12. Pobershauer Berglauf (mountain race): 14,9km – 58:02min (2nd place)

June 18, 2009

Saturday, June 13th I participated in a mountain race on cross country terrain in my home area. After being in the Alps for 4 days from Tuesday to Friday and playing 1,5 hours indoor soccer Friday night it was of course just a training run for me but nevertheless a tough one.

I took 2nd place, some 3 minutes behind eventual winner Marc Schulze, who won the race already last year and knew the course. For me it was the first time that I competed in Pobershau and to be honest I don’t know if I’m going there again, because it’s really not the right course if you are preparing for track or road races. It’s only up and down and the underground is really uneven. After all I was lucky that I didn’t got hurt (even if I got insect bite in the 2nd of 4 rounds and had to stop several times to check if there is a swelling on my left foot, where I got it). During warm-up I also felt a sudden pain in my back on an downhill-part, so I ran conservatively not to get a sore back. Also the legs were not fresh after hiking in the Alps. Anyway, I could recover fast and on the following Sunday I could run a 27K-long run with two 5K-intervals in around 3:35min/km-pace.