Coach Dave's Frankfurt Marathon 2023
Nov 03, 2023
Frankfurt marathon Race Report
The Frankfurt marathon was chosen as my main aim of 2024, not because Frankfurt is one of Europe’s main financial hubs or that the city has the 3rd largest railway station in Europe! No, Frankfurt was chosen as my main race as it was the only marathon I could find on my birthday!
I do not have a great history of success with marathon running and although running at half a decent level in the past and to use a horse racing term I seemed “unable to get the trip”
The process of training for the marathon I think is just as rewarding as the actual end result and a 14 week marathon block of training was designed with plenty of miles and regular speed sessions with the team to give myself every chance of having a good run.
The training block had gone really well and the results from the Team Blizard community left me confident that if I stuck to a realistic race plan based on my fitness there was no reason not to run well.
We traveled to Frankfurt on Friday and stayed in a hotel recommended by a couple of the team who used it last year.It really could not have been a better positioned hotel for race day and also for collecting numbers from the expo where we had chance to see the famous indoor finish area.
Other than going out for a light run and food, Saturday was spent relaxing and it was good to meet up with the Worksop Harriers briefly as familiar faces also help to settle nerves!
Race day arrived and an early breakfast and short jog to warm up and then myself Jen and Keri walked the short distance to the start area.
My marathon personal best from 2017 stands at 2.41hrs and realistically I had decided to set off at 2.45hrs pace and see how I felt at 30k before deciding it I could push on.
There must have been 500 people in front of me on the start-line and as I turned my Garmin on to lock into my GPS it took almost 10 minutes to find a signal!
The gun fired and nothing happened as the amount of people in front of me took time to begin running but I was comfortable with this as I wanted my first mile/5k to be my slowest.
The first 10k is quite technical around the city before heading out over the river onto some long straight roads.
My race plan was pretty simple that I wanted to keep my heart rate at a level I know I can sustain through training and testing then see where I was after 30k
The other main focus was my fuelling and I made sure I drank at every water station as well as taking a gel every 5k
The miles or km markers ticked by and although we had a time mat every 5km I didn’t really take any notice as the focus was heart rate/trying to feel easy and hitting each fuel station.
Half way was reached a little over 1.23hrs and each time my heart rate began to climb I resisted the urge to go with it and kept easing back which allowed me to feel pretty good right up to around 35k when we came back into the city and began turning towards the finish.
Jen was at 36k stood just outside our hotel and passed me a drink and words of encouragement and almost instantly it started to get a bit harder mentally as much as anything else!
My pace dropped a little in the final 5k and turning into the indoor finish and to be greeted by a row of cheerleading ladies was probably the strangest finish I have experienced in 40 odd years of racing!
It was great to see in the finish area some of the Worksop guys who ran so well and Keri back at the hotel who had a positive race day experience.
A shower food and a couple of beers rounded off what had been a great birthday and I would recommend the race to anyone who wants to experience an overseas race as it is a super fast course and well organised.
On a personal level I was happy with my run of 2.47.55hrs and for once “got the trip”!
Enjoy the read
