October 22, 2009
Today a nice hill session with with two of the big guns in town – Juha Puttonen (5000m PB-14:30min) and Miika Takala (5000m PB-14:28min and a marathon PB that is 5 sec faster than mine – but only until the next marathon 
2x5x70seconds + 10x100m strides was on the program. I couldn’t remember when I did this kind of workout last time. Must have been in the summer, so several months ago. Nevertheless, it went surprisingly well and I was surprised I could match the speed of my close mate Miika. Great to feel all the lactate in the legs after some 6 or 7 reps. You just start a new rep and after 15seconds your legs feel like burning. I missed this feeling somehow. Since my mileage is quite low at this time of the year the speed is much better and running fast feels pretty easy.
Let’s see if my legs fall off when I go for a run tomorrow
I also added another competition to my race plan. Next weekend I will compete in the Finnish qualification race for the Nordic Cross-Country Championships. I already competed in this race in 2007, so I have a time (and also place) to improve. 2007 I took 9th place in 31:46min on the 9km course.
October 21, 2009
As mentioned in the last post I still have some competitions coming up this year. Now I booked the flight back from Finland to Germany and will be back on German ground 6th of November – just in time for the first competition in my home city Zwickau. End of November I will make a road trip to Switzerland, probably with my Australian mate Dan Hornery. The races in Switzerland are with international participation so it’s a good way to see what my performance will be worth in those kind of races. I already placed 20th in a World Marathon Majors Marathon, but the races this year are going to be not more than 12K.
Eriks race plan 2009
31.10. Nordic Cross-Country Championships Qualifier for Finnland (9K in Pajulahti) – added 22.10
08.11. 1. Zwickauer Stadtlauf (10K)
14.11. State Championships Saxony Cross-Country Running (10K)
28.11. Basler Stadtlauf / SUI (10km)
05.12. Weihnachtslauf Gossau / SUI (8,18km)
12.12. Zwickauer Adventslauf (8,5km)
31.12. Silvesterlauf (place to be decided)
October 18, 2009
Last week was the first training week for the new season. It’s just about building up again at this point of time. I still have planned some races for this year and I don’t want to be totally out of shape (more on that in later posts). I also try to run the easy runs a bit faster now than I did before the marathon. After all you need much more speed if you want to run 10K. Right now it works well and I enjoy running a faster pace for most of my runs.
Here is how my week looked like:
Mo: AM: travel, PM: 55min medium-easy
Tu: AM: 50min easy, PM: 60min easy+gym
We: AM: 40min easy, PM: 50min with 10K @ 3:40/km-pace
Th: AM: 50min easy, PM: 40min treadmill @ 4min/km-pace (10min 1%+10min 2%+10min 3%+5min 4%+5min 5%) + gym
Fr: PM: 80min easy with some easy bursts + gym
Sa: AM: 50min easy, PM: 45min easy
Su: 100min long, very easy run
Altogether around 140km. Just what I wanted. Next week 15-20km more and some speed work.
October 14, 2009
Another great autumn day here in Finland. The mornings are pretty cool and frosty but during daytime we had a lot of sun. Together with the colourful leaves it gives a real nice picture. Today I could enjoy this scenery with running mate Miika Takala on a medium-fast run (10K in 36:XX min). Great training and really nice to have some company even for those somewhat faster runs. In Zwickau I would be totally on my own at this kind of pace. Miika just ran a 2:21:34 h to win Silver in the Finnish Marathon Championships after having a disappointing summer. Now the guy is 5 seconds faster than me on the marathon and also his halfmarathon-PB is better. This gives me some extra-motivation and I’m sure this small battle will continue in the next year. At least my 10K-PB (30:04min) is still better! After all 10K is the only thing that is really important
P.S. Last night I was dreaming in Finnish – asking people for the right way. Maybe I should start writing Finnish. How would you like that? 
October 13, 2009
Only my second day in Finland but I’m already wondering in which language I should think and dream. I’m still a bit in the German mode as I mostly spoke German for the last 2 months. However, I think that this night I might dream in English because most of the time you speak and think in English on such an international Campus. Also the Finnish is getting freshed up and some of my local friends will have to suffer when I’m going to talk in Finnish with them I thought it would be much more difficult to refresh the Finnish but reading the newspapers and hearing the language in normal life made it pretty easy.
In terms of training I’m starting the first weeks of more serious training again after the marathon. Last week I did around 100km and this week I should run around 140km plus some cross-training. I feel prepared for the new training season and the motivation is high!
October 12, 2009
I haven’t been in Finland for quite some months now (3 months or something like that) but now I’m back in Jyväskylä. It’s time for some more studies/exams and starting the new training season. Even if the conditions are pretty cool (just over 0 degrees celsius) I have perfect conditions running-wise here. In Germany we had 20 degrees last week so it will take some time to shift to winter mode but at the same time Sauna is waiting for me after the trainings
On my way north I did some culture in Bremen, where my flight departed. It was great just enjoying to be in such an old and historic city with a nice promenade along the Weser-river after killing myself by playing indoor-football (2 vs. 3) on friday. My back and my legs still hurt today from the short sprints but it was a great interval workout.
September 21, 2009
… was the time of my 3rd marathon. I’m glad I had a night between the race and this post, because yesterday I was really disappointed that I didn’t run under 2:20h. However, most of the runners ran under their normal possibilities, so the heat was definitely a factor – a factor that I could not influence. Otherwise, everything was perfect organised: Elite athlete hotel, transportation to the start, bottles, etc.
Even if I was 20th place overall, 2nd German and set a new PB, I will most likely need another week or so find the positive aspects of this race. When you are training for (pretty much) one year and you don’t achieve the time you were aiming for on the most important day of the year, it’s difficult to be positive right away. However my fans, friends and supporters already gave me a good feedback and I want to thank everyone for the wishes, congratulations and encouragement!!!
September 18, 2009
Only hours left until the Berlin marathon 2009. For me it’s the most important race of the year, even more so after a disappointing season so far.
Tomorrow, Saturday I will go from my home base Zwickau to Berlin, have a short run on the course and afterwards it will be time to check inn to the athletes hotel. I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of friends and also the big names Haile Gebrselassie and Duncan Kibet will most likely stay in the same hotel (at least it was like that last year). There should be a bunch of guys that are in my range, i.e. aiming for sub-2:20. Let’s hope we can form a group and work together for the early stages of the race.
Most of all I want to enjoy the race. I know I did a lot of hard work and if I take it easy and stay relaxed I should be able to transfer the hard work I’ve done to the streets of Berlin. In Kenya people usually say “Hakuna matata” for that.
If you want to watch the race, there are different ways to do that as you can find from here.
BTW: Erik Haß is wearing bib no. 118
September 17, 2009
Only three days left. The nervousness is rising.
Yesterday I had the last fast session before the marathon in Berlin. 5x2000m on the track in 6:20min with 600m jog recovery. It went really fluid and I was in control all the time. Running with my Australian mate Dan Hornery, who is visiting Zwickau and preparing for Warsaw marathon also gave me the opportunity to practise some race situations and having some company for training (especially the fast ones) is usually never a bad idea.
Today the legs were already pretty good again but still I could feel the muscles a little bit. Otherwise the tendons a nd bones are in shape and nothing hurts. Now I just need to get my stomach to get calm (had some issues with that this week) and I’m ready for sub-2:20. Now I enjoy having free afternoons because I do my training in the morning and get a lot of sleep during night and daytime.
September 13, 2009
Only 7 days until Berlin Marathon.
After running the 1/2-hour run last wednesday as a fast exercise, I did another fast run yesterday. I ran 3x5K (5 min recovery) at marathon race pace, i.e. 3:20min/km. It went surprisingly well and especially the breathing was exceptionally good. Also the legs feel much more fresh now and I can feel that almost every day some freshness is coming back after the tough weeks at altitude. Compared to the 210+ kilometers I did in St. Moritz, the 150-160km of this week feel like “easy going”. Next week I will run even less kilometers and one final fast session of 2.000m-repeats on track.
I also got some extra motivation from Finnish Marathon Championships that took place in my “second home” Jyväskylä. Running mate Miika took a great silver medal with a new PB of 2:21:34h! Congratulations Miika – great job, the bar is a bit higher now and I hope that next week I will have a better PB again
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