It was a about a quarter to ten when I crossed the finish line near the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz this morning, and it was two hours and ten minutes after I started running the marathon in Oberwesel near the Loreley.

Even though I didn’t even train half as much as I did last year, I was able to skate significantly faster – almost 18 minutes less than last year. My average speed was also the fastest I’ve ever skated – about 19.5 km/h (about 12 mph) – and that’s including even my short trainings of 10 km. There were three things that helped me along, though.

First, the weather: Because we started so early it was not yet hot outside, and I finished by the time I would normally have breakfast on a Sunday. Second, a colleague and I each leaded for one kilometre and then followed in the other’s lee (slip stream? I can’t seem to find a proper translation for Windschatten), and that saves a lot of energy. And last but not least, quite a few spectators were up at this early hour and cheered us on. We even saw cheerleaders (which are not as common here in Germany as they are in the US by far) and a few brass bands. The last band was positioned at the third-last kilometre and managed to motivate me into a final spurt even though I thought I didn’t have much energy left.

After we had got our finisher T-shirts and medals and changed into normal shoes, we went to have some much-deserved ice-cream before I rode the train home. I still feel a bit groggy (it’s now six hours later), but overall don’t feel too bad. We’ll see if I get a Muskelkater tomorrow.

Thanks for the (birthday) wishes, Garret, Daniel and Jeff!

It’s the evening before the marathon. I put new, bigger wheels (80 mm diameter instead of 78) and bearings on my shoes a week ago, which seems to have increased my velocity quite a bit – or is it my motivation? Anyway, I feel much faster now than I did two weeks ago. When I last trained yesterday I managed to skate 10 km (6.2 miles) in 32 minutes, and even though I trained much more last year, my average speed is about the same, so I’m optimistic that I won’t be much slower tomorrow than I was last year.

The weather forecast predicts a mere 28°C (82°F), which is a bit cooler than last years predicted 30°C (86°F). Another advantage is that the inline marathon starts earlier this year: 7:30 am instead of 9:10. This way, I’ll probably reach the finish line between 10:00 and 10:30.

Anyone wanna do brunch in Koblenz tomorrow? ;-)

It’s that time of the year again – I’ll participate in the second Mittelrhein-Marathon on Sunday, June 18 (which coincides with my 31st birthday). Last year I was determined to be faster this year, but too much work and inclement weather hindered my training (I’m using the same track I skated on last year).

Right now, with a week and a half to go, I think I’ll do fine if I’m about as fast as last time, but we will see. The weather was very hot last year, and we started at 9:10 am; this year, we had the first really warm day today, but the marathon is starting at 7:30 am, so hot weather on the day of the marathon should not be much of a problem because I’ll probably be able to finish between ten and half past.

Für den Marathon will ich meine Skates noch mit neuen Rollen ausstatten, weil die alten abgelaufen sind. An die Schuhe passen Rollen mit bis zu 80 Millimetern Durchmesser – zwei Millimeter mehr als die alten holen vielleicht ein bisschen Zeit ‘raus. Bleibt noch die Frage nach der Härte…

Gute Informationen dazu habe ich hier gefunden (wegen Frames lädt der Artikel zumindest nicht in meiner Safari-Version, aber es gibt einen Cache der Seite bei Google).