First of all, you won't hear any heroism. It becomes very, very bitter. It's best to just stop reading 🙂 But just like glamorous races, bitter moments are also part of it.
Today I started the half marathon in Nuremberg as a pacemaker. Since my best time on this route is 1:17, I ran several centuries ago, I thought to myself, 1:30 puff cake. You can run that without training. I came back from vacation last night and didn't walk a step for exactly 3 weeks. And before that, I wasn't in shape either. Anyway, just start at 4:15 and stop. Already done countless times in training.
The race started and it went really well. The sun was shining, the birds were singing from the trees, many familiar faces in the hometown, everything was super duper. At 8 km my balloon suddenly burst when it got stuck on a ladder. Perhaps it was also one of the runners who ran behind me, because the balloon kicked out with every gust of wind, usually in the middle of a face of the one behind me 😉
Well, I am with my 30 or so companions. Guys, just remember the white hat. Halfway through we are exactly in 44:20, so everything is OK. Approx. 1 km later I noticed, oha, my muscles are tight. It'll be gross if it goes on like this. Something like the feeling when you run and know that one wrong movement and immediately there is a cramp. At 13 km my legs were so tight that I could no longer maintain my pace. It's a bad feeling. Especially when you know that you can run exactly the same pace in the final marathon over the long distance. And now I couldn't even hold it after eight miles. Anyway, the truth had to be revealed and I poured pure wine for my fellow travelers: "Guys, I'm getting too slow and you have to go on without me". Another 300m and I had to stop because I suddenly got a cramp in both legs and nothing worked anymore.
You notice: the performance is only as good as the training before. So it went accordingly today. So it wasn't just a shot across the bow today, it was almost a direct hit. I have a lot of work to do in the next 2-3 weeks so that I can survive the Frankfurt Marathon and get myself halfway out of the affair 🙂
With this in mind, I wish you a nice long weekend and congratulations to all runners today. You were all faster than me !!
your krelli