2 weeks after the 15k race, came the final event of the BSV Winterlaufserie, the half marathon. As I mentioned last time, it was tight in the Hasenheide 2nd team for 4-7th places. We all managed to get to the start line fit again, which is an acheivement in itself in January!
I went to the S-Bahn this morning to catch the 10am train to the race, but when I arrived I found out that all of the trains had been cancelled and I was in trouble! I checked the buses, nothing useful, so I booked an Uber to Treptower Park and jumped in a Ring bahn to the start. Seeing that I would only arrive at the station 800m from the start at 10:45 (the start was at 11:00) I needed to get changed as much as possible in the train. I ducked down to swap T-shirts and I changed socks too. I couldn’t bring myself to change out of my jeans in the train, it seemed inappropriate!
As after carriage jumping to get to the best exit, I arrived and ran to the start. I changed, had a toilet stop and checked my bag and still had 5 minutes spare when I got to the start line! I dropped off a bottle and took a gel with me, there wasn’t anything provided by the organiser.
I met the super fast Alex D for the first time on the start line, he wanted to couchsurf at my place in Mainz in 2016 or so, but I was in Mannheim at the time so couldn’t. Our paths have crossed a few times since then, without us actually meeting, so it was good to finally have a chance to chat with him, if only for 20 seconds before the start gun fired (luckily more after the race too).
So off we went and I felt pretty good. Carsten started off ahead of my and I was with Christoph from the start. After about 1km, we caught a group and tucked in, but they seemed a tick too slow, so I passed them and went to the front. They all stayed with me though, and that would be my group of the day.
Carsten, unfortunately, fell away in the 2nd lap but our group worked well together. In the 3rd lap (of 9!) I felt like Christoph pushed the pace a little and I worried a bit, but I bridged and the group came back together.
It was all a bit uneventful with us passing the gps 10km mark at 37:30. I took my drink after 5 laps and after 6 laps I was still feeling good and when a guy in the group pushed on, I went with him. The group disintegrated but Christoph was hanging tough a few metres behind. He got back to us and we all took turns at the front. After going up the hill for the 9th and final time, I tried to give it a final kick to get away.
The guy in black hung on and Christoph could react too. I knew I had 19 seconds on him and felt confident that I wouldn’t lose that much, but who would finish first between us was up for grabs still. With about 1.5km to go the guy in black really went and I struggled to keep pace. The last few minutes were my fastest but I was really disappointed as I entered the stadium to see 1:20:00 on the watch. With more than 300m to go, 1:21 wasn’t going to happen, I had thought it was in the bag!
As I ran down the ramp, I quickly realised, oh, it wasn’t 300m around to the end, just the shorter way around, 100m or so. I really sprinted (for me) but couldn’t catch the man in black, Christoph wasn’t going to catch me either though so with the faster Parkrunners already finished and cheering me on, I crossed the line in 1:20:37.
I was really happy with that, my VDOTs for the races in the series were 56.2, 56.8 and 57.9, a nice trend over 4 weeks and with 2 weeks until my marathon, I have to be looking at 2:48 for my marathon goal time really.
Everyone in the team brought something to eat to bridge the long pause between the end of our race and the prize giving. It was great, we were a group of about 10-12 and had a bit of a feast all told!
To cap it off, I was 3rd in my age group, lots of the others placed in the age groups too, with Gray (who won the half marathon in a PB time) was 3rd in the series. Hasenheide Parkrun was 1st and 3rd in the team competition too, domination!
So that’s that for the series. I think it was my second best half marathon ever, but still 100 seconds off my best ever in Frankfurt. There are no points for being fast in January though, April is what will count. I need to lose more weight (I was 78.5km this morning) and get more longer endurance runs in without blowing myself up like last time. I don’t know if it will work out as I plan, but I am feeling pretty confident at the moment 🙂