One month to go

March 4, 2009

In exactly one month’s time, on April 4, the first major competition 2009 is going to take place for me. It will be the German Halfmarathon Championships. Last year I took 7th place with a time of 1:07:42h and I’m on a good way to improve the time and hopefully also the placement. Compared to last year the training values of 2009 are equal or even better. Quality is still lacking a bit, since I don’t really like to do tempo runs like 400m or 1K repetitions. On the other hand the mileage is just where it should be. Last week I just scratched on the 200K-mark and also this week I’ll run 200K if everything is going according to the plan. The steady-state runs feel good and on the medium-hard runs (like 15K @3:40min/km) the legs feel good. Now the temperatures here in Finland are also on the race and I just hope that I can get some fast kilometres on the concrete. So far almost all the runs are on snow and ice, which meant that biomechanics (stride length, frequency and posture) on the slippery ground were not optimal. But for the base work it’s alright and I don’t wanna complain about the conditions – I still have the opportunity of running indoors or on the treadmill.