My good friend Joachim had told me about his race. He made
it sound so inviting…. “It is 10x round a 5km course and it is always bloody
cold!”. People that know me know just how much I love the cold…. Not. Anyway as
the weather had been really warm, only -1 I thought it would be great and
should be fun. I would use the event as some nice training and it is always
great to get a good 50km under your belt nice and early.
As the time got closer to the event it also got colder!
Rodgau seemed to get slammed with cold and snow. The weather predicted -7 for
race day! I had a couple of easy days leading up to the event and because I was
going to ran as part of a 3 person team, I wanted to run well. The weather is what
scared me, and I don’t like the cold.
The night before the race was great I met Joachim for a fast
beer (maybe I wouldn’t recommend this before an “A” race) and talked about the
next day. In the morning I met Joachim
and we headed off to the race. It was a
wonderful -5 with a lot of ice and snow. The car park was dangerous and a
number of runners fell over just getting their numbers.
Once we got to the start we realized just how hard the day
was going to be. It was bloody cold and the 5km loop had a lot of snow on it,
made up from 1.5km road and 3.5 off road farm track. The 1.5km road was clear
of snow and you could run at a good pace. Of course after the first 500m on the
road was the only aid station, so that meant by getting a drink or food you
would waste that nice part of the course. Then the 3.5km was on snow. Not nice hard compact snow. No, 3-6cm of non-grip snow. They had every km marked which was great! And
my Garmin was agreeing most of the time with where the markers were.
So the run down - I had wanted to do an average of 5min/km
and run a consistent pace for the race. I was running a little faster than this
and feeling good for the first 25km. I had hoped that a hard paced track would
form and in a couple of short places it did, but the problem became passing
people. I started too far back in the field and passing on the snow was hard,
and after the start of my 3rd lap I started to lap runners. It took
a lot of energy to run past in the deepest snow, and even harder when people
were running in groups. Still it was a great work out. The second half got
hard! The track was more mushed up and I was passing runners more often. I
found it harder and harder to keep my speed up in the snow and then taking on
food and drinks I lost some time on the road section. I found in the snow
trying to run faster just meant losing even more grip and not ending up much
faster. On the road I was easily under 4:50min/km pace, just in the snow
conditions I couldn’t keep my efficiency high enough. Still from my fastest lap
to my slowest I lost about 3.5mins, which was in the snow and walking while drinking
in the aid station.
I had aimed for a 4:10:00 and feel that with my current
condition I could have been faster than that if the course wasn’t snowy. I
think I lost at least 10mins in the snow over the 50km. And I think from most
runners there they would have agreed with that sort of time loss. So I did
4:14:31 (netto) and for the day was happy with that. That made 5:05ish min/km.
I am happy with the way my training is shaping up and with it being so very
cold was very pleased to have a nice HOT shower at the end. I came 49th
overall, 12th in my age group and we were 3rd in the team
event. 734 started the event and only 449 finished. That shows just how hard
the conditions were. The Team was from the ELT Grossheubach and was made up of
Ulrich Amborn, Joachim Kempf and Me. Well done boys!
The Organizers did a great job! Everything was marked and
they did their best on a very cold hard day! The helpers were fantastic and to
stand in that cold all day, I have so much respect for them.
I am sure I will be on the start line again next year! It was
a good race!
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