Berlin Marathon (26 September)
You probably would have expected a race report earlier than now if this had been a glorious race, and you are right. We arrived a few days early in Berlin (while it was still warm and sunny), and had good fun touristing the city. Weather forecast for race day were bleak: rain. And indeed when race Sunday arrived, it was raining. I lined up for the start in the company of many people wrapped in plastic. Somehow the buzz and excitement were missing, and everyone seemed to be asking the question whether or not it would become dry today. The answer, as it turned out, was "no". The gun went of, everyone shed their plastic, and off we we
re. Even the Siegessäule, shortly after the start, looked glum, because it was all wrapped in scaffolds. Running felt all right initially, but the rain kept pouring, making every shred of clothing soaked. Moreover, the rain created large puddles of water randomly on the pavement, and a moment of inattention could get your feet soaked. Or, in my case, fogged-up glasses. The crowds that I remembered from my previous Berlin Marathon were all huddled under sparse bridges and other places of shelter. Very unfortunate, because usually the first half of the marathon is just fun, looking at the scenery, kidding with the crowds, etc. None of that today.
My goal for Berlin was to run under 3:10, which was a reasonable estimate based on my Bommenberendloop half-marathon time. For the first half I set a pace that was aimed for that goal, but half-way I felt that I would not be able to sustain that pace all the way to the end, so I took it back a notch. Maybe it was because of the heavy shoes, or perhaps because my preparation was not ideal (I had only done two 30+ km runs, one of them was the unfortunate 40km to Bakkeveen). I was able to maintain that slower pace all the way to the finish, and even had a little left at the end for a good final. Final time: 3:15:30.
At least I did run a marathon this year, despite the injuries!
4 Mijl van Groningen (10 October)
Next up was the "4 Mijl van Groningen", the biggest race in the North with 18000 participants. It was shortly after Berlin (2 weeks), so I was still in recovery, and had been a bit sick earlier that week. So I was not very well prepared, and set the slightly conservative goal of under 26 minutes. During warming-up I noticed that the energy wasn't there, but I nevertheless managed to run under 26 minutes: 25:53. Goal achieved, but still my worst 4 Mijl.
Plantsoenloop (6 November)
The Noorderplantsoen is just around the corner of our house (100 meters). The race is 4 laps of 2 km, and it is called a semi-cross: it goes over all the hills in the plantsoen, one of which is rather nasty. The weather was great (sunny and cool), but it has rained all week before, so the race became a real mud fest! It was real fun to run this close to home, and I was also competing closely with two team mates from my running group, Sybolt and Frans. We were running with the three of us for quite a while, but then I noticed in the fourth lap that I had energy left, and managed to pull away from them. Halfway through the last lap I managed to overtake another acquaintance from the past: Maarten Hoeksema, who used to be the running guru at the rowing club. I ended 3rd in my age group with a time of 33:19 and was quite pleased with that.
Cross in Norg (27 November)
The promise of Norg was that it would be even muddier than the Plantsoenloop, because this was a real cross. Veterans of the race had stories about ankle deep mud crawling over huge hills. The truth, or at least this day's truth, turned out the be different: despite the bad weather earlier in the week, it was a crisp and frosty day with good running conditions. The cross in Norg was 8.8km over four laps, one short and three long. The long laps were over the dreaded hills of Norg. However, these hills were not so fearsome as advertised, because even though they were steep, they were not very high. Nevertheless, it took some skill to take them in good stride. The main challenge was to pick up speed after the hills were, and not fall for the temptation to recover too much.
The race felt good to me, and it was nice to run in this frosty foresty environment, but I was not completely satisfied with my final time of 38:34. My plantsoenloop pace had been quite a bit better.
Nam tot Nam 10 km race in Assen
Even though 10 km is the main meat in my running group, I had in fact never run one. So, this was going to be my first attempt at the distance. The race was supposed to be two 5 km loops partially through the Asser Bos, so I was looking forward to the scenery. All the snow has thawed away the night before, so conditions were good. Alas, the organization had rerouted the route because of the conditions and couldn't revert to the original so shortly before the race, so now we were doing four 2.5 km loops in the industrial area around the NAM. Not scenic at all. And second alas: the new distance wasn't measured properly, making the race 9.7km instead of 10km. So still no 10k for me!
Dispite all these misgivings, I did run quite a good race. After the second lap, in which I ran against the wind on my own, I managed to tag on with a group that had a good pace, and managed to keep with them until the finish.
My goal had been to run the 10k under 40 minutes. I finished the 9.7k in 38:02, which means that I would have run 10k under 40 minutes. Some extrapolation yields 39:13. I wish I had actually run that time for real...
I guess that brings things up to date. Next race: "De halve van Egmond": half marathon on the beach and dunes in the beginning of January. Known for its brutal weather conditions.
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