'Schneller!' - 'Kann nicht...!'
Language student and Wallsend Harrier Tony Carter is currently living and studying in Europe, and making occasional forays into some of the city Half-Marathons that are spread around our neighbouring countries. He sends this report from Germany...
The Bonn Half Marathon 2010
After the Vienna half marathon there were two things still grumbling: the first was my attitude from a bad race and the second was the ash cloud from that Icelandic volcano with the unpronouncable name. Fortunately, the latter calmed down on time so I was able to fly to Germany on Wednesday.
My fifth half marathon was to take place in Bonn on Sunday but I took the opportunity to visit Cologne before going to the former West German capital on Saturday, so I just spent the few days looking around, trying some Kölsch - Cologne's local beer - and doing a few runs, with my main run being the 1x4 min, 5x1 min session by the Rhine on Friday.
I then went upriver to Bonn on the Saturday before the half marathon. After collecting my number and seeing the stands of running products, much like all my previous European city half marathons, I went for a gentle thirty minute run by the Rhine where I would be running the next day, even doing a short 1km blaster where part of the course was already marked, doing 3.08 at a comfortable pace (a 3.07 kilometre will get a 5 minute mile at that pace).
The race itself started just around the corner from where I was staying and I was able to see the other runners from my hotel window. It started at 8.45am, and at exactly twenty minutes before the start of the race, I knew what I wanted to run - and that was anything faster than what I did in Vienna the previous week, even if my legs were a bit sore and tight from the previous two days of running.
The first kilometre went over the Rhine to a town on the other side, and that was a bit slow because of the crowds at the start. I was able to increase the pace a bit from the second kilometre, and I was noticing I was doing my splits at 3.33mins per km, 5 seconds slower per kilometre than in Paris. I wasn’t feeling tired at that pace either but I could feel my legs were a bit heavy, but I wasn’t deterred.
At 8k we were back in Bonn and the course made its way by the river and along the path that I was on the day before, and the race seemed to get slower as I was catching only one runner in each km section instead of the 30 or so I’d caught in the first quarter of the race, but I was still going strong. I ran through 10k over one minute slower than Paris and even slower than Vienna at that point, but I knew I could take over my Vienna time.
At 14k and away from the river, I started to slow, now doing splits over 3.37mins per km, but by this point I knew I would soon be faster than Vienna. There were a few annoying points here: at the fourth water station no one was paying attention so I couldn’t get any water, plus the kid who was holding the energy drinks seemed like he did not want to get splashed so I had to lean in to get a drink that would be half-spilt from trying to get it, and I did get the cup of coke from another kid though I splashed half of that into my eye which stung a bit.
At 16k and my time was 56.42 so my 10 mile time would have been around 57 minutes, near my Vienna time but I knew I was becoming tired and it was harder to run, made worse as Europe’s “The Final Countdown” was being played through loudspeakers which annoyed me as I was counting down the final kilometres to the end which I wanted to reach quickly. Like the week before, somebody was shouting “schneller!” and I replied “kann nicht!” but I was in much better spirits and took that with a laugh, funnily that I did run a bit of a quicker split.
So the final straight road in “Blaydon” conditions with a light breeze in my face, telling myself to just keep running. At 20 k the course went into the centre of Bonn and into the pedestrian zone which was cobbled at parts, luckily not as cobbled as the last bit in Linz. As I saw the finish the commentator called my name out and I got a loud cheer, even cheering myself (there is actually a photo of me celebrating into the finish) as I ran my second ever quickest half marathon in 1hr 15mins and 14secs. I had further cause to celebrate as I found out later I finished in 10th place, even with a hard run in my legs from two days before!
So that was European half marathon number five. My next and final one is in Salzburg on 16th May and one where I am really going to prepare well for. A race report will follow shortly after.
NB: Ever on the look out for training advantages, young Carter suggests that cherries may help with distance running. He posts this link:
http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/browse/ne/uninews/marathoncherries
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