Category Archives: Sports

40th Berlin Marathon 2013

Sports

Unlike the perfect Californian weather in Goleta, when I got up really early to take the chance of getting a ticket for this years’ marathon in Berlin (there were only 2000 left that were released for online registration at 5 P.M. CET I believe) it was surprisingly cold for late September in Berlin. If you know me you’ll recall I prefer warm or even hot weather to everything under 15°C where you have to wear real (and comparatively heavy) clothes to run a long distance. Nevertheless us two runners and our support team took an early train into Berlin and were eager to experience this big event. We got through perfectly and better than expected, because there were not many tourists traveling so early on a Saturday and most participants seemed to arrive from the city center or the east/south part of Berlin.

The start was incredibly slow, but the atmosphere was already nice, because there were just so many people and it was really international with every third participant from Denmark in my perception (they seemed to all wear the same shirts with a Danish flag).

Unfortunately I made the same mistake as last time in Santa Barbara – I just enjoyed the atmosphere too much and wasn’t paying attention to the speed (or maybe I just wasn’t prepared well enough as well). It felt absolutely nice the first half, but I just used my reserves too fast so that from about km 30 on it was a little painful, but the feeling of running through the Brandenburg Gate at the end made up for that. Also there were so many fun participants (just have a look at random race pictures and you will see what I mean :D).

I was hoping to finish below 3:30h, but made it in 03:39:54h (11.49 km/h), at least a slightly improved personal record and still room for improvement 🙂

Previous competitions:

  • 10km “City-Nachtlauf” in Berlin on July 31st 2010 in 0:41:43 hours (14.4 km/h)
  • 22.1 km “Stadtlauf” in Berlin on August 28th 2011 in 1:33:00 hours (13.6 km/h)
  • 51km “Harzquerung” in Wernigerode on April 28th 2012 in 5:41:31 (9 km/h)
  • 10km “IGA-Lauf” in Berlin on May 20th 2012 in 0:44:45 hours (13.4 km/h)
  • 42 km “Santa Barbara International Marathon” in California on November 11th 2012 in 3:42:06 (11.4 km/h)
  • 51 km “Harzquerung” in Wernigerode on April 27th 2013 in 5:52:36 hours (8.7 km/h)

Harzquerung 2013

Sports, Uncategorized

This years’ circumstances for doing the Harzquerung were not as favourably as last time, it was constantly raining, relatively cold and I had some knee problems starting from kilometer 30 on. Otherwise I am sure I would have been slightly faster than last year even with the bad weather (since it was only paths through the forest it was unbelievably muddy and slippery on the steep ascends), but still it was fun to do. I even know this years’ winner for a pretty long time  It took me 5:52:36 hours (8.7 km/h) this time, 11 minutes more than in 2012. It also was a little more challenging than last year despite the weather, because we rode 20 kilometers by bike to the start and after the finish. No pictures because of the weather.

Previous competitions:

  • 10km “City-Nachtlauf” in Berlin on July 31st 2010 in 0:41:43 hours (14.4 km/h)
  • 22.1 km “Stadtlauf” in Berlin on August 28th 2011 in 1:33:00 hours (13.6 km/h)
  • 51km “Harzquerung” in Wernigerode on April 28th 2012 in 5:41:31 (9 km/h)
  • 10km “IGA-Lauf” in Berlin on May 20th 2012 in 0:44:45 hours (13.4 km/h)
  • 42 km “Santa Barbara International Marathon” in California on November 11th 2012 in 3:42:06 (11.4 km/h)

Santa Barbara International Marathon

Sports, Uncategorized

Since the Santa Barbara Marathon was during our stay here we had to sign up and give it a try. Unfortunately that meant getting up at 5.30 a.m. to catch the shuttle bus to the start line leaving at UCSB. It was incredibly cold, but I arrived at the start unfrozen.

Fortunately at the start the sun started to rise. The start was pretty quick and I thought about which pacer to follow (each pacer had a finish time and guides others by running exactly the speed required to reach the finish line at the set time). I thought 3:45 might be a realistic time, but it just felt too slow, so I ended up sticking with the 3:25 pacer until about 25 kilometers. The route was pretty nice and there were a lot of people cheering, holding up signs or just watching. The sports enthusiasm over here is still unbeatable.

When I felt my power fading I slowed down a bit, but soon felt myself being chased by the 3:30 group, so I joined them. Unfortunately at kilometer 32 my muscles had enough and turned into concrete. From that point on it was really painful, but somehow I still managed to arrive at 3:42:06 (11.4 km/h). The finish was decorated for Veteran’s day – huge American flags for the last mile and veterans at the finish line.

Luckily the supply of free food and drinks was really good. During the run I had kept looking for real food like bananas, so I was happy to get some at the finish line, finally.

In the bus back to UCSB I met a just retired American from Fresno, who had already completed more than 100 marathons, at least one in each state of the U.S. with a record time of 2:47. Way to go :)

Hiking the Florida National Scenic Trail

Sports, Travel, U.S., Uncategorized

We got up relatively early, because when the sun is on the car it gets unbearably hot. We started hiking the trail and soon saw lots of different vegetation and animals. It was extremely scenic, but when at times we stopped because of strange noises. You get pretty cautious after reading about the alligators and bears. At our first short banana break we already discovered some ticks, but we would find more later. Although difficult I killed two walking on my legs.
We continued about 4 hours, but the trail is far too long to walk all the way, so we did a little longer break at a lake (watching out for alligators of course) and walked back the same way.
We arrived at the car about 5 p.m. with aching feet after walking for about 24 kilometers.

Laguna 69

PerĂş, Sports, Travel, Uncategorized

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Laguna 69 together with a girl from Australia. The tour was organized by hour hostel so we were conveniently picked up at the front door. When we started to talk German the Australian girl immediately joined our conversation and it turned out she was half Swiss. Very funny. From that point on we constantly changed languages from German to English to Spanish. Very confusing, but also a lot of fun.
We started on time at 6 a.m. but with a short stop to buy bread and a stop at a breakfast restaurant were we ate bread and a fried egg together with some coca tea we arrived at 10.30 at about 3900 meters. From there we had to climb up to 4600 meters. At first only Andreas (my German friend from Lima) had some problems with the altitude and in the end he made it very close to the Lagoon. I seem to have overestimated myself a bit in terms of the altitude. Its a very strange feeling to not feel exhausted at all, but still suddenly get a headache and not be able to eat anything. I should have had more water, but afterwards you always know better. I made it to the lagoon and it was just beautiful. We were quite astonished that there were just a handful of people there, even though it seems to be one of the most known tourist destinations around Huaraz.
We were quite unlucky with the weather, because in contrast to the heat people told us about, we had no sun and it was very cold. We even had some snow up at the lagoon. Still one guy did take a short swim in the water, which was supposedly about 8 degrees.
Because of the cold we just stayed a few minutes to enjoy the beauty. While descending I felt very bad and was just hoping it would get better back in Huaraz. It did although a slight headache remained.
Since Andreas had to catch his Lima-bound bus in the night we grabbed some good food in a touristy restaurant right at the main square, the quinua soup was delicious. Afterwards I fell into bed exhausted.

The next day there was no trek (not enough people), so I thought about what to do and ended up going to the thermal baths again with 5 chicas from the hostel. We had nice weather and enjoyed it a lot. Pia, the Swiss-Australian girl was also going and afterwards we went to a nice restaurant and the legendary Cafe Andina (perfect hot chocolates!). There she met a Peruvian guy who persuaded us to start a three-day tour tomorrow. We will go together with a French girl, so we will be three tourists and two guides. The price is quite expensive, but includes everything and they promised us the only tourists we will meet along the way will be Lamas
Since I planned to leave Huaraz one day earlier already, I will have to take the bus to Trujillo right when we come back on Thursday.

Harzquerung

Sports, Uncategorized

Motivated by brilliant sunshine with 25°C and a good friend whom I met four times during the run I finished the 51km Harzquerung successfully on Saturday, April 28th 2012.

I have to admit that although I did train for about two months in preparation my largest training distance of 32 km was more than a joke compared to the actual run. I wasn’t sure whether I would make it to the finish line in an acceptable time both before and during the race. Nevertheless I had thought about what time might be possible and concluded that based on my training experiences I might make it in 6 hours which would be 8.5 km/h overall.

During the run my main problem was the altitude changes, because I was not used to that at all, so I underestimated the uphill parts. For the first 15 kilometers I really wondered why everybody walked uphill instead of running, so I surpassed several runners (which was difficult on those small paths) only to see them again when we got back down, because most of them sprinted downhill which I considered too risky (I care about my knees). Of course running uphill didn’t continue when I reallized how energy-draining it really was.

So in general it was a huge success and another important milestone, I met nice people, had a nice trip through that wonderful area and enjoyed the good weather. I finished after 5:41:31, so my average speed was 9 km/h for 51 km (1300 meters ascending and 1400 meters descending).

Thanks a lot to the organizers and volunteers who supplied us with food and drinks along the route! I’m pretty sure I’ll do this again 🙂

Finish

 

Previous milestones:

  • 10km “City-Nachtlauf” in Berlin on July 31st 2010 in 0:41:43 hours (14.4 km/h)
  • 22.1 km “Stadtlauf” in Berlin on August 28th 2011 in 1:33:00 hours (13.6 km/h)
  • 10km “IGA-Lauf” in Berlin on May 20th 2012 in 0:44:45 hours (13.4 km/h)