Since my last race I haven’t been running too much. I managed to injure my right calf, meaning I couldn’t run for a week. I have started running again since then, but not too much and no quality, except one decent 25km run. The Seppel Kiefer Lauf fit well for me as it meant I had an extra week of recovery than if I ran Frankfurt half marathon.
Seppel Kiefer Lauf – a bit scared!
I’ve been a bit worried about my running since Groß-Gerau, because it was such a bad race for me. I feel like I am on a downward trend at the moment, fortunately that only applies to running, not cycling or swimming. At first I’d considered doing the half marathon at the Seppel Kiefer Lauf, but given my recent lack of running, I felt that the 10k was a better idea.
I got the train to Bad Munster am Stein and planned to cycle home from Bad Kreuznach after the race. I knew that I have no chance of winning. Christian Bock and Lukas from TCEC were doing the 10k and they are much faster than me.
Blowing a gale
It was windy but quite warm, probably 12 degrees or so. The Seppel Kiefer Lauf 10km is 2 loops, on asphalt and flat, but with lots of turns. The last race to start was the 10k at 10:25. I had plenty of time to chat to the people I knew there and do a little warm up.
The race started with a weird ever slowing countdown, then we were off. I was in about 15th place but some had taken off at an optimistic pace! I passed Timo from TCEC after about 700m and he asked if I was making an attack, I said no, I only run one pace! Soon everything settled down and I was in 8th place and felt ok behind 2 guys running into a strong headwind. After the turn one of the guys started to pull away, whereas the other fell in behind me.
My Suunto has stopped working in the last few days, so I was wearing Katja’s Garmin 220. I wasn’t so comfortable as I couldn’t see pace and HR at the same time. After going too hard in GG, I wanted to keep my HR under check here. It was all going fine after 5km in about 18:45.
Winning my Age Group
I left the guy behind me and fought back against the wind. Felix, who runs lots of the Wingert’s cup races, was just about 15-30m ahead of me, but I couldn’t catch him! I saw on the out and back that Lukas was winning the race, so I gave him a cheer as we crossed paths. The rest was pretty uneventful, I couldn’t catch Felix but no one was coming from behind either so I crossed the line just under 38 minutes in 7th place.
It wasn’t a great race for me, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as in GG. It turned out that I won my age group which was nice, but as I was cycling home, I couldn’t take any prizes with me, so I didn’t stay for the prize giving. The ride home was fun, the wind was very helpful and even with slightly tired legs I could cruise the slightly hilly 40km+ at over 32km/h.
So next up race-wise is the Polderlauf. I could do the 15km or the 10km. I think I will do the 15km, but I hope my form returns a little before then!
It is 16 weeks until Roth now, so that takes priority for me. The next post will be my start of Roth training post.