The Husum “Winter Marathon” had a serious problem this year. Usually, you have to live with the harshest conditions you can get in Northern Germany: A lot of wind, cold temperatures, rain or snow, sometimes a lot of it. (In past years, participants had to run on uncleared bike paths through 10 inches of snow.) This year, conditions were very favorable: A cold, clear night with freezing temperatures had given way to a sunny day with blue skies and nice temperatures (at least for early March – about 5°C or about 40°F). Except for a stiff wind on the way out, you couldn’t have asked for nicer weather.
Pre Race Goals
I had signed up for this race in order to motivate me for some longer runs in the winter months. I had managed to get some solid training in, but not quite the volume I had in mind. I managed a few longer runs of up to 25k at a decent pace, but I was quite skeptic about my endurance. So my goals were clear: Run a decent paced long run, make sure I eat and drink enough not to run into too many problems in the second half, and arrive at 30k in shape to be able to run under 3:50 if possible. I was in for a big surprise!
First Half
After the start we got a pretty stiff headwind, so I made sure to run at the end of a larger group that was going at a decent pace. We were running along at about a 5:25/k pace which felt totally effortless. I had to remind myself to hold back and run steady until the 30k mark. I managed to eat and drink something every 15 to 20 minutes without any problems, and the run went along without anything happening except for maybe a short bio break after which I easily ran back to the group.
Faster than anticipated we reached the half way mark – 1:53:23, a 5.22/k at an average heart rate of 133 – probably the easiest half marathon I had ever run. I was really surprised how well I was holding up, and in a great position to run around a 3:45. My goals started changing a bit …
Second Half
Slowly, I was giving myself a few extra beats of HR to increase my pace – to 5:15, to 5:10. The kilometers were flying by and when I hit the 30k mark, I was at 2:41 and I was still feeling really good. I could just continue, or I could try to speed up and see what was possible. It would require a clearly sub 5-minute-pace to get under 3:40 – clearly a stretch at this point of the season. Nonetheless, I wanted to give it a try but without detonating. It felt good to increase the pace some more, but whenever there was a slight hill, I struggled and it was clear that I was running close to the pace that was possible for me. That pace was hovering around 5:00/k – some k’s were a little bit faster, some were a bit slower. At the last aid station, I made sure to drink a few sips of Coke and hoped that would give me some extra boost – but all that was possible was just holding the pace The last k hurt (as usual in a marathon), and I ended up coming in at 3:42:00 on my watch and an official 3:42:53 (which includes some pit stops that the GPS watch took out). I’m really happy with that result, it was my third or fourth fastest marathon ever.
Looking forward
The Husum marathon is a really good sign for my A-race this season, the Hamburg Marathon at the end of May. My goal is to PR (currently 3:29), possibly dip under the Boston qualifier time of 3:20.
That is still quite a bit faster than Husum. I could have run a bit quicker, but probably not more than a few minutes – so I still have to improve by 15 to 20 minutes – about 20 to 30 seconds per k quicker than in Husum.
There will have to be some serious training to achieve this:
- long runs – my endurance already seems to be pretty good, but obviously endurance is the main thing for a marathon
- marathon pace tempo runs – the pace I ran in Husum felt comfortable, but running a 4:45/k to 4:30/k pace is a different story. I’ll have to do some more runs at that pace to be able to run this pace in a relaxed fashion
- weight – loosing a few more kgs will make things easier for the big race and I have to get back to working at it some more
I hope I can get a lot done in the next few months. But first, recovery is the most important thing, so for the next two weeks I’m going to take things easier. I’ll probably do a few more easy runs with our little dog, he enjoys it a lot and the pace is quite relaxed with him. Once I’m recovered, I’ve got a few more tune-up races lined up ….
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