later. That is one reason why I’m not going to run Kiel all out – that would definitely take too much out of me.

Training in January and February

I’m quite happy with the way my training has turned out since X-mas. I’ve put in some decent volume at a good clip, and I’ve managed a few solid long runs. Having said that, I’m still short of any record levels and my longest run has been 25k – obviously too short for a really solid marathon race. But the marathon is just planned as a long run, and I should be in good shape if I manage to start easily and eat and drink decently. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how the race is going to turn out – there are quite a few things that might go wrong.

One thing that should be okay is the weather. Husum is quite famous for adverse weather conditions. Last year they’ve had quite a lot of fresh snow:

In some previous years they’ve had a big storm come through, but the predictions for this year look quite okay – cold, but not any snow. I’ll know better where I stand after the next two weeks! Hopefully I’ve got a good base to build on before starting my build-up for Hamburg at the end of May.