alsterunning

24 stunden burginsellauf, delmenhorst

2009-06-22T23:54:00.022+02:00

20th and 21st june 2009. saturday till sunday starting at 12 noon.

10°++ celsius. sunny, windy, rainy and dark (for few hours)!

it was all jürgen's fault. on 9th june, after winning a game in farmsen in the hamburg's badminton hobby league, he asked me whether i wanted to join in the 24 hours run. i said yes without making a second thought. 2 days later he asked me again because they still need 1 more person. and i confirmed that i will be running, i didn't even know why. he told me that the only person he knew whom he could ask and crazy about running was me.

days went by and i knew that without much training, i could be suffering later on. the longest run in this year for me was the rahlstedter wandselauf (15.2 km). i didn't know what to expect from this run.

we (me and jürgen) drove down there from hamburg at about 8 am. we had to passed through 6(!) road works/construction site on the way to delmenhorst. driving fast on the autobahn was not possible. anyway, as we reached there, the tents were already up. one for the our luggage and the other was for our survival corner - food & drinks.

some of the guys from the mix team were already there on friday evening to get the "hot spot" and set up the tents. it was an ideal spot cos that was where we do our changeover, eat, drink, changing of t-shirts or simply lying/sitting (when the sun showed up) next to our transition zone.

it was the first time that i'm taking part in this crazy 24 hrs run. a group of 10 runners complete the team. we were a bunch of running cracks, average runners, slightly overweighters and a smoker who played football.

the 'compulsory' group photo
a 'compulsory' phototaking session of each team was held at around 11 a.m. later on, we went for a warm-up run to see the running route and i found that the first 600 meters wasn't that really nice. it was barricaded to separate the german challenge cup runners (individual) and the rest (team as well as individual runners). the next 1000 meters was much better cos we would be running in the park and at the end of the park, it went slightly uphill. it was nice from the organiser to put a signboard "bergwertung" (hill evaluation?) to remind us that everything from here would be "easier" and soon we could pass the baton for the next runner.

for the relay, it was all up to the team itself to organize how they want to run. some of them did a 3x3 (3 runners running a relay 3 times continuously - which i find totally exhausting) or a 4 hours 'workshift'.

at 12 noon, all the runners (individual and teams) started together. our team captain, maik, came in first in the transition zone and passed it on to our absolutely fastest runner, patrick. after the second changeover, it was no longer hassle in the team, cos the average runners would be doing their turns. after each individual round, each runner wrote down their time for the 1 655 meter 'interval' run.

as 8th runner, i was quite excited as well as afraid that i could be running too slow for the team. i didn't know what to expect of myself. i wouldn't want to blame myself for taking part in something and not producing anything. as the 6th runner, uwe, waiting for his turn to run, i went on to do some stretching and warming up. as friedhelm (7th runner) went off, i waited for 2 minutes before going up to the transition zone for my turn. then he came.

i took the baton and ran calmly but not slowly between the barricades. keep telling myself to relax cos there was another 23 hours to run.

always in 3rd place for the first 15 hrs until me and my teammates (only 4 of us - 1 had to give up due to health problem) took over at around 3 a.m., which means shorter rest time + really bad shitty weather (rainy, windy and cold). during the short break that each of us received while waiting for our turn, everyone in my team as well as the mixed team were quite quiet and i was totally demotivated by the situation and kept my ipod on and didn't talk to anyone. by the time we were complete (9 runners) 2.5 hours later, we were 1.5 rounds behind the 3rd placing team.

the 16th round was again back to normal, meaning that all 9 of us would be starting according to our running order. finally i have enough pause. i couldn't forget that round. the transition took over simultaneously for both the mix and men's team. i had to run against thomas, the fastest from that group. whatever happened to me, i didn't know cos i've been glued to thomas for the first 600 meters and all my teammates were shouting and screaming at me to keep on. i knew i was crazy to follow him all the way. i slowed down a little and let him run away. in the end, thomas was 20 seconds faster than i was but i ran 65 seconds faster than the previous round!

due to my accidental contribution and the faster runners after me, we managed to close the gap up to within 65 seconds. then the slower teammates ran their turn and we were again 5 minutes behind. it was quite frustrating.

reorganized the group to get back that 3rd place. we'd decided that one of the guy should run twice in a round, to compensate for the injured teammate. he had to run in the second as well as seventh position. team spirit and motivation was very, very high - even the slowest in team kept clocking 10 - 20 secs faster than previous rounds. i ran quite constantly 6:48 mins for that 1 655 meters course. we finally managed to get back the 3rd place but unfortunately it was not over before 12 noon. we had even a 5 mins edge at one point over the 4th placed team.

it was really a nail-biting atmosphere for us because our challenger kept sending their fast runners. the hourly result at 11 a.m. (1 hour before the end) showed that our team was in 4th place, which was later corrected to 3rd place after a 'protest' from us. the last round was really exciting. while many teams were accompanying their last runners, we had to scream at them to give way for our runners.

i am really proud of myself as well as the team. several times i just wanted to give up but i had to think about my teammates. being one of the faster runners, it was so important for the team. only the very last round (20th round) i couldn't run becos i injured my knee by hitting the damn bench. was really angry at myself cos i couldn't help them to maintain/improve the edge we had over the 4th placed team.

in the end, we won our small battle. 3rd place with 528 meters edge over our challenger. and that after 24 hours of running.

first time - it was so painful

2009-01-20T23:38:00.008+01:00

7° celsius. sunny and dry. 16:07 (0:38:35)

i've made up my mind to go out. out and run. i couldn't even remember when was the last time i ran. i thought it would be simple - just put on your running shoes and start running - unfortunately i have to learn the hard way.

it wasn't that cold and windy like last week and after such a long time being down with bad cough and cold, i was ready to start my 'running life' again. i think it was end of november 2008, was the last time i ran. bad knees and health problem and of course 'bad weather' stopped me from putting on my running shoes. anyway, today was supposed to be the first.

just as i ran a couple of steps, my knees hurt very badly. really, really bad. i didn't know why. i knew i had knee problem but i didn't think it would turned out this way. i played badminton and did step-aerobics - no problem at all. cycling was also no problem. after about hundert meters, i felt like stopping and returning back home. don't stop, just continue - just very, very slowly. so i just heard my inner self and ran really slow, so slow that i myself couldn't believe it. almost 8 min/km pace. walking pace. it was an agony.

after about 1.5 km i felt better. though i couldn't run much faster, i felt the pain subsided. i told myself not to overexert(?) and to run as slowly as i could managed. either 5 km or 30 mins was my limit for today. it was a little over but not much. i felt really good after the run.

one-eyed light runner

2008-11-26T00:00:00.004+01:00

3° celsius. clear sky. 17:18 (1:00:50)

i don't even know when was the last time i ran. had to follow my doctor's orders , not to exert myself too much when doing my running. i wasn't allowed to run the quickborn 25 km run fortnight ago and on coming sunday the very popular advent run in ratzeburg for 31.5 km. i had to give up my starting place to someone else (my running mate).

where were we today? there were 16 of us and i didn't know where we ran cos rainer introduced a new route for us instead of the usual rounds around the stadtpark. we ran in the stadtpark and it was really dark. some of my running mates brought lights while others carry that bicycle blinking light. there were few joggers who ran with the headlight - you could only see the light on their forehead and nothing else. we ran through the neighbourhood and through the train station, whereby people were wondering what the hell was this group of runners doing in their neighbourhood during this cold weather. for the first time i realised how nice it was to run in the dark along the river alster. the sky was totally clear and the lights from the houses near the bank were reflected on that still water. it was simply beautiful.

i wasn't sure whether i could cope with the "long run" today. thanks to annette who kept talking to me during the run which i totally forget about my fitness and endurance problem. after running zigzag through lanes and houses, we finally made our way back to the sportcenter. what rainer told us in the beginning, that he would lead us to a 10 km run today was true. 9.77 km recorded on my gps watch. that's why he's the trainer i guess.

running like zombie

2008-10-17T23:21:00.005+02:00

10° celsius. sunny but windy. 18:03 (2:01:47)

it has been really sometimes since i did a long run. i mean a long training run. okay, the marathon in berlin shouldn't be counted, neither should the first laufcup (halfmarathon). i was undecided between running in the cold and playing badminton in the warm hall. the thought of giving up for the coming advent run in november told me otherwise - i have to do some training! so i did.

2 layers of sport t-shirt were underneath my jacket. ran slowly at the beginning (what else can i do, not trained) and when i reached the alster, i met a colleague from my running group. he is training for the coming crossrun on wednesday - for the betriebssport (intercompany related competition). we talked for a while but i had to cut it short cos the damn wind was blowing right through my skin! it was damn cold when you stood on a bridge where the wind blew right through.

for the first 3/4 round i ran at a moderate pace with stopover at the fountain to drink. i just hope that it would not be shut down during winter - well, i know the water could freeze during winter but it really helps a lot for the runners, cyclers or just strollers.

after 9 km, i began to run in trance - i didn't know why but i could just run without bothering about the pace. overtook someone and he followed closely with my pace but somehow later he had to gave up. i continued with this pace till 14 km and slowed down to take a drink again. then it was all about running back home.

once again, i couldn't do much about my running. couldn't run any faster but stuck to my pace. on the way back, a car parked on the pedestrian pathway and 3 persons were standing next to the car. as i couldn't shout (i was out of breathed), i just clapped out loud to signal them that i was coming from behind and to make way. the two guys moved slightly to the side but the girl didn't move a bit. she stood there with a cigarette in her fingers. i just had to pushed her with my right shoulder as i ran through. what a bitch. maybe next time i should wear something hard and pointed on my shoulder or arm so that i could pushed through some idiots that think that the whole road belong to them. what really annoys me and to my astonishment was that, most of the time it was the girls, not the boys!

anyway, i continued the run like a zombie. if i stopped or slowed down i could not continue anymore. once i reached home, i did some warm down exercises and then went directly to the snack stall and got myself a croque for breakfast!

18. volkslauf durch das schöne alstertal (1. laufcup)

2008-08-31T22:12:00.012+02:00

23° celsius. sunny. 10:15 (1:40:20)

i really hate it when i had to wake up quite early on sunday morning. it was the first run of the hella laufcup 2008. this was also the first time that the halfmarathon would be the first event in the running order of the race, which normally took place on the last sunday of september. due to collision of city's event (alsterlauf vs cyclassics), the alsterlauf had to be rescheduled to take place a week later than usual, which inturn, coincide with the second run of the hella laufcup, the airport race. the organiser had to do something about it and therefore, the alstertal halfmarathon would be the first event, followed by the 10 miles airport race and finally 10 km alsterlauf. thank to this situation, for the first i was able to take part in the laufcup - usually the last run (this alstertal halfmarathon) coincides with my berlin marathon.

anyway, i'd decided not to drive there cos there wouldn't be any parking space available. took my bike and rode to the train station. due to construction, the final destination train station was closed. my idea of using the bike was good cos i didn't have to wait for the shuttle service.

parked the bike outside the school gate and soon i met many running colleagues, which i had not seen for ages (due to my lack of interest for training). a group photo was taken before we started our journey.

group photo
there were several other events for today. the 10 km walkers started first at 10 am, followed by the halfmarathon for the laufcup runners, then 10 km, halfmarathon, 4 km as well as kids run - in which order, i was not very sure cos i was running at that time :-).

there was a warm-up exercise conducted at the starting point, which was about 200 meters from the school ground. loud music blasted from the speakers, as if to wake everyone up. i was unfortunately being knocked down by a runner while dancing to my mp3 music - i couldn't be bothered much about warm-up or clocking best time. i wasn't trained up neither for this event nor for the upcoming events, including the marathon later. anyway, the starting point was in the school field and at exactly 10:15 am, the race began.

the course runs along the river alster, over several bridges as well as watergates. it was a zigzag course at the beginning and it was only 5 meters wide maximum for the whole stretch of the course due to the nature and bridges. i had my fun running behind people or even overtaking them and the fun lifted much higher as i saw the hill in front of me. it was time for me to overtake the runners in front of me, or at least closing up the gap.

i saw three of my running colleagues coming from the opposite direction at the 10 km point where all the faster runners were. i was surprise that these 3 were running at about 4 min/km pace, even though only one of them had the ability to do so. i was quite jealous and at the same time angry with myself that i didn't train hard enough for this event. later on i realised that they were just doing their sunday long run and cheered me up along the way, whenever i met them.

one of the highlights running in the nature and along the river alster was running through the wellingsbütteler torhaus. this building also known as alstermuseum was built in 1757. running under the archway was great, cos from this stretch onwards it meant downhills.

even though i like the hills, there was always the downside. i had to terribly slow down running down the slope. i guessed due to this stopping, slowing down and sometimes sprinting down, my feet were taking the toll and i had to pay the price of getting severe pain in my toes as well as blister on my foot. i had to slow down after 15 km. at times i had to stop and walked. what a waste of time, after i knew that i could clock a good time inspite of the hills and little training.

i felt really terrible, not because i was tired but because i knew that i could still continue my pace if not for my feet problem. one after another i was overtaken by runners towards the last 2 to 3 km. even anka, one of my running mate, overtook and cheered me up to continue running. i was really down.

at the last 200 meters, i heard my name being announced from the loudspeakers and people were cheering all the participants coming in towards the finish line. i was glad that i was done for the day and drank as much as possible, thanks to the sponsor of the laufcup. unfortunately no medal was given (damn, i should say that i had kids), therefore a memorial mug from the organiser was substituted instead. by the way, after crossing the finish line, there was a tombola/raffle and as always i didn't win any price (what's new anyway).

windy summer

2008-08-29T23:53:00.007+02:00

19° celsius. slightly cloudy but windy. 18:27 (1:05:46)

i wasn't sure whether to run today. my halfmarathon is on this coming sunday and i haven't been running "properly" for such a long time. well, the weather was also to be blamed - rainy, windy and sometimes stormy. and it was supposed to be summer.

ran quite slowly towards alster as usual. on the halfway point, i received a sms saying that i should pick up something from a friend who happened to be in hamburg. hmm... while typing the sms, another friend from badminton stopped by the road to take a look at a 1972-built beige-coloured mercedes which cost about 4600 euro. we talked about few minutes and then i continued my run towards the hotel.

after a brief meeting, i continued my run back to where i started - the sportclub to take my shower. i did the mistake of running a bit too quickly and i knew that on sunday, i would suffer.

alsteration (week 35) : 12.062 km
alstering : 12.062 km
non-alstering : 0.000 km

total running (august) : 52.523 km
davon
alstering : 36.650 km
69.78% gehört zu alsteration

crossroads

2008-02-15T23:59:00.011+01:00

1° celsius. clear sky. 17:49 (1:47:40)

with such a lovely weather i wouldn't want to miss my run at all today. i have decided to catch up with the "lost mileage" on wednesday and doing it today. i brought my camera along and since the day is getting longer, i took some pictures along the way.

the alster was really nice during this time, reflecting the light during sunset. waterbirds and ducks are now gathering back to alster. spring is coming :-).

talking about ducks, i had to swerve when i came across them waggling on the running path. unfortunately, it wasn't only ducks that i had to make way but also cyclists without lights! almost bumped into one because the lights from the coming traffic blended my eyes and at the very last minute i could get move aside. damn. running dogs without leash was another problem. hmm... i guess the spring/summer feelings are already settled in.

alsteration (week 7) : 29.085 km
alstering : 14.660 km
non-alstering : 14.425 km

total running (february) : 91.632 km
davon
alstering : 36.650 km
40.00% gehört zu alsteration

25. straßenlaufcup 2008 (10 km)

2008-02-10T22:45:00.010+01:00

3° celsius. clear sky. 10:00 (0:43:18)

i was nervous this morning. not because of the run but the parking lot. last year i was slightly late and had to park quite a distance away from the starting point. the damn navi in the car couldn't do what any human usually did - shortest distance with fastest route. instead it gave me shortest distance with complicated route or fastest route with a very long distance. anyway, i managed to arrive at the starting point earlier than last year and got the second last "valuable" parking space!

i stayed for awhile in the car listening to radio and finally went out to get my bib after about 10 minutes. i saw georg and met ingo, who was there earlier than i was and he looked quite nervous. it was his first 10 km event. i told him not to run very fast at the beginning because the route is quite hilly. due to this beautiful weather, there were quite a number of participants running in this event today. compared to last year's snowy weather, this was like summer for us (just the temperature was short of about 20° celsius)!

went back to the car to get my gf305 and to warm up. then i realised that i had forgotten to bring my headband. damn. not only does my headband protect my ears from the cold, it also held the earphones stable. now i had to run without headband and most probably without earphones too.

i fumbled with my earphones for the first few kilometers and it got really on my nerves. i should concentrate on the paths instead of playing with the earphones. i finally decided that the earphone should be just left out and i had to run without music. felt very lethargic for the first stretch of the route and i believed that this could be the after effect from friday's run. even though i made good grounds on runners in front of me during the uphill section, i lost my advantage when running downhill. i always had to slow down. i must train for downhill running!

joined a group of three runners and one of them had to slow down at 7 km point. the guy kept running away from me and the another lady but we managed to "get" him back during the uphill section. i was slowing for the last 1.5 km and soon another guy ran passed me. couldn't do any challenge anymore because my legs were heavy like lead. after seeing the 9 km mark, i was happy and did speed up a bit and used whatever left after turning 90° to the right. unfortunately that turn was not the last turn towards the finish line. quite angry with myself for being forgetful and now had to drag myself uphill for the final 200 meters before i could enjoy my "rest".

queueing up for the tea ceremony

the tea after the run was really refreshing and i took 3 cups of it to drain my thirst. a familiar face greeted me and asked if i got my camera with me during the run - no, not for this event becos of the hilly characters and camera could be a burden for me - i told him. met him last year during that hot 25 km run.

later in the day, i realised that i have been running quite constant with the second half exactly 1 second faster than the first.

alsteration (week 6) : 42.377 km
alstering : 21.990 km
non-alstering : 20.387 km

total running (february) : 62.547 km
davon
alstering : 21.990 km
35.16% gehört zu alsteration

wasn't supposed to run

2008-02-08T22:39:00.004+01:00

8° celsius. dry. 17:56 (1:44:32)

i felt totally bad becos i didn't do my wednesday run. yesterday i ended playing badminton instead of going for the training. so i was quite indecisive of whether i should run today becos i'll be running the 10 km on sunday. ahh.. what the heck, just run.

it was already dark when i started the run. it was really very comfortable at first but things changed dramatically when someone kept following behind me. then i slowed down a bit to let him do the tempo work so that i could "sit" behind just following him. he pushed a bit when there's a slope but he couldn't run that far away cos i love running uphill! it was after the embassy that i started to gain my momentum and sped up on the uphill side towards the bridge and that someone couldn't follow me anymore. i felt relieved and at the same time stupid becos i was wasting my energy for the sunday run! so the next alster round i ran slowly and steadily until the end.

for the first time in my life, i ran exactly 18.000 km (according to my garmin 305).

alsteration (week 6) : 32.377 km
alstering : 21.990 km
non-alstering : 10.387 km

total running (february) : 52.547 km
davon
alstering : 21.990 km
41.85% gehört zu alsteration

shitty weather (what's new)

2008-02-05T23:12:00.000+01:00

7.5° celsius. rainy. 19:30

luckily it was raining outside of the indoor hall. thought at first of joining another running group earlier on but due to the weather, i gave it a pass.

it was all about coordination - from hockey playing to that 100/200 meters runs. aware of your style. take not of your running gait - whatever. i ran as i thought it should be - couldn't be bothered much about whether i was doing the correct style. it was just too strenuous. hmmm...

alsteration (week 6) : 14.377 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 7.047 km

total running (february) : 34.547 km
davon
alstering : 7.330 km
21.22% gehört zu alsteration

tempo(t)raining

2008-02-04T22:03:00.002+01:00

6° celsius. drizzle and windy.

was quite uncertain whether i should run today. it drizzled and rain has never been my favourite weather. nevertheless i went on with my running.

the drizzle wasn't that bad but it was the wind that i hate most. rain, wind and cold wasn't the perfect weather nor temperature to do the training. i told myself, if i could run in this "uncomfortable" condition, then there would be no more excuses for me not to run the next time.

i started running comfortably and began to sped up and maintain the speed for about few kilometers. slowed down drastically and then jogged for about 10 minutes before the routine started again. thrice i did that and was happy when i finally completed the circle. my legs sored but not that serious :-).

alsteration (week 6) : 10.636 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 3.306 km

total running (february) : 30.806 km
davon
alstering : 7.330 km
23.79% gehört zu alsteration

first "long run" for marathon

2008-02-03T23:45:00.003+01:00

2° celsius. clear and slightly windy. 10:06 (2:01:56)

i overslept today. woke up slightly late and had to rush to stadtpark - the meeting point. everybody was already there during the briefing, discussing the route of where and which tempo should be run. i was still in the car, fumbling over my gloves and water bottle. they ran passed me and i could see new faces in this marathon training.

the rest was about 1.3 km ahead when i finally caught up with them. i had to run slightly faster and could then settle down with the slower group who was running in 6:30 min/km tempo. it didn't last that very long and i joined the 6 min/km group after 3 km from my starting point and found my rhythm there.

the weather was quite okay. not that windy as the past days. the alstertal are swarmed with joggers and groups of runners, who were most likely preparing themselves for the coming marathon in april.

the other two faster groups were already gone when i joined my group. i realised that now there were the 5:30 and 5 or 5:15 group (i don't know cos i wasn't there right from the very beginning). after 1 hour, all of us must make a u-turn. our group did this as were high on top of the hill and coming down wasn't that easy for me cos i had to stop myself constantly. due to this arrangement, all of us ended up the same time and the final destination and had our warming down session together.

alsteration (week 5) : 52.303 km
alstering : 14.660 km
non-alstering : 37.643 km

total running (february) : 20.170 km
davon
alstering : 0.000 km
0.00% gehört zu alsteration

run with the wind

2008-01-30T23:46:00.004+01:00

7° celsius. windy. 17:24 (2:10:26)

i was tired from yesterday's run. nevertheless, i still want to do my wednesday runs as i did last year. i believe it was essential for my stamina that i will need for the coming marathon in april. so i had to dragged myself out to run in this windy condition.

it wasn't that fun at all to run in this weather. slowly, i told myself. if i could run today, then i could run anytime and anywhere in any kind of weather. well, it was just a motivation for myself to move my ass.

all the way running towards alster was quite a challenge. strong winds kept blowing into my face. it was relatively cold. and as usual i hate wind. things got worse when the first droplets from the sky fell into my head. it started to drizzle. shit. keep going, i told myself. two rounds of alster i did and was totally wet when i reached back home!

alsteration (week 5) : 32.133 km
alstering : 14.660 km
non-alstering : 17.473 km

total running (january) : 84.190 km
davon
alstering : 29.320 km
34.72% gehört zu alsteration

double training

2008-01-29T23:06:00.000+01:00

8° celsius. cloudy and slightly windy. 17:22 (0:45:42)

last sunday run was the culprit. i felt really shitty with the timing and now it motivated me to work harder. it should begin with today!

it took me about 25 minutes to ride the bike to mexikoring, the fitness center. as i came, the group was ready to run and rainer wanted the group to wait for me. i told him to go on and i would catch up with the group. changed into my running attire as fast as possible and off i went. they've been running just about 1200 m when i caught up with the group. i guessed the cycling towards the center earlier on already warmed me up. i slowed down, joined the group and chitchatting along the way. we overtook a lady in black and about 10 m later, we heard a loud cry. all of us stopped and thought that one of the ladies from our group had trip on the branches or whatever because it was dark. two of the ladies in the group who were slower helped the "victim". later we learned that the "victim" was so engrossed with her mp3-player that she collided head-on with a huge tree. the danger of running in the dark or mp3 casualties.

the final part of the run was usually supposed to be faster. frankly speaking, i didn't feel like it because i had to follow the pair in front of me who were talking and running and i didn't know the way. so i had to stick behind them and can only sprint up the ramp at the end. it was just okay. nevertheless, we had a "party" since rainer had birthday today and wilfried yesterday. a double celebration with champagne and wine!

after all the celebration, i had to get ready for my next event : indoor running. took a shower and off i went.

a game of hockey was played after the usual warm up around the track. my team won 4 -3 where i scored 2 goals. a hit on my ankle and below my knee was the price i paid. that hurt a lot. then we had coordination run (which was supposed to economize your running style) which i really like it. next came the circuit training and as usual it was tough. i never like it. this was followed with some stretching exercises and warming down run wrapped up the training for today.

alsteration (week 5) : 10.862 km
alstering : 0.000 km
non-alstering : 10.862 km

total running (january) : 62.919 km
davon
alstering : 14.660 km
23.30% gehört zu alsteration

18. bramfelder winterlaufserie 3

2008-01-27T17:23:00.000+01:00

7.5° celsius. cloudy and very windy (stormy). 09:30 (1:14:14)

i hate the damn weather! when i woke up this morning, looking out the window, i saw the trees being swayed left and right from the strong wind. well, according to the weather report, the windspeed was about 80 - 100 km/h. it has been going on like this for a few days (that's why i haven't been running for sometime now). to make the matter worse, it drizzled.

i forced myself to get up and get ready for the run today. got in the car and drove to the starting area. the rain has stopped and the wind wasn't that strong like two hours ago. we were lucky. i wasn't really in the mood to run today (for various reasons - no training, bad weather, not enough sleep (3 hours only), wet and muddy grounds, etc). as the race started, i ran quite slow in the beginning, trying not to step in the pool of water. too late, a "traffic jam" forced me to swerve and my foot landed in the water. damn - it wasn't even 200 m from the start!

i ran quite okay for the first two rounds in about 45 mins. then everything went wrong. i felt like vomitting on the way and slowed down. then i felt really tight in my right thigh. i slowed down. the wind had picked up again and worse it was always headwind (although the last two round wasn't that strong). i slowed down. and even walked. i gave up. i relaxly jogged to the end and decided not to pick up any speed anymore. i'm done for today.

alsteration (week 4) : 25.719 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 18.389 km

total running (january) : 51.241 km
davon
alstering : 14.660 km
28.61% gehört zu alsteration

fartlekking around the alster

2008-01-23T21:34:00.000+01:00

5° celsius. dry. 17:30 (0:57:47)

i must run today. it has been such a "long time" since i ran. anyway, felt a little lethargic before the run (i've been eating a lot these few days) and began my journey towards alster slow and steady.

after a couple of traffic lights stops, i finally arrived at the alster. (un)lucky for me, there was this guy who probably was running his last kilometer, zoom passed me and left me nothing else to do but to follow his tempo. i did for about 100 meters before i left him behind to continue my run.

the motto for today was ran fast on the "uphill" and slow down later. twice i ran beside a grandma on bike on the "uphill" section and twice i overtook her. it was just a small fun that motivated me whenever i tried to catch up with the cyclist when they cycled up the slope. it went on like this and everytime i saw a slope, i ran faster. i'm training for the coming race in february, where it is all slopes from start till the end.

i was so tired but not 100% dead as i continued another 1.5 hours of badminton right after the run!

alsteration (week 4) : 10.719 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 3.389 km

total running (january) : 36.241 km
davon
alstering : 14.660 km
40.45% gehört zu alsteration

circuit training in indoor hall

2008-01-16T00:00:00.001+01:00

18° celsius. indoor condition. 19:30

i played badminton before i went to the athletics indoor hall. after a few rounds of running on the edge of the tracks, we started to play hockey for about 15 minutes for warming up. my team lost 6 - 1 and i scored the only goal for us. nevertheless, the motive of playing hockey was simply to keep us running at greater speed for a short distance and stopped when necessary.

talking about short distance, it was the 200 m sprints that we had to run. it sucks alot even though only 3 round were needed. i was okay for the first two rounds which included a break in between. the third round i was totally dead that i ran for only the first 150 m and the rest was halfway walk and jog. felt like vomitting after that.

next came the circuit training. there were 5 stations that we had to go through twice. first 3 stations were okay and the rest was done half dead. i really felt that my condition had deteriorated.

we ended the training with two rounds of running around the outside of the tracks. that was tough for me to begin the condition training in the new year.

alsteration (week 3) : 1.784 km
alstering : 0.000 km
non-alstering : 1.784 km

total running (january) : 25.522 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
28.72% gehört zu alsteration

cold running in neighbourhood

2008-01-13T23:29:00.000+01:00

5° celsius. dry. 17:56 (0:58:51)

it wasn't that clear whether i wanted to run today. woke up in the morning and saw the perfect weather but continued with my sleep. i'm just dead tired.

i told myself that i would run in the evening and when my gf 305 went on strike (couldn't find satellites), i was quite reluctant to run. after almost 1/2 hour of sitting in front of tv and munching the cashew nuts, i dragged myself out and decided to drive to alster, maybe this damn gf 305 could find what it was looking for. drove round the block and parked back at the exact place where i came from cos my gf 305 has found it.

i ran round the block and in the neighbourhood. here and there - without any specific orientation. who cares, if i got lost, i'll just take the train or bus back home - i brought my monthly transport card along with me. hee... hee.. i still have my iphone if everything didn't work.

it was just a relaxing run getting to know my own neighbourhood in the dark.

alsteration (week 2) : 23.738 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 16.408 km

total running (january) : 23.738 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
30.88% gehört zu alsteration

first run of the year 2008

2008-01-09T21:50:00.000+01:00

7° celsius. cloudy and slightly windy. 16:24 (1:18:55)

not that motivated to run today, but i must run. it was windy outside and i hate wind very much. it wasn't dark when i started the run but that didn't last long.

had to stop several times at the traffic lights (i think they did it on purpose that i just missed the green man when i wanted to cross the road). right at the beginning of my run, the wind started to get stronger and this was really depressing. i thought of running 20 km today, but my sense got the better of me - how could i survive a run after an almost 3 weeks break (it was just laziness :-)).

anyway, there was something new with me today. i was running and listening to the music from my iphone - which means, i don't have to carry my mp3 and mobile phone anymore. only the damn earphones really annoyed me - it kept dropping down from my ears. i had to keep shoving it up and adjusted it into my ears - i guessed i lost valuable seconds during the run! whatever it is, i know that i won't be using it during any races, maybe only during sightseeing marathon. by then i have to get a better earphones with speaker so that i could talk to my friends during the run - like i did during singapore marathon 2006.

there were a number of runners/joggers as i reached the alster. comparing the weather today with 2 weeks ago - this was really mild (a jump from at least 10 degrees celsius). no wonder that i saw some of them wearing either just sweater or even shorts!

the idea of running longer had to be thrown away becos the wind was getting stronger. i realised that when it gets dark, the wind always blows stronger than in the day. i don't know why, it was just my observation. whatever it was, i completed my round and jogged slowly back home.

alsteration (week 2) : 13.402 km
alstering : 7.330 km
non-alstering : 6.073 km

total running (january) : 13.402 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
54.69% gehört zu alsteration

it was soooo cold

2007-12-21T23:10:00.000+01:00

-4° celsius. dry. 16:44 (0:35:49)

i don't know what the hell happening to me but i really wanted to run in this weather. such a nice weather. so cold but yet so fresh. all i want was to get away from this festive madness season. i had enough of weihnachtsfeier (christmas celebration) with friends, colleagues, sportfriends, running groups and so on. i just wanted to be free and do some exercises.

i was totally wrapped up in my running stuffs, that means, headgear, double body tights longsleeve t-shirts, running tops, running jacket, running tights, running pant, double socks, double gloves, things to cover my face. am i running in the arctic? anyway, it was totally nonsense what i did, cos firstly i wore to much top (the running tops wasn't necessary) and couldn't move "fluidly" as i wanted to be. nevertheless, it was such a nice experience. although the breathing was a little bit difficult (due to cold air), i covered half my face with some sort of handkerchief so that i could breathe through them.

lucky for me the wind was almost non-existable. the "feel" temperature could drop down tremendously if strong icy wind was to blow into your face. anyway, this temperature was nothing compared to the one in russian's polar circle. saw on tv that a truck driver transporting foods/packages to the people in the polar circle went out of his truck in his t-shirt and told the reporter that it was mild. yes, mild at -15° celsius. he is used to the extreme weather of -40° celsius there. hmmm... anyone wants to run the arctic marathon?

it was quite okay during the run cos i didn't feel much different from any other runs during winter. it was just my hands and ears that were feeling the slight pain of coldness. the tough part was after the run and while doing some stretching down, i could feel the coldness right into my bones. lucky for me, i didn't have to run back home but straightaway jumped into the warm car after the stretching :-).

running in stanford

2007-11-01T03:28:00.000+01:00

DIENSTAG, 31 OKTOBER 2007

17° celsius. dry. 17:26 (1:00:52)

i had nothing to do and went to stanford university to do some running on the tracks. i could see a group of people were there doing some sort of meeting prior to whatever charity run. on the track, another big group was getting ready to do some training.

so i ran. started on the 8th lane, the outermost lane and ran 3 times in the lane before i moved to next lane (lane 7) and so on. i was on the 6th lane when the big group on the track started their interval 400m training in lane 4. therefore i had to do my 4th lane in the 5th lane track. this went on and it wasn't that boring either cos there were other runners running clockwise whereas the mass was on the opposite direction. the charity runners began their exercises on the field and the whole track wasn't that dead as any other tracks. i did a 400m "sprint" in between my run (i think it was after 5 km) and continued later with my jog. i finally did a "fast" run on my penultimate lap and jogged slowly at the end.

this was the first time that i managed to run further than 2 km on a running track. usually i hate to do it if i had to run more than 3 runs. this time the atmosphere really made the different.

d(run)k in golden autumn

2007-10-11T23:49:00.000+02:00

15° celsius. sunny. 17:15 (2:30:32)

i was late (as usual) cos i misjudged the distance (and the time) to cycle to the sport center in the city nord. i was greeted by rainer and received a sauerkraut mit wein (i don't know how to translate this in english). anyway, i changed as fast as possible into my running gear and all i heard about today's run was something to do with cycling route. we were lucky to have such a perfect weather for running today.

we ran through the stadpark for the first kilometer and then i realised that the following route was exactly the same way as i cycled towards the sport center. hmmm... it was zigzagging with lots of right and left turns and soon we came very near towards my place. as we reached klaus-groth-strasse, rainer proudly told me that we've reached the highest point during our run (he thought it was all new to me), and i simply told him that i live somewhere near and this was my usual route when i ran towards alster.

after that it was all new to me. the route towards city süd (south) was something different as we ran along the canal and office buildings and trying our best crossing the road during the busy peak-hour traffic. finally we came to the speicherstadt (old warehouse district), a very nice view with sun shining on the red bricks. carpets, coffees and lots of other stuffs are stored here. there's also tourist attractions like the dungeon and miniature wonderland (railway model). we ran through the port and the view of the river elbe with ships and shipyard was fascinating, especially when the sun setting down. surprisingly, our route took us to the old elbe tunnel. we took a short break (drinking water) while travelling down 24 meters below the surface with the lift. this is where the elbtunnel marathon took place - a crazy event in january where the participants ran almost 49 times round and round the tunnel. the tunnel is about 850 meters long and there are only two lanes - one way in and another way out. only cars are allowed to drive through here and of course, pedestrians. we ran one round to and fro and in the end, instead of taking the passenger's lift, we took the vehicle's lift, thanks to the sweet talking of the ladies in our group.

the run continued towards reeperbahn and planten un blomen. as we finally reached aussenalster, me and peter sprinted all the way towards the water cooler. i drank and drank cos i was soooo thirsty. we continued on after this short break before i realised that our next break is not that far away. guido has everything ready, vodka with fig, lemon water and bread with cheese. it was really hard to continue running after all these but we had to. it was very dark in the stadtpark and i couldn't see a thing, just the slight reflection from the jackets of the runners in front of me. i was happy when we ran along road and lighted stadtpark areas.

we finally reached the center and again someone brought out a champagne to celebrate our run for today. the question in mind was, are we running or drinking?

alsteration (week 41) : 43.172 km
alstering : 0.000 km
non-alstering : 43.172 km

total running (october) : 51.736 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
14.17% gehört zu alsteration

running in rain

2007-10-04T22:47:00.001+02:00

15° celsius. cloudy and rainy. 19:05 (0:51:32)

i've decided today to run with another group of runners. we met at the school's courtyard, where i played badminton in the hall. in fact, i stopped my badminton play just for the sake of running. i would continue to play after the run.

after the formalities of getting to know each other, we ran down towards the alster and ran clockwise. the leader of the pack told me that i was a bit overdressed - long tight pants with jacket and a cap. i told him that i relied entirely from weather. it was already dark due to the dark clouds hovering in the sky. we stopped at the krugköppel bridge to do some warm-up stretching (i didn't know why, but i hate doing warm-ups between runs). after the short interval, we continued our run. it started to drizzle and then rained heavily. the normally heavily frequented alster by joggers was suddenly 'empty' apart from the few hardcore runners. lucky for me that i wasn't being entirely wet and cold, thanks to my jacket and cap.

it rained all the way till we reached back to the school courtyard and i was happy that i've brought extra clothes for my badminton and running. i was indeed not overdressed for the run!

alsteration (week 40) : 8.564 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 1.234 km

total running (october) : 8.564 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
85.59% gehört zu alsteration

34. real,- berlin marathon, berlin

2007-09-30T22:25:00.000+02:00

registration & inline-skating marathon yesterday
went to pick up my bib number yesterday. the weather wasn't that great, drizzling almost all the way as i reached berlin. the atmosphere in the exhibition hall wasn't that cheerless as the weather. it was quite crowded. there was some last minute shopping to be done here. sport stuffs were sold at discounted rates. i bought a long tights and running shirt.

registration area and free non-alcoholic beers
the inline skaters were unlucky to start their marathon in this bad weather. it was totally wet. there was quite a number of crashes along the way and the winner skated in a time of 1:12:30 hours for the marathon.

inline skaters at the 34 km mark

before the start
i woke up late today. outside was grey and cloudy. i was at a party until 3 am in the morning and went to sleep at about 3:45 am! just a mere 3 hours sleep before the 42.195 km run. i knew that i wouldn't be running "quick" today due to my history - lack of training, injuries, pains & et cetera. so my decision for today was to do a long training run for autumn/winter. moreover i couldn't recharge my garmin 305 cos i didn't bring the recharger and worse still, it was on the whole day yesterday! the "battery is low" when i turned it on before the run. damn it.

i could see more runners on my way to the runners/starting area. i had to take the u/s-bahn (metro) to get to the starting point. some looked nervous (they must be new ones) while others were very relax (the veterans). some of the runners were escorted either by their families or friends.

thousands of runners in hauptbahnhof (main station)

scenes before entering the runners area

the start
it was yellow and orange. yellow was the colour of the plastic bags that we runners put on before the run (it was damn cold : 12° celsius)! orange, the colour of the event's bag and balloons. there was music blasting from the speakers which was quite inaudible because of the noises made by the supporters as well as runners along the starting point/road. the temperature was about 13° celsius and cloudy.

bag deposit area and the way towards starting block

running towards the starting block
there was a countdown before the gun off at 9 am. orange balloons were released into the air as it started. the elite runners & runners with best time of below 3:35 hrs started in this first wave.

as the horde of runners moved forward, i decided to get into the (side)line and while waiting for my turn (2nd wave), i met steffen and we had a chat regarding the usual topics : how fast do you want to run, how was your condition today, talking about competitions from few weeks ago + phototaking! i let him go off earlier cos he wanted to run 3:30 hrs (he managed 3:28 hrs). then i went to the bushes to load off for the last time. after being sidelined for most of the time, i began slowly to join in the runners on the road (i was busy taking photos from the pavement). talking about taking your own sweet time, i took 13 minutes(!) to cross the starting line after the gun off.

3:35 - 4:15 hours runners waiting eagerly for the start of the second wave

the countdown and the start of the marathon

my run i
i enjoyed the atmosphere of running in this big group. supporters on the pavement were clapping enthusiastically (is there such a word?). the first 2 km was really a relaxing run cos i didn't want to waste my energy unnecessarily for the later stages. unfortunately there were few who looked like they were sprinting as if 42.195 km wasn't that long enough. it was after the 3rd kilometer onwards where all the fun really began. music blasted out of the loudspeakers from the tenants in the buildings. there were bands here and there playing music, some rock music while others doing pop or jazz. you could hear samba drummers beating the drums encouraging the runners. all the bands were being applauded by the runners as they ran past them. it was really a reassuring feeling (especially for those who could read german) at the 4 km mark as we stepped on a huge sticker from the local newspaper stating "it is only another 38.195 km to go". thanks guys!

enjoying the atmosphere along the way
the danes. very huge groups of danish runners were involved in this marathon. their supporters were vocal too. all the danish runners wore either red, white or red and white t-shirt with either the wording of danmark or a danish flag printed somewhere on it. these danish supporters were great as they shouted out loud for every (i really mean every) danish runners that past them. that was what i called patriotic supporters.

pacemaker taking a pee
the sun pushed through the clouds after about 10 km. the wind was somehow indecisive, sometimes windy sometimes just a windstill. i was quite constant with my tempo, not running particularly fast or slow. just felt good. later i found out that my time for every 5 km from 0 - 25 km was almost the same 26:30 mins or thereabout. relaxing run.

towards friedrichstadt palast (km 8)

running in kreuzberg

everything went wrong
oh, no... what a day. my garmin 305 went dead after 18 km! now i'm running without the knowledge, how fast/slow was my tempo. i was quite angry with myself for not bringing the recharger for my garmin. lesson learned!

the halfway point
shortly after 26 km point. went for massage due to sharp pain in both my calves. i stopped and laid down on the army bed while the girl from the physiotherapy school massaged both my legs. time flew as i laid there and watching runners past by. i wasn't sure how long i laid there but it was at least a 5 - 10 minutes work.

getting a massage
after the disappointment with my calves, i'd decided to take a break and drank and ate quite a lot (water, isotonic drink, tea, apples & bananas). i got the message later not to be greedy during a marathon. i had a stomachache and was looking for a suitable place to stop. i didn't want to go to the portable toilets cos i would definitely not going to feel comfortable. at 29 km point i found a greek restaurant - spent about 10 - 15 minutes (not sure cos i don't have the time). the guests in the restaurant was looking at me as if i came from the moon. not quite right, just from singapore! they must be thinking what the heck was this guy doing in a restaurant, he should be running!

my run ii
i started my run again after taking photo of the restaurant. before i continued with this report, i would like to highlight about the route 2 km back. it was wilder eber (wild boar). the atmosphere there was absolutely super. 200 meters before you reached the main stage, sounds of the samba drummers were heard via several loudspeakers positioned along the road. it got louder as you approached that area. commentators reading out loud some of the runner's name as they ran past them which was accompanied by huge applause from thousands of spectators. the stage was occupied by the samba drummers (i didn't see the samba dancers - they must be taking a break) while at the side of the road, cheerleaders were doing their stunts. i saw a guy running on the treadmill next to the cheerleaders which i later found out he ran the marathon (on the treadmill), under the supervision of a doctor. he couldn't run the marathon because it was fully booked - as a reward, he received a guaranteed start for next year berlin marathon. (ot : cute treadmill video).

platz am wilden eber
it was only 13 km to go but my legs didn't want to move as it should. i tried to relax and ran really slowly and sometimes i felt the twitch in my right calf. warning for cramps. i had to slow down even further or came to a stop. at km 33, i walked past the refreshment area for drinks and i heard an old lady shouted at me (even though i had my mp3 on). "drink!", she commanded while handing out a plastic cup to me. she must be very experienced with runners and i didn't dare to disobey her! i took my cup and thanked her and ran slowly forward.

the next few kilometers gave the same pictures as before - supporters encouraging the runners and bands playing music or individual person blowing the trumpet or other instrument from the side of the road. along the ku'damm, i had to stop and went to the side of the road and breathed deeply as i felt pain on my chest. weird stuffs. i didn't know why cos i've never had this experience before - must be lack of sleep and too much partying the night before.

along the way, i've read several signboards or posters from the supporters. one read something like this : those who turned back, will reach the goal (a verse from the bible) and a small note below stated : do you really want to turn back after more than 30 km? another was held high by a guy, with simple words : run, bitch, run! i love that.

brandenburg gate
i really enjoyed the last 4 km of the run. running in the eastern side of berlin with small cramps that came up now and then and the knowledge that it wouldn't be that long before you reached the finish line. got my last drink at the 40 km mark and ran down the unter den linden. supporters were again everywhere along the side of the road. it was really a nice moment when one had to run through the brandenburg gate and had only 400 meters to go and the finish line was right in front of you. it was very loud here as supporters clapping and shouting encouragement to all the runners. i took my time to reach the finish line with my last photo along my marathon route. the music from my mp3 was appropriately from heather small's proud as i crossed the line.

few meters before the finish line

after the run
we were greeted with the ever smiling volunteers who put the medals on our neck. an old lady congratulated me as i went to her to have my medal. as she put that medal around my neck, she said something really soothing to my ears, "du hast es geschafft, junge! gratuliere!" - you've done it, boy, congratulation. i felt like hugging her after experiencing what happened along the route.

after crossing the finish line

happy faces waiting to receive the medal
the runners were given yellow plastic bags to keep ourselves warm after the run, cos the way back to our bags were quite far (for some). i went to the side of the road to do some stretching while others simply sat there enjoying the moments that they had conquered the marathon. we received a plastic bag containing water, banana, biscuits and muesli for the bites. then i heard this from the loudspeaker : haile gebrselassie had broken the world record in a time of 2:04:26 hours. i smiled and was thinking, where was i when haile crossed the line?

lucky for me my bag tent wasn't that far away. picked up my bag and went direct to massaging area. had to wait for about 10 - 20 minutes but the time spent was absolutely okay, cos i got tea from someone and talked all the way with a danish guy behind me. everyone was happy regardless of the time that we took to run the marathon. i guessed it was just a big running family.

it drizzled as i went to the shower tents. the warm water felt really like heaven. went to collect my inofficial certificate and prepared myself for the 300 km way home back to hamburg.

the day ended with sweet memory knowing that haile broke the world record and the german women's football team clinched the world cup.

haile's face will soon occupy this space
i'll definitely come back for the 35th real,- berlin marathon on the 28th september 2008 for my tenth berlin marathon. i'll be back.

tapering run i

2007-09-24T23:51:00.001+02:00

19° celsius. cloudy but dry. 19:25 (0:45:40)

as the summer running season is coming to an end, the main training now is focused on the long run. no more sprinting and short distance running. well, as if i did train for all that. anyway, today we were introduced to a new collection of running attires for the team. no more asics, now it is adidas. slightly same colour but cheaper than asics. the running jacket looked very nice (most probably fit my body) but the long tights looked really silly. well, i guessed that was because jens-uwe was wearing it :-). the rest of the stuffs were okay as well.

we started to do the 2.7 km warm-up run around the small stadtpark. nothing unusual about that except that it was getting dark :-(. at the end of the run, the trainer decided that we do just the 5 km run without any tempo or speed.

i ran together with jens-uwe since both of us are running the berlin marathon on this coming sunday. we decided to take things slow and easy. after about a km or so, jens-uwe decided that we catch up with dagmar and michael, who were running ahead of us, because we were not so sure about the 5 km route inside the stadtpark. as we finally caught up with them, michael did not slow down but pushed a little bit. even though it wasn't that fast, i was quite uncomfortable with the speed but still hanging on to the tempo, cos i didn't want any unnecessary waste of energy to be given away before the marathon.

my very first ever training since end of june.

24. international airport race, hamburg

2007-09-16T20:21:00.000+02:00

sunday was the 2nd run for the running cup (altogether 3 - 10k, 10 miles & 21 k) and it was held around the airport. weatherwise was perfect - started with 17 degrees and rising up to abt 20 degress celsius at the end. it was sunny all the way, with no clouds!

well, that was last year's weather (see airport race 2006) which fortunately also the same as this year!

the best thing about this year's race was that it coincide with the hamburg airport days, an exhibition of various kinds of airplanes, from the old passenger plane from 1935 to airbus a380. due to this, this year's route is slightly different from last year, which means that the participants would be running through the exhibition area.

we were greeted by the flying over of junkers ju 52 (aka tante ju - auntie ju) and other flight formation in the sky from the oldtimers before the beginning of the race. it was really great.

in the meantime, i met my (2nd) trainer and told him that i still had back pain from last week's race. he asked me to lie on the ground (thank goodness there were these red mats) and did a quick pressing/massage. so easy and quick yet so effective. my back/shoulder problem was temporary gone.

it was a tradition, that the warm-up/morning exercise for the participants was conducted by someone on the stage escorted with music. it was funny looking at those people trying to follow the movements, especially those who did it totally wrong.

as usual, the obligatory group picture was taken before the race. while the rest of my running mates went for a warm-up run, i went to deposit my bag. the queue for depositing bag was not as long as the queue for depositing .... (the toilet). after depositing the bag, my first thought was to join this toilet queue but i remained loyal to my habit - just find the damn bush somewhere out there!

it was crowded at the start. 120 min, 110 min, 100 min, 90 min and finally i found 80 min - the starting block. as usual i took my time to get into the block but before that i took more photos from the "scenery". most of the starters looked a little bit nervous but the whole bunch from my running mates were enjoying themselves as they wanted to take it slow and easy for this race.

at exactly 11 a.m. the race began. it was such a slow start, i swear that i could just take a morning stroll instead of running. boxing through the crowd, i managed to run "properly" and slowly finding my rhythm. but not for long as i started to take pictures :-).

we had to ran through a big gate to get into the airport facility and the first sight was the best. a380 in front of you. runners running between the barriers - we were part of the exhibition! i was so glad to see many airplanes around the area. took more shots from the airplanes exhibition.

the next highlight was running through the parkhouse. isn't that a bit weird? i find it really interesting. you're not running on the road all the time!

the parkhouse and all runners had to run up towards the viaduct

first airport racers must be wondering why the hell were we running in the parkhouse (i did have the same feeling last year!)

after the parkhouse, we ran through to the other side of the airport terminal, the main road. i had the opportunity to catch up with (and later overtook) my teammates, who were running really "slow". i took pictures of carstens (both of them) before one of the carsten offered his service to take my picture during running! not bad, huh? unfortunately, the camera was somehow adjusted to some weird stuff and it ended up with a black and white pictures! classic style i guess.

some of us were very lucky. somewhere between 5th and 6th km, an airbus a320 from lufthansa was making a landing into hamburg airport. the plane came from the right and flew directly above our heads. it was so close and such a beautiful sight. i loved it so much.

the first water station was shortly after the 6 km point. grabbed a cup and continued running without stopping to sip the water. then the first unfortunate event happened. i was running on the left side of the path (not road), to be exact on the grass, and trying to overtake a guy in front of me. about 50 meters ahead was some spectators standing at the side. i ran faster to avoid collision with the spectators and sprinted slightly next to the guy. he shoved me to the side and told me that i should wait while he's trying to overtake another guy. how long should i wait? there was so much space and if he were to continue running on his path or even slightly running to the left, that would be totally okay. i still could overtake him. but this shoving got onto my nerves. i told him that he was such an asshole and left him behind. my adrenaline rose up after this incident and made me running much faster. i wiped away the incident quickly from my head and enjoyed the running under the green canopy of the forest! finally shade above my head.

not long after that we had to do a downward roundabout and ran through a tunnel. not only there was plenty of light at the end of the tunnel but also a gradual slope combined with a 360 degrees turn at the end of the slope and running zigzag along the terrain. there was no longer asphalt or roadside, just the paths. it was like cross-country running with bushes and trees on one side and airplanes landing or taking off on the other side.

my next unlucky event was at about 14 km mark. shuttle buses carrying passengers for the airport days queued up to let the runners passed through. just at the moment when i was about to cross the road, the bus moved and i had to slow down and ran towards the end of the damn long bus (equivalent to tibs buses), before i could continue my run. i was quite pissed. this unfortunate moment drove my legs faster than usual but i refused to run faster and purposely slowed slightly cos i didn't want to break down at the end.

have you guys ever wonder during the run that almost at the end, the km mark sign seemed to be totally wrong? i got the feeling that it never ends after i ran passed the 15 km mark signboard. i didn't even realise that we were coming from the opposite direction of the starting point to reach the finish line. passing through the gate and with about 100 meters to go, i sprinted all the way but was caught up by yet another sprinter! it didn't matter cos i knew at the end, it was the nett time that was important.

after passing through the finish line and receiving my medal, i began to take more pictures of friends and running colleagues as well as chitchatting with other participants. thanks to the sponsor, we had a variety of flavoured drinks as well as the erdinger non-alcoholic beer - a favourite among runners. i got my beer from a colleague, cos i couldn't be bothered to wait in the long queue. took a shower and then had my cert printed out. looking at the result, i realised that i was merely less than 5 secs slower than last year.

waiting for the lucky draw while karin inspecting her main prize!

meanwhile at the stage, they were presenting prizes for the top runners. one of our colleague won the women overall title in 1:05 hrs for the 10 miles. she is 48 years old! after all this ceremony, the fun part began - a tombola (lucky draw). all participants could join in by giving their bib number into the tombola box.

i can't drink it all and i can't win any race but i'll be happy if i get this gigantic glass as souvenir!
the events repeated itself in this airport race. the weather, my running time and of course, i didn't win anything at the lucky draw :-(. nevertheless, it was one of the best race experience i've ever ran.

new route to explore

2007-09-13T23:43:00.000+02:00

19° celsius. cloudy and slightly windy. 17:22 (1:41:26)

it was the first time that i'm joining the running group from sportspaß. this group was introduced to me by guido after the alsterlauf and the trainer was there too asking me to join them.

finding the sportspaß center in city nord was not that easy. i had to walked around the damn building and when i finally found the place, everyone was ready to go. luckily the trainer recognised me and told me to hurry while they waited for me.

i didn't know what to expect from the training today. my damn gf305 couldn't find the satellites. i had to run without my gps system :-(. we started our run towards the airport but took a detour here and there. lucky for me my gf305 functioned properly again after about 1.5 km. we ran a short route from sunday's airport race run and then the trainer took us into some pathways and greens which i had never run before. it was really quiet and peaceful. the route was really interesting, we ran through several roads and pathways with single houses with gardens at the side, along a small river, around a small lake and garden houses. the area in northern hamburg. a new place to discover!

the route back was also interesting. it was a big contrast as to the beginning of the run. here huge roads with peak-hour traffic filling up the roads, people coming back from work or wherever. multistoreyed apartments/buildings accompanied our way towards our final destination, back to the center.

after we were done with the running, we had a little get-together snacks session accompanied with sparkling wine. it was really cosy. the fun part while sitting there was watching the group of people doing fitness aerobics - some of the guys there were totally hopeless (and funny) to imitate the instructor's movement!

viel zu viel

2007-07-09T00:01:00.000+02:00

21° celsius. sunny, cloudy, windy and drizzle. 10:09 (2:40:00)

it was perfect day as i drove through the city towards alster. not many vehicles. as i reached my alster, i could see that many joggers were already making full use of the weather - no rain! many joggers drove their car (instead of running) to the alster (eg. me). the driver who just parked the car in front of me turned out to be a runner as well. well, i would call him a3 (cos he drove audi a3). it was still a bit windy.

i was still fumbling with the keys, car radio and mp3 when a3 started to run. i took my time really slowly and did very little exercise. lsd should be today. target : 30 km. wow, i don't know if i could do it. haven't been doing it for such a long time. talking about it, i've realised that mileage in may was super low - about 68 km! that is less than my weekly mileage in winter!

so i started running slowly towards the american consulate and my legs felt really damn heavy. after 400m there was a small slope and then 200 m later a bridge. my legs felt still a bit sore from yesterday's badminton game. well, today is just long slow running, i told myself. with the nice weather, the paths along the alster were taken by runners, morning walkers, strollers and tourists. yes, definitely tourists, cos i've seen at least 10 buses stopped somewhere along the alster and each of them had full house tourists sitting in their buses. i didn't mind the tourists at all if they could just step aside from the paths instead of blocking the way. damn tourists.

i met my a3 after almost halfway through and then again 400 m before the starting point. a3 was doing long run too, i thought cos it was his second round. as i reached my starting point, i stopped at my car and drank my self-concocted drink (no, not doping materials) and wiped the perspire around my face. started running again for my second round.

second round was a test of patience. there were several guys who overtook me and the desire to follow their pace was really high. no, stay cool and run with the pace that i'm doing now! it was hard seeing the guys past zoomed me. met a3 again somewhere and i think he knew who i am. my tempo was getting faster and i didn't even know why cos i didn't feel it at all. only from my gf 305 that i knew the pace was increasing. this time i reached my car earlier than a3 and did the same procedure before going for my third round.

i didn't know what got into my head and legs that i continued to run at higher tempo than i usually do. must be the anxiety to finally have the chance to run, i guess. as i was running, i saw a guy walking naked in his house (no brick walls, just glasses). either he didn't care about people seeing him or he wanted people to see him naked. anyway, it didn't matter to me either, i just wanted to run.

got to my car again before i started my fourth round. this time i felt quite tired but the head still saying push a little harder. i thought i would go slow this round.

ohh... by the way, today was motorrad gottesdienst (motorcycles prayers) in hamburg where more than 30.000 motorcycles had their blessings in st. michaelis church (michel). i saw a group of riders with their mini motorcycles (the riders look cute though as if sitting on a baby bicycle), harley davidsons and other huge motorcycles of all sorts. they did make quite a din as well.

well, i did run slower than previous round and as i reached my car again, i ran slowly for about 800 m as a warming down run which was followed by stretching. i felt good at the end and finally succeeded in running my first 30 km after the long break.

the day was not done yet and went to see some friends playing in the badminton tournament. unfortunately, one of the guy registered my name and i was "forced" to play. 3 hard battling sets in a mixed double - i was totally unprepared with my "ballet" shoes (that was what the guys saying - macho comments), bermuda and racket from someone else. as i said, i was there only to take a look and not to play. anyway, we won :-).

alsteration (week 27) : 50.913 km
alstering : 43.98 km
non-alstering : 6.933 km

total running (july) : 50.913 km
davon
alstering : 43.98 km
86.38% gehört zu alsteration

training for the summer

2007-07-04T23:25:00.000+02:00

21° celsius. cloudy, slighly windy and drizzle. 18:27 (1:58:54)

the weather now is really shitty. either it rains, stormy weather with strong winds or just rainy and windy. today was the first time that the weather looked okay, the sun came out from time to time. i was so desperate to run that i told myself that i would just go running in any kind of weather.

i started running slowly with a bottle of water in my hand. had to stop several time waiting for the traffic light to go green for the pedestrians. slowly was the word for today - i just want to regain my endurance so that i won't be short of breath for the next running events. the wind blew quite strongly and the first drop of rain touched my face at about 600 m after i started running. be strong - i must do it today! i carried on running and got into my slow tempo for the first 3/4 round of alster. then came two young guys chatting behind me and overtook me. they laughed at one of the male jogger who had a super tiny and tight running short (not a tight) that revealed almost everything. well, i just smiled looking after i saw it. i stayed relax. then came another guy pacing behind me. that was it! right at the bottom of the bridge, i increased my tempo and left the third behind. shortly after i ran much faster and overtook the two guys from earlier and held the pace till i reached my starting point. at this time, the wind was blowing quite strongly and the drizzle was quite annoying too. i slowed down once i reached my destination and ran my slow pace again.

ahh.. what the heck with slow pacing. i'd decided that i was going to do fartlek today. i "sprint" up every time when there's an elevation, that is, the bridges (and hamburg has plenty of them). i slowed down each time i reached the highest point of the bridge and carried on with the slow pace. wow, that was tiring. for the last 600 m or so i ran as fast as i could after i saw the two guys from earlier on and sprinted all the way to my starting point. just about 50 meters before the end, i bumped directly into a guy who was taking a leave from his female friend and didn't see that i was coming "fast". i just shouted 'shit'. well, it didn't matter, i overtook the two guys again. well not bad actually, i did run my 20 km and a fartlek integrated in it. work done for today.

alsteration (week 27) : 20.772 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 6.112 km

total running (july) : 20.772 km
davon
alstering : 14.66 km
70.58% gehört zu alsteration

i just want to run

2007-06-18T22:45:00.000+02:00

17° celsius. cloudy and wet. 20:05 (0:43:40)

my target for today is to run slow. just enough for my fitness since i haven't been running for quite sometime. at first i thought i would skip today's run since it is already "quite late" and it rained few hours ago. furthermore i've just eaten junk foods from mcdonald's : filet-o-fish + fries + sprite + chicken wrap + 3 chicken burger. no wonder i am gaining weight all the time!

anyway, as i reached my alster, the were quite a number of joggers doing their rounds. i started my doing some stretching and then ran slowly. my long pants and jacket didn't help very much cos i felt too warm after a short distance. yeah, that 15.5° from the car's thermometer was actually right - the problem is i didn't take the sunshine and humidity after the rain into the consideration. the jacket was halfway unzipped und the sleeves pulled up. from the look of the incoming joggers, i could sense that they might say, "it's too f**cking hot to wear what you're wearing for jogging!". nevertheless, i just stick to my plan to run slowly.

halfway through the run, i realised that i've been running for almost 21 minutes. that's good cos i would have an end-time of about 40 - 42 minutes for one alsterround. perfect. however this was not the case, someone overtook me and at first i told myself, relax, run slowly. that person didn't run fast enough to make my ignore him! i just ran a tad faster but still the gap was about 15 - 20 meters. then another guy overtook me and both of them were running almost side-by-side. i increased my tempo a little bit and then found myself getting nearer and nearer to both of the first guy. overtook him (mission accomplished) and the second guy was getting slower at the small hill. almost overtook him but then he stopped running altogether by the time i reached him. hmmm.... i continued my high tempo till i reached my starting point and took a look at the watch - 37:48, wow 3 minutes faster than first half. did a warm-down run and some stretching before driving back home.

my goal today wasn't met becos i wanted to do a slow run but turned out to be partly tempo run. met steffen and he would probably join our running group. well, i might see him during the halfmarathon this coming sunday maybe.

submaximal 40%

2007-04-12T23:38:00.000+02:00

17° celsius. slightly windy. 19:20 (1:16:47)

today's programm was supposed to be a submaximal 5 km and for the relay runners, 10 x 200 meters. before the start, the trainer gave a short briefing on what we were supposed to do for the day. he mentioned something about the marathon pace and then he said, "if possible, try to run 40% below your expecting pace for the marathon". huh? i tried to calculate quickly in my head. if i want to do a marathon in a time of 3:30 hrs (well, dream on), i'll be running in about 5 min/km pace.

5 min = 300 secs
- 40 % from 300 secs = 0.6 x 300 secs = 180 secs = 3 mins

how the fuck am i supposed to run a 3 min/km pace? or should i do it with a bicycle? anyway, he realised his mistake... or didn't he? well, we just run what we thought was our submaximal limit (please, don't ask me what the hell it means). i started slowly together with hendrik & steffen and the traffic light, we joined the second group. i ran together with them for about 3 km and then i had to gave up due to my hamstring problem, well, i had to be very careful not to make it worse. i didn't give up all the way, it was just that i ran a lot slower than the pace i've been running for the past 3.5 km. there wasn't any prize to be won, so i better be safe than sorry. i didn't do that bad considering that i managed a time of 20:48 mins for the 5 km.

we did a slow jog afterwards and then a 4 x 200 meters coordinative run, not sprinting all out! i did my so called coordinative run, it wasn't fast but i did overtake a lot of my fellow runners. now i know what it means to run coordinative - the practice in the indoor hall all this time bears fruit. just long stride, gravity to the front, knees high, heels touching the butt and that weird stepping when landing and of course the forefoot running. wow, i did master it but only for a short distance!

i felt good after the training cos it had been more than 10 days since the berliner halfmarathon that i managed to run again. we had our dinner in memorandum, i ate green noodles with smoked salmon - yummy.

alsteration (week 15) : 25.299 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 17.969 km

total running (april) : 46.397 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
15.80% gehört zu alsteration

27. vattenfall berliner halbmarathon

2007-04-01T22:37:00.000+02:00

15° celsius. sunny and slightly windy. 10:48 (1:33:29)

i woke up this morning with the great feeling that i couldn't care less whatever time i would achieve later during the run. after almost 2 weeks of suffering, that is, painful experience with both legs, i wasn't that optimistic of getting any new best time for today. after getting ready, i went out and took a bus towards the hauptbahnhof. it was still cold outside.

scene at the hackescher markt bahnhof : runners, skaters, walkers and nordic walkers marching towards the starting point

as i reached the hauptbahnhof, i was joined by few runners going up the escalator. when the train came, the whole wagon was filled with runners. i had to squeeze through to get in. even though the starting point was all the same for us - runners, skaters, walkers and nordic walkers - some alight earlier at the friedrichstrasse bahnhof while the rest at alexanderplatz. but most of us alight at hackescher markt bahnhof. a german family father asked me while i was going down the stairs, why were there so many people at this hour of the morning. i told him that it was the berlin halfmarathon which started at 10:45 am near the palast der republik. they must be tourist i guess.

i was supposed to meet my running mates am zeughaus at 10:00 am. i was the first to be there at about 9:55 am. then came jens-uwe together with axel. soon came the rest, - gisela, carsten, karin and stephan. a few minutes later joachim and anina together with her father arrived at our meeting point. anina's dad was supposed to do his first ever halfmarathon at the golden age of 67 yrs old (later i found out that he did quite well in 2:17:22 hrs). anina's goal today was to run sub-1:30 and she had 2 strong pacers, joachim (56) and norbert (45), with her. although these two could run sub-1:22 hrs, they decided to help anina to realise her dream.

before they start with their warming up run (yes, that's right without me cos i still have to give up my bag and i wished to be relax without all this excitement before the run and of course more phototaking), we had our small phototaking session to commemorate today's event. i then took my own sweet time to go to the bag deposit counter! along the way, i managed to take as many photos as possible cos i wouldn't be carrying the camera during the run.

skaters and runners getting ready - the starting point is about 500 meters ahead

nervous faces before the run

i started to walk slowly towards the starting point after the bag was safely in the hands of the volunteers. as you can see from the photos below, i wouldn't even dream of queueing up to pee at the portable toilets. it was just a waste of time. so i did what the rest of the runners do - peeing somewhere else (at the bushes). this act of rebellion wasn't practiced only my the male athletes, women did it too even though the numbers who did it was relatively small compared to the guys.

sorry the toilets were fully booked

as i was doing my stretching exercise, there was a group of runners (male and female) doing their peeing at the bushes near to a building's wall which was about 30 meters away from where i was. then came someone squatting down (i thought it was a woman but it was a guy) and shit right there and then. oh no... why do i have to see this before my run! i could see the other pee'ers were smiling and laughing. okay, just for the record, i wasn't looking at them at all. only when i stretched to the right that i could see these pee'ers.

my right ankle hurt as i did my slow run-up towards the starting point. great! i really slowed down a lot and then it was okay. as i reached the starting point it was full. totally full. how was i supposed to get behind the barricades? i walked down a few steps towards the starting block "c" and finally got in. after a few minutes of waiting in the crowd, it finally started. of course i had to wait a little while before the whole mass in front of me got on their way, to be exact, about 2.5 minutes of waiting!

route from my gf 305 (i should have recharged the damn battery), the original course and starting point from the internet.

as expected many "slow runners" did manage to get in front and block the rest. i had to zigzag and did some "dangerous manouvres" just to get pass through them. soon enough i saw 3 of my "relatively slower" running colleagues in front of me and overtook them. a friend of my mine told me earlier that he was waiting at the ernst reuter platz (the 5 km mark) to cheer me up. at that point, i was looking up for him and almost caused an accident to the runners behind me. how inconsiderate of me! i did see him and shouted 'hi' while he took my photo with his mobile phones. everything was okay with my legs and finally had my first sip of water at the 5.5 km mark. i forgot to drink water this morning!

photos taken from a mobile phone - hey, i could still smile after 5 km!

i felt better and better and increased my tempo slowly but steadily. the only thing about this berlin halfmarathon which i didn't like was the turns, left and right and some of them was really a sharp turn, and of course the wind, especially between 10 to 13 km mark. i couldn't hide behind someone who would act as my windbreaker cos their pace was slower than mine. i wouldn't want to slow down! there were few short slopes but not as "deadly" as in rosengarten 3 weeks ago.

shortly before the 18 km point, i saw someone wearing the blue t-shirt with our club's logo on it, who was about 100 meters in front of me. i wasn't sure who he was but was determined to catch up to that person. i didn't burst into sprinting but just held my pace as it was, not slowing down whatsoever. soon enough i came slowly behind him and said hi and waved him goodbye. it was mario. he told me later that i just zoomed past him and even though he wanted to run together, he just couldn't follow and keep up with my pace.

i've been running in my automatic mode, which means that i could neither run a lot faster nor lot slower. my legs just move by itself. i didn't feel tired at all. luckily for me the pain that hindered me all this time wasn't there. i felt very relieved. there was this final slope right towards the 20 km point but the "rosengarten experience" told me that this was nothing. how i wished that there were more slopes to be tackled with cos i knew that i had been overtaking lots of people just by running "uphill".

just before the 21 km point, i saw another guy wearing our club's t-shirt. it was carsten, who was about 20 meters in front of me. i didn't sprint to the finishing line even though i did increase my pace slightly higher. i almost overtook carsten at the end but it wasn't meant to be. nevertheless i still ran about 1.5 minutes faster than he was for the nett timing.

after collecting my medal, i saw my teammates posing for the camera. i shouted at them and we hi-fived! we were all very happy that all of us had almost the same finishing time. talking about teamwork. only anina wasn't that happy cos she was too slow. then came mario and jens-uwe, who was absolutely very happy cos he just broke his personal best by more than 7 minutes! all in all 7 of us were within the 1:33 and 1:37 range. only johanna & gisela were slower at 1:44 & 1:50 respectively. the rest of my teammates had better timing, that is, 1 ran 1:25, 2 ran in 1:26, another ran 1:28 and another 2 managed a 1:30 timing. it was really amazing to see that the faster runners weren't that far from the rest of us at all! there's hope for improvement!

after collecting my bag, i met johanna with her right leg being bandaged. it was a chaotic day for her who just arrived that morning from hamburg, collected her bib number and had to box through from behind at the start. she told us that she still had some twitching problem with her leg and no doctor could tell her why. she wasn't interested in giving up running and practiced other sport like swimming and cycling, whereby she would be taking part in the cyclassics (155 km) and the triathlon later in summer.

no thanks, the beer tastes awful! and mario, sorry about leaving you behind, don't get mad please!

later at the massage area, we (me & norbert) met gisela together with jens-uwe who were waiting for their turn. jens-uwe offered his berliner kindl beer which i immediately turned down, cos it wasn't my taste. i told him it tasted horrible. another runner who too was waiting for a massage, overheard my comment and laughed. gisela told us that while she was running, she saw a doctor trying to help reanimate a person but unfortunately (which i heard in the radio later) the person died due to a heart attack. the first ever case for the berlin halfmarathon.

there were only 3 or 4 shower tents (i wasn't sure cos i didn't check it out). i guess it wasn't that many shower tents compared to marathon because many runners would go straight home or to their hotel to shower. one of the shower tent was a mixed shower tent - for males & females, i almost went in but decided to go to the all male shower tent (not for long cos there was a lady that showered with us)!

after i got myself freshened up, i went to collect my soforturkunde (unofficial immediate certificate). as i looked at my time i just smiled and laughed. not a bad timing. the time that i saw at the finishing line (after i stopped my stopwatch) wasn't correct. i must have been blind. it was 20 seconds faster! gee... i was perfectly happy.

such a nice weather to relax after a hard day's run!

only for DO! cheerleaders as decorative motives.

the winners' ceremony was held on a small stage near the finishing line. the male winner, patrick musyoki of kenya, managed to finish within a time of 58:56 mins (4th best time in the world and third fastest runner). i wonder where i was when he crossed the line. benita johnson of australia won the woman's category in 68:28 mins.

winners of male skaters, women and men category.

photos : berlin halfmarathon 2007

after taking all the photos and watching the ceremony, i went off to have my breakfast(!) with my friend at our favourite café. breakfast time : 09:00 till 23:00 - my kind of breakfast time.

alsteration (week 13) : 58.005 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 43.345 km

total running (april) : 21.098 km
davon
alstering : 0.00 km
0.00% gehört zu alsteration

relax, don't waste energy

2007-03-29T23:42:00.000+02:00

17° celsius. dry. 19:18 (1:17:23)

i was a little bit late. after a quick change into my running gear, we went for the warm up running around the stadtpark. there were about 20 of us altogether. the thursday's training had begun.

today's training was all about 10 km easy run. we all ran together for the first 5 km round and since sunday is the big halfmarathon day for most of us, we had the choice of either to stop after 5 km, run another round at one own's pace. most of the runners decided to run in berlin and gave a thumbs down to the hamburg halfmarathon, even though the hamburg halfmarathon includes the north german championship and hamburger championship title to be won. the motto for sunday is really to enjoy and relax in the capital city.

i ran the second round together with steffen, svenja, dagmar, norbert and carsten together and we ran at a moderate pace. not too fast and not too slow. we chatted and joked a lot during our run and it was really fun. time flies fast and before you know it, the 5 km round came to end. i was satisfied with myself today even though there was a tiny bit of twitching in my right ankle.

hopefully this problem will go away before the berlin halfmarathon!

alsteration (week 13) : 36.907 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 22.247 km

total running (march) : 197.214 km
davon
alstering : 65.97 km
33.45% gehört zu alsteration

ankle pain but still running

2007-03-28T23:07:00.000+02:00

16° celsius. sunny but windy. 18:44 (1:12:58)

i still blame on my stupidity for doing too much on a given short time. 30 km run, sprint training, badminton and fitness exercise within 5 days must be the cause of my pain in my legs. it went ding-dong between right and left. right ankle, left knee, right thigh, left ankle, right knee and so on. i was really frustrated cause the berlin halfmarathon is only in a few days time!

so as usual i ran slowly towards the alster and did some stretching exercise once i was there. the weather was a bit colder due to the wind (which i hate a lot) but there were so many joggers around the alster. i started slowly at first and continue to pick up the pace once i settled in. halfway through the alster i met my teammates, carsten running together with karin. both of them would be running in berlin too. gee... karin looked really fit - i wonder how fast she would be running in halfmarathon.

i felt a little bit comfortable while running and at times i had to slow down when i felt a twitch in my ankle. don't overexert yourself! lucky for me nothing serious happened. i had decided to run just one round of alster, just to go easy with my legs. once again, i saw my teammates coming in an opposite direction. carsten gave me a hi-five - smacking right in my right palm, ouch!

did the same thing after i completed the round, stretching and warming down before i ran back home. not quite really. i took a train for the last kilometer cos the wind was getting stronger and my legs were getting softer.

alsteration (week 13) : 24.421 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 9.761 km

total running (march) : 184.728 km
davon
alstering : 65.97 km
35.71% gehört zu alsteration

slow and steady

2007-03-26T23:11:00.001+02:00

16° celsius. dry. 18:43 (1:15:25)

after sunday's painful experience, which i couldn't even run and had to walk, i've decided that i should try running again. slowly at first.

started really slow and ran towards my alster. once there, i did some extra warming up and stretching exercises. so i started running and once i was in momentum, i picked up my speed and ran faster. no real pain. nevertheless i was being careful and would stop immediately once i got the signal that something was not right with leg. thank god, nothing happened.

i did the same warming down and stretching exercise after completing just one round of alster. ran slowly back home using the exact route which i took earlier on.

alsteration (week 13) : 13.284 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 5.954 km

total running (march) : 173.591 km
davon
alstering : 58.64 km
33.78% gehört zu alsteration

multisport

2007-03-20T23:46:00.000+01:00

10° celsius. partly sunny but windy. 17:38 (0:59:57)

today was the first day that i sat on my bike. it was still cold outside but the wind made everything worse. anyway, the bicycle's tires were totally flat - i guess that happened when the bicycle was stowed away in the garage for too long. so i pumped and pumped and pumped the tires till it got really hard. really? well, that wasn't the case cos the rear tire didn't. unfortunately i only realised that after i cycled a few hundred meters and had to go back to put the bicycle away again! nevertheless it was good to be back on the saddle.

next i went to put on my running gears and zoomed off towards the alster. i wanted to do some tempo, meaning running relatively fast so that i could go for my next training. as usual i took my normal route and started only to do the warm-up exercise when i was at the alster. it was windy though. i tried to do my best running "quickly" at the start cos this is my weakest point. i could not start fast! so i had to start steadily and faster than my normal rhythm. i must be crazy enough to do this cos after sunday's 30 km run i was quite tired already. nevertheless the will to go fast was there and the thought that i would be missing my tuesday indoor training was "unbearable". so making the alsterrunde, i warmed down and ran back "slowly". the time was too short though. i decided to stop running and took the u-bahn (metro) for the last stretch. hey, i need to take shower before i go to the next training.

i came slightly late cos i missed the damn bus. the trainer wasn't there but someone else took over. after the mandatory warmed-up running of 5 rounds on the outside lane of the 200 m track, we played football as a substitute for short but intensive running. again, i wasn't a footballer and i was really terrible at it. nonetheless i did score 1 of the 2 goals for my team! next in the programme was some coordination running + jumping (frankly speaking i didn't know what it is called but i just did it). within a certain distance we had to jump as high as possible and at the same time moving forward. the person who had the least number of this jumping won. and i did. it took me 16 steps while the rest had 18 or more. few sprint training and a 4x50 meters relay were next. i was so exhausted at the end of the day and wonder if everything was okay.

alsteration (week 12) : 13.710 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 6.380 km

total running (march) : 156.607 km
davon
alstering : 51.31 km
32.76% gehört zu alsteration

all in one

2007-03-18T18:00:00.000+01:00

9° celsius. rainy, cloudy and slightly windy. 10:16 (2:59:09)

it rained cats and dogs as i woke up. i couldn't decide whether i was going for the run or to go back to sleep. ahh... what the heck, just go there and decide for myself if i want to do the lsd (in the rain). so after packing all my stuffs, i drove down to the university (the starting point) and realised that i was late. hopefully they hadn't start to run yet. luckily they were still there as i was searching for the parking lot.

i had decided to stay in the car (since it was still raining) and waited for them if they decided to run. shortly after i saw a group of people coming out from the building with the nordic walking sticks. huh? are they running with the sticks now in the rain? gee... then came my group running out and i joined them. our trainer wasn't there cos he was still laboring his achilles tendon problem. all of us decided to do a 6 min pace for today's 3 hours run.

as usual, the 6:00 min/km wasn't taken seriously enough. a group ran slightly faster and the rest including myself, armed with gf 305, decided to slow down a bit and do our own pace. by this time the rain had stopped and the tiny weenie sunshine was there to greet us again. i didn't regret for my decision to drive down despite the heavy rain earlier. i thought the route was the same as last time, which was to run along the river alster, but i was totally wrong cos they decided to run around the stadtpark instead - moral of the story, don't be late!

the two groups met again in the stadtpark. we were supposed to run the 8.4 km route, the alster marathon relay's route. i had no idea which way was it but who cares, someone was there to lead the way. well, actually i had to lead the way and keep telling the rest our current pace. only when it was too fast, i had to slow them down.

after the second stadtpark round, peter took over the commando and led us the way back, running through the stadtpark and towards the alster lake. at times the pace was way too fast and more than once that we ourselves had to slow down so that we wouldn't overexert. by this time the wind had picked up and i had to run either behind or left of someone. someone else had to act as a windbreaker for me! we ran 3/4 round of the alster before coming back to the university, the route chosen by peter - with almost no slope.

i was happy as we reached the end. my very first 30 km and 3 hour run respectively. funny that i didn't feel that tired at all and the refreshing shower after that was exactly the best finale after a hard's day work!

alsteration (week 11) : 78.094 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 56.104 km

total running (march) : 142.897 km
davon
alstering : 43.98 km
30.78% gehört zu alsteration

blown by the wind

2007-03-17T22:51:00.000+01:00

11° celsius. partly cloudy with strong wind. 10:09 (0:42:40)

what a shitty day. all i wanted to do was to do my lsd today but the wind had other plans. it was sooo nice and beautiful the whole week through and now this!

i was quite happy when i woke up this morning to see that it was sunny. no rain. after i was done with all the dingsbums, i drove off to my usual starting point at the alster. the mandatory photos were taken before i started my run. the weather looked fine, only slight wind and partly cloudy. i did some warm-up exercises as usual and then began my run.

the start was slow cos my intention for today was to do 4 rounds of alster, equivalent to about 29.3 km. after about a kilometer or so, my stomach began to "blurp". huh? why now? i have never had any problem with my stomach before - i didn't have breakfast, in fact i never have any breakfast before my morning run. so why now?

i thought about the next toilet. at the alsterperle. it was about 1+ km before i reached there. then came the wind. i was practically blown away by the wind from the side and at times headwind. it was so annoying fighting against the wind and the stomachache. as i reached the alsterperle, the toilet was closed. well, not really closed unless you pay 25 cents to use it. damn it. when the hell they started this? i didn't carry any money with me at all, just my keys. then i remembered reading somewhere from a german blogger who wrote about the 25 cents entry charge. damn. damn. damn.

i had to continue my run cos the next toilet was somewhere 2 km ahead. the wind was getting stronger and stronger. my stomach was complaining, my body was complaining about the wind, my head was complaining to stop the run and go back home. i was only halfway around the lake. ahhh....

i passed the restaurant without stopping to the toilet. my goal now was to run slightly faster to my car and end the damn run for today. the final 1.5 km was a bit better cos i had a strong tailwind. nevertheless the mood to run was already gone. not fun anymore with the wind and the stomach. i was happy as i reached my destination point and by that time, my stomachache was also gone. contemplating of continuing the run but the strong wind just prevented me from any running thoughts for today.

alsteration (week 11) : 47.427 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 25.437 km

total running (march) : 112.230 km
davon
alstering : 43.98 km
39.19% gehört zu alsteration

damn pyramid

2007-03-15T22:24:00.001+01:00

11° celsius. dry with slight wind. 19:23 (1:02:35)

late... i was damn late. to make things worse, i missed the connecting bus cos i thought it would be late and made the decision to walk from there to our gathering point. just after i walked for about 20 meters, the bus drove by. ahh... damn it.

lucky for me, the training hasn't started as i arrived. there was a small certificate-giving ceremony to acknowledge the guys and ladies who ran during the local championship. i didn't receive any cert because i was too young, only those 35 and above or those who did exceptionally well would receive the cert - bloody hell! wasted my energy for running fast (okay, fast is relative)!

we started with our usual warm-up run around the smaller stadtpark. i had to catch up with the rest at the start cos my gf 305 was taking its time to locate its satellites. i ran with my water bottle cos i thought that today's training would be somewhere in the stadtpark but i was totally wrong. after the warm-up run, we went straight onto the track. shit... i hate running on the track.

our training today was the pyramid run : 2 x (1', 3', 5', 3', 1') + 1' rest. it was okay if we were outside running in the park but running laps for x-minutes made me crazy. i decided not to think much about the run around thing, just concentrating on the run and during the rest/jog period chatting with the rest (if they are not that far ahead/behind of me). i lost count on how many laps we ran, i just want to finish this lapping thing. so i gave almost everything for the final 1 minute in the last round and received a complain from thomas cos he meant that i had been saving up the energy for the final sprint (he couldn't catch me last week for the final sprint :-)). well, too bad for him but i also have a reason. i ran the halfmarathon last sunday and yesterday and therefore i couldn't always run fast the whole time. anyway, i love to give everything for the final sprint/lap/minute!

alsteration (week 11) : 40.099 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 25.439 km

total running (march) : 104.903 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
34.94% gehört zu alsteration

ruhe bewahren

2007-03-14T23:13:00.001+01:00

11° celsius. dry and very windy. 18:07 (2:08:14)

what should i do today? the weather looked very fine - sunshine and almost no clouds. the high pressure in central europe was the culprit for bringing such weather. hmm... why should i complain then? ahh... yes. i was misguided by the "warm" weather to ignore the "correct" running attire i should be wearing. i was "scarcely dressed"!

it wasn't that bad when i started the run cos the route was always blocked by either trees or buildings along the way. but once i reached the alster, it was totally different. wind blowing from the lake, sometimes left, sometimes right or either headwind or tailwind. it got worse after the sun set cos the wind got stronger and my legs got heavier. with just a thin running shirt without my gloves, i tried to control the coldness that got into me and swore that i would always have my gloves with me during winter - snow or sunshine, it doesn't matter. my hands were practically frozen. lesson learned.

during the run, there were times when i was tempted to run faster whenever someone ran past me and to follow his tempo. i told myself to stay relax cos this is not a competition, just a normal run - you've done enough for the week. so i strolled back home after running my weekly wednesday halfmarathon.

alsteration (week 11) : 28.749 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 14.089 km

total running (march) : 93.553 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
39.18% gehört zu alsteration

undecided

2007-03-13T00:27:00.001+01:00

15° celsius. dry. 18:25 (0:47:38)

should i run or shouldn't i? that was the big question today cos the weather was sooooo nice! it was sunny and warm : 17 - 20° celsius in the day. hmmm.... i've read somewhere that if you are undecided, just put on your running attire and run. if after a few hundred meters and you don't feel like running, you can always turn back and go home!

that was exactly what i did. i ran few hundred meters and while waiting for the traffic light to go green (for pedestrians), i'd decided to turn back. instead of running back home i'd chosen to run in the park, although the original idea was to run around the alster.

at almost every turns/crossings i just run aimlessly without having any plan where my route should be. i wasn't even thinking of running "fast" today, just a slow jog in the neighbourhood. the after effect from yesterday's run was still there - the sore muscles. a regenerative run as my running colleagues would say.

alsteration (week 11) : 7.497 km
alstering : 0.00 km
non-alstering : 7.497 km

total running (march) : 72.301 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
30.41% gehört zu alsteration

24. straßenlaufcup 2007 (halfmarathon)

2007-03-11T23:09:00.000+01:00

10° celsius. sunny. 10:00 (1:32:59)

today's halfmarathon was the 3rd and final race from the laufcup running series. my legs were still hurt and sore from thursday training, just a bit better than yesterday. went to pick up anina before we drove off to forst rosengarten. this time i didn't drive the wrong way but direct to the starting point.

the compulsory photos
these photos reflect the weather and ground conditions before my run. compare these with the photos from the first and the second race.

the weather looked good as we drove to forst rosengarten. a man with the signboard "parking space is full" was quite adamant that i shouldn't drive further to park the car. all i wanted to do was to make a u-turn to park the car, cos i wouldn't have the chance and space to do it on the narrow road. as we arrived, another of our running colleague, norbert, was already there. he was supposed to be a pacer for anina and help her to achieve sub-1:30. another member from our group had to withdraw from this race cos he was sick. both of them were supposed to help anina achieving her dream time. after a small talk, both of them went on to do some warm up jogging, while i was busy taking pictures (what else).

scenes at the bib collection tent
photos of the finishing areas

towards the starting point
the way to the starting point is hilly and it is about 400 meters (or was it more?) from the finishing line.

the starting point for this halfmarathon was a bit further than usual. it was about 400 meters (or more) away from the bib collection point. those who came late must be wondering where were all the starters. i had to run up and down (real slowly, trying not to waste my energy) the hilly area and regarded it as my warm up exercise. not bad idea in fact as it turned out!

before start, the organiser announced that we had to run 4 times the 5 km stretch and the last kilometer will lead to the finishing line (where else!). that means we had to run two loops + 1,1 km. ouch... that must be painful for the legs. with my sore legs i didn't have much confidence, only the assurance that i could run up the hills, with or without the soreness (mental traininglah).

at 10:00 am, the race began. anina and norbert went off charging while i was at the back pushing my way through the aunties and uncles. it didn't matter whether i started in the middle or at the back of the pack, i always ended up behind the slow-and-chatting-might-as-well-block-other-runners competitors. i would never dream of starting in front cos i might be too excited and ran too fast in the beginning.

as i ran, i saw this guy running/zooming past me. he had only one functional arm. his right arm was strapped to his body. he must be late cos he wasn't at the front of the pack. later i realised that he was fifth in today's event in 1:17:01 hrs.

there was no need to mention about the route profile - hilly with lots of ups and downs. due to pushing through at the start, i was quite slow for the first kilometer. but things settled down from the second kilometer onwards. i still had to concentrate during my run as not to step into the pool of water. great but my ankle was twisted a bit during the second kilometer and i almost fell down! lucky for me it was just an almost!

after the first turnaround, i missed the water point (damn) and had to run another 5 km before i could get my first drink. one thing i realised was that my legs weren't giving me any problems and i overtook quite a number of people during the uphill section. at 9.5 kilometer, i overtook a lady and couldn't shake her off. she stucked behind me (that wasn't the problem) and breathed heavily making loud noises (and now that was the problem). erghh... it got on my nerves and i wouldn't want to turn the volume of my mp3 any louder or i will be deaf. the relatively flat and downhill section made it difficult for me to get away from her without breaking my rhythm. after the turnaround (10 km mark), it was back to the uphill section and i could slowly but surely get rid of her!

at the 14 km mark, i looked at the timing and realised that i was faster than the race fortnight ago. how could this be possible? i try to "maintain" my speed but the final 3 kilometers were a hell for me. i couldn't even close up onto the person 50 meters in front of me. i kept telling myself, it was just another 15 minutes of agonizing run before i could call it a day. right at that moment, another runner went past me. how demoralising! my attitude was just to keep my stride and not to slow down too much. many times i wanted to look back to see if anyone else coming to chase me down but the words from a german biathlete kept playing in my mind : i don't look back or to the left and right, just look forward. so i just look forward for the finishing line. and the view was really nice - i just broke my pb!

scenes at the finishing area
warming down and envying the cups. some were just happy to complete the hilly route.

me, anina and norbert
anina didn't achieve her goal. they ran too fast at the beginning. she managed to run only in 1:31:07 hrs. nonetheless, she was first (in her age categorie), second (in the women categorie) and third (in today's event)!

alsteration (week 10) : 64.804 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 42.814 km

total running (march) : 64.804 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
33.93% gehört zu alsteration

spring feelings

2007-03-10T21:28:00.001+01:00

10° celsius. sunny and sometimes very windy. 10:57 (1:03:59)

ahh... it was so nice to be out there again in the sunshine. my legs still feel sore after thursday's training. both my calves and the back of my thighs are feeling very sore. thanks to the sprinting and interval/repeats!

the view of the aussenalster from my starting point

the compulsory photos before the start of the run
these photos reflect the weather and ground conditions before (sometimes after) my run around the alster lake.

all i wanted to do today was to run slowly. really slowly, just one round of alster. armed with my camera, i started my run a tortoise pace after doing my warm-up exercise. only a hundred meter away from the start, i stopped to take pictures. pictures of crocus. i was very, very happy to see these flowers bloom. it means that spring has begun!!!

crocus cultivars
more pictures from the crocus at the end.

kennedybrücke (kennedy bridge) - the second bridge (without the railway track)
running on this bridge during a windy day can be very, very cold especially in winter when the icy wind blows through the running attires and right into the bones! during the peak-hour traffic in the evening, act as if you are totally fresh and energetic when running on this bridge to impress the drivers stucked in the traffic jam.

bridges of hamburg
with more than 2000 bridges in the city, it is said that hamburg has the most numbers of bridges in the world(!).

alsterperle
this small building used to be public toilet until someone had a brilliant idea to change these toilets (there are few more around the alster) into cafés (since 1998). these cafés are the best stopover during a walk around the alster. by the way, functional toilets are still available within the café (just a smaller version from its original size).

trees around alster
i just like these huge trees with their branches spreading out. it is just like a natural fountain.

alster
i would love to live somewhere near the alster, if possible directly near the lake. it is just a question of money. if you can afford to pay the exorbitant rent, then do it. it's worth it!

road hogging!
this grandma on bike had really got the nerves :-) cycling slowly in front of the tourist bus. luckily for the bus driver, it is not yet summer, when the bicycle season starts.

dog's life
i saw this dog running/playing with the ball in park. it was so cute to see him chasing and pushing the ball around. a small area at the alster is reserved for the four-legged to run around freely (or they will run around the walkway and disturb the joggers, especially the fast joggers - not biting, just their unpredictable change of direction can sometimes cause trouble). in summer, the dogs will play football(!) together with their owners - it is fun to watch them!

the crocus

i took all the photos of the crocus around the lake as i ran and stopped. that was the reason why i took so long to cover the 7.33 km stretch. it blooms all over around the alster lake. the most important news that these crocus brought was that the spring has begun with perfect weather and sunshine. the spring feelings are back!

alsteration (week 10) : 43.706 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 21.716 km

total running (march) : 43.706 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
50.31% gehört zu alsteration

sandkistenrunde

2007-03-08T22:57:00.000+01:00

9° celsius. dry, no wind. 19:19 (1:14:24)

the first thing i realised was that my trainer had a problem - an achilles tendon. that was what he told me. some of my new running colleagues told me that last sunday, he (the trainer) conducted the lsd on his bike. hmm...

today's programm was a wiederholungsläufe (repeates(?)) around the sandkisten (children's playground) in the stadtpark. it was broken into 4 parts, recovery run, sprint, recovery and sprint. we had to do this 8 times and for the first round, i felt that i was quite relax, i just need to lean a bit forward and open up my stride. walah, the round was over. it was approximately 1000 meters per round.

i saved a little bit energy for the last round. shortly before the final sprint, norbert mentioned my name and told the others to be aware cos i'm coming to the front. at the final sprint starting point, i sprinted and sprinted and was astonished that i could leave the rest behind. i maintained the speed 3/4 way and slowed down the rest but still managed to maintain the position (being first) till the end. i felt good.

alsteration (week 10) : 36.219 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 21.559 km

total running (march) : 36.219 km
davon
alstering : 14.66 km
40.48% gehört zu alsteration

9 days unwanted rest

2007-03-07T22:34:00.000+01:00

12° celsius. calm and then windy. 18:05 (2:27:08)

i just need to run. after the short trip to malta and gaining few kilos, i felt that running was the best way to get back in shape. 9 days went by without a single kilometer of running! there were million ways to avoid running (especially the blame-it-on-the-weather theory) and so on. i told myself that i would run in malta but the weather was so nice that i ended up having cakes & coffee at the café!

so today's run was actually a lsd that i wanted to compensate for the run that i missed on sunday. by the way, i need mileage too to stock up. marathon is around the corner and halfmarathon is on this coming sunday. the weighing machine that i saw this morning wasn't that friendly either - too much - an after-effect from the short holiday.

so i ran my usual route and try as much as i could to run slowly. my feet hurt and i didn't know why. i had to stop a couple of times and did some feet exercises. maybe the legs couldn't hold up the weight from the middle part of the body!

as i reached the traffic light just before the alster, i was happy that it turned red for the vehicles. but then, the green man was nowhere to be seen! the damn lady at the traffic light took it for granted and didn't press the button. hmm... i had to wait a couple of minutes before i could continue to run.

even though my plan today was to run 3 rounds around the alster, i had decided to cut it short at the last moment cos i had to be back and prepared for our weekly tv evening with friends at home. ran anti-clockwise direction for the first round and turned around for the next round. for the third round, i decided to run just a short distance before turning back to run towards home. all the way, i felt that my left foot wasn't working properly. was it just because that i've been too lazy to run before, during and after the trip or was it just the damn shoes? i don't know. anyway, was really happy when i finally reached home cos i was totally exhausted.

alsteration (week 10) : 24.519 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 9.859 km

total running (march) : 24.519 km
davon
alstering : 14.66 km
59.79% gehört zu alsteration

24. straßenlaufcup 2007 (15 km)

2007-02-25T17:02:00.000+01:00

10° celsius. partly sunny. 10:00 (1:07:29)

i was late! late to pick up anina on my way to forst rosengarten, the start of today's 15 km race - the second in series from 3 races. luckily it was only 8 minutes late. after picking her up, we chatted about the upcoming and previous races and i totally forgot which way was right or left when the navigation lady told me to stay on the left lane! i turned right and we had to make a detour! i was so unkonzentriert!

it wasn't that far from anina's place to the starting point (thanks to the autobahn). it took 15 minutes to reach there. the carpark was totally full (we couldn't enter anymore). i had to park the car along the sideways (luckily there was an empty spot) and it wasn't that far from the starting point either!

the weather in forst rosengarten was okay. partly cloudy with the sun coming out every now and then. the paths were still wet from the previous days/nights when the rain poured continuously. it could be snow too (i don't know). thank goodness that the weather forecast from few days ago predicting that it could be snowing on sunday didn't materialise. it was in other part of germany (the northeast area).

compare these pictures with the first run fortnight ago : 24. straßenlaufcup 2007 (10 km)

the fields around the forest looked much better than last time.

runners warming up and running towards the starting point. cars were park along the sideway cos the parking space was totally full.

the starting point and the startnumber collection tent
the small signboard says "strecke : 7,5 km hin, 7,5 km zurück". the small tent behind the signboard is for the bibnummer collection. look at the paths - muddy!

even though i brought extra shoes and extra running long-tights for emergency case (too cold and slippery), i realised that i didn't need to use it. i even left my running jacket in the car and decided to run without it. i was somewhere at the back when the race began at exactly 10 am. as usual i had my mp3 on and i was totally relax. just as i crossed over the starting line i realised that i had to overtake so many people in front of me including all the aunties and uncles who looked like they were on sunday stroll than running. worst they covered 2/3 of the paths! the paths wasn't that wide either. although i wanted to start slow, the hordes of extremely slow runners made me much slower. i had to box through them and this means i had to do short sprint to past through them and at the same time running uphill. urghh... next time i will start somewhere in front!

though there wasn't anymore snow on the course, the wet and muddy paths were like a hurdle for us. we had to be careful not to step into pools of water here and there. as i was running behind a group of five and concentrating not to step on the runner's shoes in front of me and didn't look forward, i missed the sudden detour from the front runners and landed in the pool of mud water. the shoes and my running tights were splashed with brown-coloured thing which i hate it very much. it was only around 4 km mark!

the route was a straight forward thing. run a 7.5 km through the hilly forest and come back the same way. well it was really a straight forward thing except that you have to go through the hilly up and down course twice. and it was really tiring! at about 5.5 to 6 km the fastest runner was already on his way back to the the starting/finishing line. wow, he was really fast (finishing time 53:23 mins for 15 km).

i ran 2/3 of the course behind someone (for the tempo and wind resistance) and had to break out from the group or overtake someone when i felt that the person in front of me was "too slow". due to countless uphill and downhill run, i mentally told myself that i excel in running up the slope. and i really did with ease. running down was always a problem for me - i had to slow down and more than once i heard footsteps very, very near behind me. the uphill helped me to stay a distance from the other competitors behind me and at the same time closing up to the runners in front of me. it was like a magnet - being pulled to the back runners on downhill and attracted to the front runners on the uphill.

i guess everyone would be happy in other races when they saw the last kilometer signboard. that includes me but the steeper hill that came shortly after the mark was a big hurdle and a setback of the anticipation of running the fastest kilometer. i just ran my tempo and in the end i was happy with my time. i knew i could run slightly faster if i had started somewhere in front. the hilly course had really boost up my confidence that i would have a better timing if this was to be run on a flat surface.

alsteration (week 8) : 43.429 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 28.769 km

total running (february) : 192.320 km
davon
alstering : 65.97 km
34.30% gehört zu alsteration

too tired to run

2007-02-23T23:38:00.000+01:00

5° celsius. cloudy and very windy. 17:27 (0:29:55)

all i wanted to do today was to do a short run. i've decided to run at the hammer park before going to the fitness exercise. my legs were heavy. while running along the road, the northeast wind from russia (according to the weather forecast) really made my life difficult. it was damn cold. i thought 5 degrees celsius wasn't that cold but with strong icy wind blowing into your face, you have no chance. you just have to run through. my fingers were numb even though i wore gloves. i was really relieved once i reached the school hall cos i couldn't bear the coldness anymore. were my running attire not enough to sustain the warmth? hmm... i was really, really exhausted once i stopped the run.

alsteration (week 8) : 28.429 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 13.769 km

total running (february) : 177.320 km
davon
alstering : 65.97 km
37.20% gehört zu alsteration

running or photo taking?

2007-02-22T23:24:00.001+01:00

10° celsius. cloudy then drizzle. 16:47 (1:12:45)

i really don't know why i ran today? was it because that my mileage is low (that's true) or just runnning for the sake of running? i guess it was a combination of both. today's run was just a for fun thing cos i didn't want to go to training (due to the weather forecast - slight shower in northern germany and they were right) but instead to play badminton. hmm.... how i missed playing it.

i took my camera as i left home to run. after few hundred meters i realised that it was quite a nuisance since it was jumping up and down in my running jacket. i took a mental note that i am not going to run with the camera for the berliner halbmarathon. it could cost few valuable seconds and minutes (as if i could fast!). anyway, took some photos along the way before i stopped at the bank's atm machine to draw out some money. continued with my running till i reached the alster.

according to the weather news, it is already a meteorological spring. the day is getting longer and it was still bright as i started my alsterrunde.

an der alster
this is where i normally start when i ran to alster instead of driving. one has to be very careful after crossing the road towards the alster. cyclists zoom past you from left and right. to make the matter worse, some of them doesn't even have a headlight when dark (at night or in winter)! the traffic light takes ages to turn red and we as pedestrian has to wait quite long before the green man comes to light.

schwanenwikbrücke
on the green grass near this bridge is a hot spot during the summer, when people storms here for picnic or to sunbath.

alsterperle
a very popular spot all year round. in summer most of the office workers flock here to enjoy their glass of beer and at the same time enjoying the beautiful alster during the night. at times it will be very crowded and some even bring their own stools or foldable plastic chairs just to sit around here to relax.

schöne aussicht
this is the stretch of road (in fact all around the alster) where the rich people have their houses or rented homes. during marathon, some of them will be having their breakfast (with table and chairs) on the sideroad and making the marathoners jealous. wish i could stay somewhere here but the rent started as little as 2000 euros per month i guess (and that must be a tiny apartment). maybe when i win the jackpot!

feeding the ducks, sea(?)gulls and the ???
the sea(?)gulls come from autumn till spring. the graygeese just arrived here in hamburg. the swans are still being locked in their winter quarters. the black birds (i called it the divers) and the ducks rule the whole alster the whole year round!

the blue mosque
this mosque is unique cos it is in the middle of nowhere and mostly it is just a tourist attraction. even though one can pray in the mosque but the prayer's call is not on a loudspeaker as it could disturb the peacefulness in that area and this mosque is right in the middle of a residential area.

langenzugbrücke
one of the many bridges in hamburg. the road on this bridge is a one-way street and it changes direction, depending on the time of the day (6:00 to 12:00 - towards the city; for rest of the day - city outwards).

krugkoppelbrücke
this is the favourite meeting point for runners, whether from running clubs or just an informal get-together between runners. and this is also the place where my bike was stolen. during summer this place (the restaurant below) is crowded with tourists or hamburgers themselves. watching the alsterferry moving under the bridge below you is quite an exciting thing to see (and to photograph).

the wonderful trees at the cliff
i didn't take the picture of the restaurant here cos it was closed. normally it is a good meeting place for people to enjoy their beers and ice-cream (during summer). this is also another hotspot for the runners to start their run around the alster cos the carpark is only a stone throw away.

kennedybrücke (facing the binnenalster)
this is a busy road where the traffics usually stop waiting for the traffic light to go green. this is the place where you have to grit your teeth and act as if everything under control because running up the bridge is not an easy path, either you have to climb a short steep way up from one side or if you are from the other side it will be a long gentle slope. if the weather is windy, be prepared to be blown from one side and if it is in winter, the icy wind would just penetrate your running jacket!

anyway, today's run was a mix of fartlek and photo taking. couldn't be bothered much about the timing, i just enjoyed myself during the whole run except towards the end when it started to drizzle!

alsteration (week 8) : 23.265 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 8.605 km

total running (february) : 172.156 km
davon
alstering : 65.97 km
38.32% gehört zu alsteration

after badminton

2007-02-20T22:26:00.001+01:00

6° celsius. dry and slight wind. 19:56 (1:07:26)

at first i thought i would be running and then straight to badminton hall to play the game. unfortunately things came up at the last minute and i have to change the plan. so i played 1.5 hours of badminton and then went off to run.

my plan for today was to run slowly. as slow as possible. unfortunately due to all the excess energy i had after playing badminton, i found out that running slowly was quite "impossible". i just let my legs do the running tempo and soon enough i was in my auto-mode - just nor so fast and not so slow. once in awhile when someone overtook me, i felt like running faster and follow his/her tempo but rationality told me not to. so i kept my speed at a leisure pace.

alsteration (week 8) : 11.193 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 3.863 km

total running (february) : 160.084 km
davon
alstering : 58.64 km
36.63% gehört zu alsteration

a beautiful sunday morning

2007-02-18T17:45:00.000+01:00

5° celsius. sunny and almost no wind. 10:09 (2:16:59)

it was such a beutiful day. the sun at its best, the wind at its lowest - just a perfect morning for me. a cold sunny weather, my favourite kind of weather.

went out early in the morning with the thought of running one round around the alster but as i reached there, i'd decided against it. sat at the bench for awhile, watching the ducks, gulls, "diving birds" and even a crow vying for breads. a moment later i had to drive off to the hamburg university (sports department), to the starting point of our biweekly lsd session.

the turn up was great and this time around we had three running groups, after a few complaints that fortnight ago, the 5:30 min/km group was to fast (well, they actually ran faster than 5:30) and 6:30 min/km group was too slow (well, they actually ran slower than 6:30!). as it turned out, the majority opted for the 6:00 min/km and it was one hell of a huge group.

it began with a rundown towards the alster. the faster runners left a few seconds earlier, followed by the rest. our mission for today was to run 2:20 hrs (for all groups) along the alster river. lucky for us that the alster was not yet crowded with the sunday morning strollers.

it was the first time that i'm running this route. i found it such a nice view to run in this area. soon i realised that i've been here before but on the water, canoeing. it was such a contrast when looking from different angle. the chitchatting among us brought back to the same problem as two weeks ago - we were running at a very slow speed (6:30 min/km). not that i was against chitchatting, i was just hoping that we could chitchatting and maintaining the speed at the same time.

as time went by, i began to run in front of the rest, together with mario, a 50+ yrs old guy and still managing a sub-3:30. wish i could run as fast as him. we were joined with three other runners, who were loudly talking with each other. anyway, after almost 12 km, the trainer ran to us and told us to slow down cos some of the guys behind couldn't maintain the speed. hmm... i wasn't that happy and mario told him that according to my gf 305, we were running at the predestined rate - a few seconds slower actually (as i found out later). we slowed down and the rest followed. at exactly 1 hour 10 minutes later after the start, the whole group began to make a u-turn while me and mario decided to run an extra ~2 km before we decided to make a turn. the moment that we left the group, the tempo began to rise. at first we could still talk to each other but after the u-turn, i could only hear my breathe and mario's. we were "speeding", trying to catch up with the group. they had at least 3.6 km advantage ahead of us. we were such in a hurry that at times we ran below 5 min/km. wow... running with someone was really good in order to maintain my speed. we were very, very lucky that we managed to get in touch with the rest of the group about 1.5 km before the end. i was totally out of breathe.

once again we reached the lake alster. it was about 12:20 and the weather was at its best. no clouds and no wind. just the sunshine and millions of sunday afternoon strollers along the alster. whew... it was already a big crowd within our group but running slalom through the throng of strollers was a big nuisance (well, they could say the same thing about us). you had to look out for everything : kids, bikes, dogs, joggers, muds and so on. hmmm....

once again there was nothing much to say about the ground elevation that we ran today. nothing to be proud of. it was just as flat as roti prata (ohh.... i badly miss the roti prata with fish curry).

all in all i was satisfied with the run today but somehow, i am still having a doubt with what i did today - did i run too fast for long slow distance?

alsteration (week 7) : 61.655 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 46.995 km

total running (february) : 148.891 km
davon
alstering : 51.31 km
34.46% gehört zu alsteration

slow down please

2007-02-15T23:25:00.000+01:00

9° celsius. dry. 19:20 (1:07:47)

ohh.. how wonderful to see your running mates again. it has been more than 3 months since i did my thursday tempo training. when was that? i think it was in october 2006, when i ran for the very last time in the stadtpark before i switched to badminton (who wants to run in dark, cold windy weather when you can play in a warm hall for few hours of badminton).

anyway, there were almost 30 of us today, most doing their training for the forthcoming hamburg marathon in april. that includes me. well, one thing for sure for me to do this training is that, after yesterday's catastrophic run around the alster (i couldn't do any speeding anymore), i've decided that now is the time to do some workout for my speed.

waiting for the gf 305 to locate its satellites was a bit nuisance. i waited and waited at a point while the rest of the group already went off for the warming up run. after about 2 - 3 minutes, it finally found its satellites. erghh.... so i had to do some catching up with the rest and thankfully i knew the shortcuts through the park and found the group after a short while.

today's training was 3 - 5 x 2000 m. since there wasn't any lighted 2000 m area where we could run, the trainer decided that we do the smaller round. when i ran for the first round, i thought that we would stop at the starting point (which was ca. 1000 m) but my hope was dashed when i saw the other runners in front of me continued to go for the second round (non-stop). oh shit... i've already sped up almost at the end of the first round and now i had to continue running. relax... just run your pace. so i did. when i finally reached the endpoint, i was totally out of breath.

we took about 4 mins to recover before we went on for the next round. this time i was mentally prepared and didn't run fast for the first few hundred meters and maintaining my speed till the last 200 meter of the second round where i pushed myself a little bit. did the same tactic for the 3rd 2000 m but for the 4th 2000 m i've decided to sprint for the last 200 meters. i felt good. one thing i've noticed was that one of us, jens-uwe (who used to be quite slow) happened to have the power to maintain his speed, in fact he was much faster than i am (well, he used to be at least 10 mins slower than me for the halfmarathon). i guessed his will to come to training doing the temporuns and intervall training had paid off. now it's time for me to do the same!

i didn't run the 5th round and decided to go slow with the rest of my group doing warming down run. we chatted along the way and as we reached back to the starting point, the trainer wanted that all of us, including the slower and faster runners, to do a warming down run. hmm... again! nevermind, it was a good training today. i finally enjoyed it. thanks to the weather too.

alsteration (week 7) : 37.248 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 22.588 km

total running (february) : 124.484 km
davon
alstering : 51.31 km
41.22% gehört zu alsteration

i'm running in the rain

2007-02-14T22:46:00.000+01:00

9° celsius. rainy and windy. 17:35 (2:01:18)

it was just a few hundred meters after i started to run that i felt the raindrops on my face. should i continue or just turn back? i've decided to continue cos today is my halfmarathon day. okay, it was not really a halfmarathon, it was just about running 2 rounds around the alster from home. altogether the distance is usually almost 21.1 km or slightly more. it is all about slow running to and fro the alster but once i'm there, i will try to push myself a little harder.

so it wasn't any different for today. quite relax on the way there except for one thing - the rain. it wasn't a heavy downpour (come to think of it, it never happens here), just a continuous drizzle. i felt weird and pain on both feet especially on the left foot cos i got the feeling as if my inner foot was placed slightly higher in the shoes. did some foot twirling exercises for my feet but the pain didn't go away. so i decided to ignore it a while, with the hope that if i didn't think about it, i don't feel it. and it worked. as usual once i reached the alster, i ran anti-clockwise around the lake. i thought the rain was bad enough but to top it up here came the wind. how i hate wind. it was quite strong. although with 9 degrees celsius wasn't that cold to run, a wet running attire (including the headgear) with wind constantly blowing strongly on you, you could feel the cold air penetrating your bone. brr...

once i completed my first round, i ran a bit further so that i could make a "u-turn" to continue with second round. this detour was almost a km long (exact was 937.44 m according to my gf 305)! hmm...

started the second round (this time clockwise direction) rather slow but soon i picked up the tempo. isn't it funny that just running on a different direction made everything looks different. i just felt that i could run faster somehow. tried to maintain the same speed till the end and was quite out of breath as i reached my final point.

running back home was quite troublesome as the pain from earlier on appeared once again. i had to run really, really slow but was erleichtert when i finally reached home.

alsteration (week 7) : 24.816 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 10.156 km

total running (february) : 112.052 km
davon
alstering : 51.31 km
45.79% gehört zu alsteration

football?

2007-02-13T23:36:00.001+01:00

7° celsius. indoor condition. 19:30

there were 10 of us today who came for the indoor training. after a couple of rounds doing warming up, we played a game for the sake of moving fast in small area. the game today was football. football? i haven't played for such a long, long time and football is not my cup of tea. watching football and knowing the results as well as statistics are okay, but playing? gee... i was really that terrible, couldn't even control the ball when it came to me! but i did manage to score the only goal from my team :-).

then we had to do the coordinative exercises, which was really quite exhausting, even though the element running wasn't in, just a static exercise. the next event was to do what we've learned so far and do it on the 200 meter track. it should be coordinative run, that means, always aware of your style, in other words, style not speed. my calves hurt after doing 3 rounds of that coordinative runs. stretch forward, aware of the landing and always relax. relax?

the final programme was some balancing exercises. well, i thought it was easy but when you have to close your eyes when executing it, you just fell out of balance. tough thing.

the whole training was rounded up by a warming down rounds around the track and some of my training partners showed their skills in doing high jumps.

alsteration (week 7) : 3.280 km
alstering : 0.00 km
non-alstering : 3.280 km

total running (february) : 90.516 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
40.49% gehört zu alsteration

24. straßenlaufcup 2007 (10 km)

2007-02-11T14:02:00.000+01:00

-3° celsius. cloudy and very windy. 10:00 (0:45:40)

today was the first leg of the strassencup (running series) and the distance was 10 km. drove out from home towards the starting point, forst rosengarten, which was about 35 km away. the road was slippery (due to fresh snow) and i skidded on my very first left turn out. phew... nothing serious happened as i was quite in control of the car, not freaking out like the first time around when the car turned 180 degrees. anyway, i had to drive slowly today, no speeding off whatsoever.

it was the first time i'm taking part in this kind of race. a bit of a gamble actually since i didn't really train up properly. nevermind, this should be just a test and reminder for me to train up.

it was all white as i reached the secluded area somewhere in the forest to park the car. oh shit... hopefully i could get out of the snow later and not get stucked in it (as i saw few runners pushing a car out of its misery). as i got out of the car to get my startnumber, i felt the chilly wind blew into my face. urrghhhh.... damn, damn cold.

the event started at exactly 10:00 am. i stood somewhere in the middle at the beginning of the race. as the race went on for about 200 meters, i realised that overtaking was quite difficult. in fact very difficult. my aim for today was just to run under 44 mins but i guess i could just forget about it.

here were the reasons why i had difficulty with my running today :
1. the weather : the wind made it a lot colder than it already was (i had the feeling that it was -10 degrees!).
2. the narrow, slippery paths that was covered with snow (only 2 lanes!!)
3. the hilly route going up and down
4. lack of training
5. there were 233 participants today - if there were only 3 persons, i could have taken the third place :-)

overtaking was almost impossible. if you want to overtake, you have to do 3 things at once
- speed up;
- be careful not to slip and fall down and
- distributing your energy wisely cos an uphill stretch in front could just blew your momentum away

i didn't overtake that many people and had to settle behind someone else to act as my windbreaker. at about 6 km, someone in front of me slipped and fell onto the snow and half of his running attire were covered with snow. wanted to help him but he was quick to stand up again and continued with the run. gee, if the snow thawed and wet his running attire, it would be really, really damn cold with the icy wind blowing.

it wasn't that fun anymore after i had been running for more than half of the route cos i thought i went too fast at the start and now gasping for air. all i could think of was, when am i going to see the ziel or finishing line. everytime i looked straight ahead of me (i had been running with my view directed on the slippery path), i only saw the hill in front of me. how depressing!

the 9 km mark i saw at the side of the path was motivating but then i remembered that i had been "speeding" at the start which meant that i was going downhill. now i had to climb uphill again before i could complete the race. i was totally breathless and couldn't do anymore final sprint as i reached the final spot. urgghh... i had to train harder i guess.

alsteration (week 6) : 44.212 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 29.552 km

total running (february) : 87.236 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
42.01% gehört zu alsteration

icy cold wind

2007-02-09T23:10:00.000+01:00

3° celsius. drizzling with strong wind. 17:49 (1:05:38)

my intention today was to run to the fitness group and do some exercises. after exactly 10 mins of running, i started my evening doing some gymnastics exercises, hopping, boxing, aerobic and whatsnot altogether. it was really tiring and i went off earlier, skipping the stomach & butts exercises.

so my second run began slowly. i ran towards the alster and it started perfect with the drizzles. soon enough the wind began to pick up as i reached the alster. snow from yesterday evening was still there cos the temperature didn't rise up (what a pity). it was soooo cold as i ran over the bridge when the wind blew from the side and i felt like it was -10 degrees! at the same time, i had to be very careful not to slip down on this wet ice. i decided to cut short with this run and ran slowly towards my designated turning point.

the way back wasn't nice either due to the cold wind and my tired body. all i could do was to run slowly towards home.

alsteration (week 6) : 34.212 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 19.552 km

total running (february) : 77.236 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
47.45% gehört zu alsteration

auto-mode

2007-02-07T23:14:00.001+01:00

7° celsius. dry, slight wind. 18:02 (1:56:33)

have you ever run a distance and suddenly you feel like you're using very much less energy and still you are running at higher speed? well, today was the day.

i ran towards the alster slowly and as i reached the alster, i decided to run slightly faster than i usually do. so i managed to maintain my speed for the whole round without doing any sprinting at the end whatsoever. the first round ended up with a slow jog towards a small grass park which i used as a turning point. from there i began to run in an opposite direction as the first round.

started quite slowly till i ran behind a guy, who happened to be running almost at the speed as i did. moment later (about 500 m later) i overtook him and then continued running at a slightly higher speed than the first round. i wasn't sure if the guy that i overtook was following closely behind me cos i was too engrossed listening to my music from the mp3. all i could see was the shadow of someone close to me (on my left side) from the corner of my eyes and the thumping down of footsteps. by the way i couldn't care less who it was. the best thing was that, i wasn't even feeling tired and felt as if my legs were running like a machine, not complaining anything. so i maintained this speed for about 4 - 5 km before i gave in to a final sprint and slowed down tremendously before i could crossover the road and jogged the final 3 km back home.

i was lucky that the rain started only to pour down as i reached home to open the door.

alsteration (week 6) : 24.687 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 10.027 km

total running (february) : 67.711 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
54.13% gehört zu alsteration

good to be back again

2007-02-06T23:44:00.000+01:00

6° celsius. indoor condition. 19:30

finally i am back again in the indoor athletics hall. the only training that i like during this winter season. a couple of new faces joined our training.

the day's training was not that tough but the game that we played (a combination of handball & netball with lots of running and stopping). it was anstrengend. we then proceeded with coordination exercises as well as "6-tage rennen" - two groups starting 100 meters apart (on the 200 meters track) and trying to catch up the each other. that was tiring cos when we saw that the other group was coming, we had to speed up to get away or catch them.

it was agood start for my indoor training.

alsteration (week 6) : 3.635 km
alstering : 0.00 km
non-alstering : 3.635 km

total running (february) : 46.659 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
51.11% gehört zu alsteration

reunion

2007-02-04T21:32:00.000+01:00

7° celsius. sunny with few clouds. 10:08 (2:01:50)

today was the first time that i ran with my running mates. as i reached at our meeting point, i saw many new faces, including one from 2001/2002. an ex-working colleague during my internship semester. it was a preparation run for the coming marathon in april.

today's plan was to do a 2 hours run. the group was divided into 2 : a 5:30 min/km and a 6:30 min/km group. i've decided to run with the slower group. i would rather run slow than to run fast at my "condition".

we ran at least 3 km before reaching the river alster. i found that the tempo was really, really slow at the beginning. almost a 7:30 min/km. erghh.... why am i here then? nevermind, at least i could talk a lot with my ex-colleague. i was quite disappointed as i looked at the watch at the turning point - a miserable distance for the first hour!

on the way back, someone from the first group joined our group cos he said he couldn't keep up with the rest of the "faster" runners. his ambition was to do 3:30 hrs for the marathon, a tall order for him (i thought). there were a few other groups of runners passed by as the offer from various running clubs for the marathon preparation booms.

well, my motto for today was : starting slow should be the case but starting too slow was annoying.

alsteration (week 5) : 43.024 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 21.034 km

total running (february) : 43.024 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
51.11% gehört zu alsteration

start early

2007-02-03T23:13:00.000+01:00

8° celsius. sunny but very windy. 10:40 (1:32:29)

there were so many sporting events on tv today and i decided to start early so that i could watch it later after i finished my run. drove to alster and wasn't surprise to see so many runners doing their rounds. luckily at this time of the day, there weren't that many people taking a walk along the lake!

started with warming up stretching. i wouldn't want the same thing to happen to me like the last time around. i started really slow this time, running anticlockwise around the alster. it was really windy. luckily i wore handgloves cos the wind was quite icy. during the run, i saw some runners wearing shorts and i believed they must be swearing cos the sun had betrayed them - not much heat just the cold wind that took over. by the way, i guessed that would pushed them to run faster to get back home too.

the wind couldn't decide from which direction, it wanted to blow. i hate it. for me it always came from the front, then at the side. why was it not from the back to push me faster?

after completing one whole round and drank my water, i'd decided to run the opposite direction (clockwise), with the hope that this time, the wind came to my help. but it was just a hope which didn't materialise. on the way, i saw two boys (must be only 6 or 7 years old) running with their dad. wow, they really start early these boys. a few hundred meters later, i saw two young girls with their parents running. wow, hut ab. these kids must be either very sporty or were just being dragged by their parents.

i continued my run today really slow cos i know that i have to run far tomorrow morning. the sky was grey and it rained right after i completed my warming down.

alsteration (week 5) : 25.094 km
alstering : 21.99 km
non-alstering : 3.104 km

total running (february) : 25.094 km
davon
alstering : 21.99 km
87.63% gehört zu alsteration

my heels hurt

2007-02-01T23:42:00.000+01:00

6° celsius. dry, then drizzling and slightly windy. 17:22 (0:54:45 hrs)

was quite reluctant to run today cos i wanted to watch the semifinal match between germany and france in the handball worldcup 2007 which would be live telecast in tv. but then, i must run somehow. my weight is pushing higher to its new limit! maybe i ate too much (thanks burger king, kfc and all the unhealthy food). thought i could compensate the eating with running, that means, the more i run, the more i can eat. but it was just the eating without the running :-).

anyway, started to run and wanted somehow to finish this run by 18:15. i have to rush! so i started running quicker at the start than i usually do. it turned out to be a big mistake. it was all okay all the way to alster as i stopped at the traffic to cross the road. there were also 3 other runners there, waiting. in the meantime i tried to do some stretching while waiting for the traffic light to turn green. once on the other side of the road, we split to two groups, me and another guy running anticlockwise direction around the alster. this guy was "running away" from me as i tried to follow him on the way to alster earlier on. so i started to put a little tempo and was running quite fast, leaving him behind.

i was under time constraint. i sped up. about 1.5 km later i slowed down and ran easily for the next km. then i felt an unusual pain around my both heels. ohh shit... please nothing serious i hope. i slowed down to a walk and stopped to stretch. it must be the "blasting" start that i did (without warming up) and the old shoes that i was wearing. i wasn't so sure. i continued to slow jog and stopped more than once. in the meantime, the guy from the traffic light had overtaken me while i continued my super slow jog for about 1 km. the pain subsided a little bit and i began to increase slowly my speed. hey, it was already 18:00. it started to drizzle already. somewhere along the way, i overtook the "traffic light" guy and zoomed past him. gee, i was happy to catch up with him again.

i almost sprinted all the way for the last 500 m cos i wanted to reach the school sporthall as soon as possible. and i did it. the pain was gone and i played 3 hours of badminton after that. phew, it was a hard day with all the running and then badminton!

alsteration (week 5) : 9.689 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 2.359 km

total running (february) : 9.689 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
75.65% gehört zu alsteration

lost in the heide

2007-01-27T20:22:00.000+01:00

3° celsius. sunny and sometimes windy. 10:20 (3:00:34 hrs)

i was supposed to be at the meeting point at 10:00. received an email last night and found out that some of my running mates were going to do long run on saturday. i wasn't sure about going there and joining them due to the crazy weather condition and therefore wouldn't want to confirm about my participation. unfortunately i arrived there at about 10:07 and i guessed they have gone running. searching for a parking space was troublesome and ended up leaving the car at an extremely slippery road (for my running shoes). i had to be careful!

the starting point

didn't do much warm-up as i knew that i would be going real slow, firstly because of the distance that i tend to cover and secondly, the paths were covered with snow. so i decided to take the main path to begin my journey. i purposely didn't take the route that i'd ran twice (in spring last year) due to its narrowness and it was deep inside the "forest" of the fischbeker heide (a nature reserve).

after about 2 km of running, another runner came from the opposite direction. we greeted each other, a custom that i've observed after running here and alstertal, where there is little traffic (joggers) and less tourists, unlike my alster lake. we do it either verbally or just by nodding our heads. then came the first small hill. it wasn't that bad running up. after a short downhill, another way up for to master. hmm... i knew this would come but not directly after one another. it was rather steep and i was almost out of breathe after only about 3.5 km! lucky for me, the next kilometer wasn't that hilly. my legs had only a little rest before the next steep climb. i was totally flat after this. gee... where has my fitness gone too?

the ups and downs continued throughout the whole run. what i hate most was the steep part, it didn't matter whether uphill or downhill. sometimes i slowed down to a stop and walked up the hill and going down wasn't that easy either due to the slipperiness(?) of the path. i had to be extra, extra careful cos i didn't want to end up rolling down!

there were two spots that i must go through before crossing the road. the first was the berghotel, before crossing over ehestorfer heuweg to get to the other side. it was just a coincidence that i found this hotel after running through the "right path". the second spot was to find a cemetery. that wasn't easy. after making a big loop (involuntarily), a detour that i hadn't plan, i reached the cemetery with the "guide" of another runner in purple(!) running gear (he was way far in front of me). i was relieved as i saw that place. i took off the hand gloves to take a sip from my water bottle (cos it was so complicated to get it out of my running jacket and the gear belt). wind started to blow strongly onto my face. my hands froze only after a short while. the coldness really poke through your skin! ouch...

after crossing over falkenbergsweg, being adventurous, i'd decided to run a totally new route instead of following the righteous path from my previous runs. my aim was to reach the tempelberg. i missed the place by a huge margin. i was quite frustrated cos i couldn't find it and ended up making a big loop (unintentionally). it was really lonely running alone in the middle of nowhere. even though the path was quite wide, the gradual long climb was really a torture, especially if you are frustrated. the only positive thing about this was that i found the cemetery again!

alone in nowhere, just the snow and the trees

getting back to the first checkpoint, the berghotel, was really troublesome cos i didn't know the way back. my path was filled with barriers. i had to crossed or jumped over fallen trees. my luck was down as i crossed over this fallen tree (see picture). at the end of this path was a dead end! a dead end in the middle of a nature reserve. the area was fenced. first i went to the right and climbed up the steep hill and once on top, i realised that it was wrong. so i went down real slow, grabbing the fence for support. if not for the fences, i would be tumbling down cos it was so damn slippery! now i had to climb up again to reach the other side. gee... the path that i had taken earlier was a small valley! after running for awhile, turning aimlessly to the right and left, i've been contemplating if i should take a taxi if i were lost and ended up on another road or area to get back to my car. with 20 euros in the pocket, i wasn't sure if that was enough. i decided to ask an old couple the whereabout of the nearest main road. they explained that i had to follow the main path for a couple of kilometers and later turned left. or was it right. i wasn't sure either once i reached the junction. lucky for me, i met a healthy old woman (she must be at least 70 years old) with her nordic walking stick and asked her for direction. she explained to me and i was a bit shock when she said that the nearest train station was about 5 km away. shit. i was too tired to run already. thanked her and ran off towards the direction that she told me. a few hundreds meter later, i recognized the place again as i was here before this morning. it meant that i had to make a u-turn to get back to my first checkpoint. i was really happy.

i finally came to the main road and before i could cross, i saw two people riding horses on the other side. well, they must be damn lucky not to have to go on foot by themselves. took their pictures and continued my run. suddenly a car stopped behind me and horned. thinking that something had happened, i took a short look and then continued with my run. then i realised why the driver had horned. one of my handglove was on the pavement. what a considerate driver!

the last stretch of the route was quite okay. even though i got a little lost at the start, it turned out to be perfect. i even found the route from my two previous runs on the way back to the starting point. did my warming down before going back to the car to change into fresh t-shirt (i hate that icy gust of wind when i was changing)!

the three hours of unintentional journey today was better spent if i were to come a bit earlier or at least told my running mates that i'm coming to join them, so that they could have waited for me for a few minutes. but then i wouldn't have this adventurous run! thanks mp3 for accompanying me throughout my run.

alsteration (week 4) : 45.210 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 37.880 km

total running (january) : 81.809 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
44.80% gehört zu alsteration

around the block

2007-01-27T00:11:00.000+01:00

FREITAG, JANUAR 26, 2007

3° celsius. fresh snow and windy. 17:18 (0:46:06 hrs)

ohhh... what a weather. now we really have a winter here. the road was totally covered with rest snow, which fell earlier today. i had to be careful when running on the 'unmended' walkways. it was very slippery running on ice! at some spot, the melted snow left a pool of water which i had to be alert, not to step into it and running in a wet shoes in the cold weather!

hmm... i didn't know where to run, so i just decided that my route for today was just to run somewhere around the neighbourhood cos at 18:00, i had to be at the klösterschule. there i did some exercises with a group of people, doing fitness exercises. whew, it was quite tough. left the place at about 18:55 and continued my run back home.

alsteration (week 4) : 19.510 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 12.180 km

total running (january) : 56.109 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
65.32% gehört zu alsteration

being mobile

2007-01-23T23:57:00.000+01:00

1° celsius. dry and windy. 16:28 (1:11:40 hrs)

some people will have the alarm ringing everywhere cos their mileage was so low. my alarm rang telling me today's weather was okay to run cos i couldn't care much about mileage. it was a huge sigh of relief after the windy and stormy week. it looked like as if the winter has announced its come back. it was sunny in the day but frosty. my favourite kind of weather. the leftover from the wind still lingers around. and today i had an early break. i took this opportunity to run in the daylight.

i didn't know what i was supposed to do today. the main thing was to put on my running shoes and run - no more drizzle and stormy wind to hold me back. finally. so as usual i ran to the alster but this time i controlled myself to run slowly. real slow.

as i was running around the alster, my mobile phone rang. why did i carry it along? nevermind, i said that i would be available in about 40 mins! gee... i've just started my alsterrunde. ahhh... couldn't be bothered and continued running slowly. the temptation to run faster was there but i kept telling myself "go slow".

on the way back, as i reached the traffic light waiting to crossover, i realised that i couldn't make it in time to reach home early. so, egal mit dem slow running, i ran as if i'm running a 10 km run competition by pushing myself harder and harder for the last 2 km or so. did a run-down slow jog after the final traffic light to reach home.

alsteration (week 4) : 12.510 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 5.180 km

total running (january) : 49.109 km
davon
alstering : 36.65 km
89.15% gehört zu alsteration

headlight on, please

2007-01-15T23:52:00.000+01:00

8° celsius. dry and windy. 17:55 (1:25:00 hrs)

i thought the wind was on holiday as i stepped out of the car to do some warm up. unfortunately it was not. the windy condition made the weather colder than it actually was. lucky for me, i had my double/triple layer of running attire. and wearing new shoes - asics gel ds-trainer. well, let's see if this shoes could bring wonders!

i started slow and the jogging traffics were at its high. lots of joggers running clockwise direction, my opposite direction. although most of them were dressed in a weather-conform running attire, one or two wore shorts and t-shirt and they seemed to be either
1. couldn't be bothered to wear proper attire
2. didn't have time to change
3. forgotten their running attire
4. acting strong
5. plain stupid.

i don't know. the wind was quite strong as the time went. it was dark. as i was running, i saw 2 person coming from the opposite direction. i tried to go to the right but the puddle and mud made me swerved to the left and without any signal, a fast running guy behind the two (i didn't see him earlier) had to avoid the same puddle and mud and bang.... i was in the middle and almost fell. luckily one of the two guy did manage to get hold of me cos the impact from the third stout guy was quite massive. ouch.... now i know the meaning of "sport ist mord". the funny thing was, all four of us continued running as if nothing happened. i saw the the third guy again later and the way he was built, he could be an athlete from whatever kind of sport (maybe a boxer or a ice hockey player or american football player)? ou.... my shoulder hurts.

ran the second round with a faster tempo (it must be the adrenaline after the mishap). managed to keep the high tempo for the last 2 km before i stopped and did the warm-down run and exercises. during the run-down, i saw a guy with a spotlight on his head. hey, i think that is what one should do, when running in the dark cos 80% of the joggers do wear dark-coloured running attires.

initially i wanted to do 3 round but the wind and the mishap "prevented" me from doing so. the real problem comes later this week after the weather forecast was announced that the wind will pick up and can get as high as above 100 km/h. hmm... maybe with the help of the wind, i could run faster! ohh... about the shoes, i had blisters on my right heel.

alsteration (week 3) : 15.359 km
alstering : 14.66 km
non-alstering : 0.699 km

total running (january) : 36.599 km
davon
alstering : 29.32 km
80.11% gehört zu alsteration

making my rounds

2007-01-08T23:53:00.000+01:00

6° celsius. dry. 18:18 (1:15:51 hrs)

to run or not to run, that was the question. made up my mind and just did it.

today's route was "run wherever you like". all i need was to reach my alster, the route towards alster was egal. so i did my run, not knowing where i was until i reached a familiar road and finally turned towards alster.

komisch, at this time of the year and (day)time, there were quite a "huge" number of joggers making their rounds along alster. were all of them training hard for the coming hamburg marathon? or maybe they were fulfilling their 2007 resolution to do more sport. hmm... i don't know. anyway, alster is still not totally dry. pools of water here and there that made me jump over. urgghh... i had to do that or i would wet my running shoes (which i hate more).

my run for today was to stock up some mileage as i begin to train up for the coming marathon in 3 1/2 months time. well, good luck to me!

alsteration (week 2) : 13.170 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 5.840 km

total running (january) : 21.240 km
davon
alstering : 14.66 km
69.02% gehört zu alsteration

first run of the year 2007

2007-01-08T23:50:00.000+01:00

SAMSTAG, JANUAR 06, 2007

9° celsius. slightly cloudy but dry. 11:43 (0:43:54 hrs)

my first run of the year.

it was supposed to be a long run but it didn't materialise. i was really, really tired after running a few kilometers. gee... what is happening to me? either i am too fat (yes, i know due to all the sinful foods - i need to shed a few kilos here and there) or too slacky (when was the real last run? and the one before?). urgghhh... so i decided to adapt the wait and see situation - waiting at the bench near the car and see other runners doing their runs. not a bad idea. one round of alster (the lake, not the drink) was enough for me. and i called it a day.

initial plan was to do 3 rounds of alster but i was soooo tired (just an excuse)!

alsteration (week 1) : 8.070 km
alstering : 7.33 km
non-alstering : 0.740 km

total running (january) : 8.070 km
davon
alstering : 7.33 km
90.83% gehört zu alsteration

silvesterlauf 2006

2006-12-31T21:47:00.000+01:00

last run of the year : 12:00 pm, 9° celsius, sunny & dry

1058 participants. relax atmosphere. just pure fun.

last alster run 2006

2006-12-30T23:16:00.000+01:00

the rain left its tears everywhere. the mighty clouds covered the whole area, refusing the sun to shine. the wind blew hard as if it tried to withhold something from coming its way. where were the birds? why didn't they chirp anymore? were they hiding somewhere? it was grey. dark grey and cold, quite cold. 4 degrees. everything around me looked like a graveyard. in the dark winter. suddenly i saw the light. it was red at first. followed by yellow. ohhh... how wonderful, a rainbow. then it turned green. nothing moved.

beep... beep... beep... that damn driver in silver mercedes didn't even move. who gave a shit if you're driving the newest mercedes, when the traffic light turned green, drove off, you mountain tortoise! don't expect the drivers in the city to be so patience as where you came from. it's 2 pm and i need to run!

today's run was nothing more than a fartlek. after a really super long of not wearing my running shoes, i managed to carry myself out of the house and run for the last time this year around my alster. started slow and gradually picked up the speed and at certain point i did a so-called sprint for about 300 m. man, that was good. when was the last time i really ran? it was 3rd december 2006 during the standard chartered singapore marathon. gee... that was a nice memory. anyway, the paths along the alster was quite muddy and at times i have to jump over the pool of water. halfway running through i managed to overtake someone and somehow that guy was not that amused being overtaken. he overtook me and i let him to run about 15 to 20 meters in front of me. the last 1.5 km of my alster run i'd decided to give a little speed. hee... hee... he followed closely behind but at the slope, i turned another gear up and sped all the way for about 200 meters and slowed down. the guy came closer and i sped up again. slowed down again and sped up again till the end. that guy must be fuming. who cares. well actually i was doing my fartlek, running whatever tempo i like. did a run-down jog afterwards at a very slow pace and warm-down exercises.

alsteration (week 52) : 8.060 km
alstering : 7.4 km
non-alstering : 0.660 km

total running (dezember) : 52.370 km
davon
alstering : 7.4 km
14.13% gehört zu alsteration

last run in leichtathletikhalle

2006-12-19T23:57:00.000+01:00

5° celsius outside, indoor condition. 19:30

my legs and arms are still shouting for help due to sunday's 3.5 hours of badminton fun tournament. without much practice and stretching, i survived the torture and felt the pain and muscle soreness only since yesterday. and today, i'd decided to do my training, my very first run after more than two weeks of the singapore marathon! regeneration of running? i don't think so, it is more like being lazy to run after eating sooooo muuuccchh in singapore :-).

after our usual 6 laps warm-ups running around the outer lanes of the 200 m tracks, we played a game of "netball + handball", but without the net and any lines. it was really tough if you tried to catch the ball and running against your opponents but i guessed that was the key to better your speed cos it was like sprinting for 10 meters for x times. after that, we did our coordination run and the dreaded lift-up-your-knees running. the day ended with a good stretching and warming down exercises and two more laps around the outer lanes of the 200 m track.

alsteration (week 51) : 2.115 km
alstering : 0.0 km
non-alstering : 2.115 km

total running (dezember) : 44.310 km
davon
alstering : 0.0 km
0.0% gehört zu alsteration

nus hills run

2006-11-30T07:27:00.000+01:00

MONTAG, 27. NOVEMBER 2006

rainy. 8.86 km

it was raining heavily as leggie called me up on the phone. should we or shouldn't we run? i told her that maybe nus area wouldn't be raining that heavily. so i went ahead to clementi mrt to meet tktan. gee... the traffic towards clementi was packed. tktan and i waited for sometimes before shortlegs and mun finally arrived in clementi after a slight delay. we drove to nus guild house and shuthelup, doraemon and ??? already waiting for us.

after a short announcement about the route that we were supposed to run, doraemon led the way. boy, it was wet and hilly. running on the road wasn't my thing unless the road was officially closed due to certain running event. anyway, as we reached haw par villa, doraemon told me that this was the first slope to climb up to. whew, that was not easy. luckily for us the guard there told us that the end (whatever end) was closed. so we had to return back down on this 'slippery' road.

then came the '99 bends' cos the road curves a lot. yeah, really a lot. the worse thing was that vigilante road was just around the corner, waiting for us. damn. going up that hill was murderous and i believed that mun would 'kill' doraemon for 'forcing' him up that way. anyway, i love that stretch though - finally hilly area to run cos my place back home is totally flat!

had a 'pee' stop at one of the building and our run was occasionally paused as we were waiting for mun and at the same time doraemon explaining the about area, like where sotong works, or reuters (did i hear correctly) has the nicest building in that area.

we finally finished our run after 8.86 km (according to my gf 305) and headed to clementi road to eat roti john chicken cheese. by the way, the cheese cake was heaven.

here are the photos for you :
nus hills run

nike runaholics - just follow imd

2006-11-27T06:50:00.000+01:00

sonntag, 07:30 a.m., 10 km

shortlegs & mun picked me up at chinese garden mrt station. we were supposed to meet the sgrunners at the same point where we met yesterday. todays event was 10 km nike runaholics last run. do suggested to us yesterday that we should come and maybe we could get a t-shirt from the sponsor.

as we arrived there, it was almost 7:20 am. we did a quick change into our running gear and registered. for the first time i met ultraman. brokie, do and others were all getting ready to run. the organizers were briefing the participants about the route and et cetera. after depositing my stuffs, i went to the starting line. exactly about 15 seconds later the run began - damn, i had no time to do some warm-up!

i ran quite slowly at first, side by side with ultraman. he mentioned that there were quite a number of fast runners here taking part. and true, some of them sped off really quick. i decided to start slowly as all my muscles were still stiff. after about a kilometer or so, i managed to hang on to a group of runners in front of me and paced with them. one by one fell behind but two. later one imd joined me and i led him lead the way after the first turning point. damn, my legs were tired. lucky for me, imd's pace was bearable. so i followed closely behind him till the halfway mark where we received our drinks. imd took the drink and slowed down. hmm.... why he slowed down? i decided not to take the drink (as i usually do for short distances) and zoomed past imd and continued my pace. i never looked behind. the faster runners were already making their way back towards the finishing line but i still yet to reach the last turning point. after the final turn, i saw imd about 15 to 20 meters in front of me. we greeted each other and i decided to give a little more speed. the guy in front of me was not that far but i didn't think i could catch up with him. nevertheless a try worthwhile. i didn't even know where the finishing line was and didn't do any last meter sprinting. i only found out that about 5 meters before the so-called finishing line.

stopped my stopwatch and i was really damn happy to see the time i produced. wow. my new personal best, whether it was really officially measured, i don't know and didn't even care cos i was really, really happy. got my stuffs and took some photos from the sgrunners guys and chit chat with some other participants. it was really a nice atmosphere. till today, i still don't know who celestron was. sorry dear, please show yourself or at least tell me where we talked with each other. i couldn't remember all names at one shot!

after the run, there was buffet for the runners and a lucky draw. too bad i didn't win. those who had participated in at least 3 nike runaholics run were rewarded with a running nike singlet. but thanks to do's sweet talk to one of the organizer, me and shortlegs were also given the privileged to get that most sought-after running singlet.

here are the photos for you :
nike runaholics

pre-scsm international friendship run

2006-11-25T15:10:00.000+01:00

i made an arrangement with shortlegs that she would pick me up at chinese garden mrt station at around 6:30 am. i haven't met shortlegs before, just through the sgrunners.com forum. i didn't know what to expect as this would be my very first run in singapore since i arrived here. it was 6:40 am and shortlegs was nowhere to be seen. i was quite worried that she might have forgotten me and drove away without picking me up! i called her and she said she would be there soon cos there was a tiny problem regarding the van.

finally they (shortlegs & mun) arrived and we drove all the way to east coast park (carpark f5). once we were there, a group of runners were already waiting for us. the sgrunners. they organised this run for the sake of shortlegs (from australia) and me (germany). the turn out was quite amazing, 20+ runners attended this run! we introduced each other with our nicknames from the forum. gee... i couldn't remember all their names, or rather, i couldn't put their nicknames together with the real person. far too many anyway. the only ones that i could guess who they were, were sotong & brokenrunner (aka brokie). after a short briefing from dreamrunner & sotong, our main target for today was to run 20 km!

so we ran. i ran together with realrunner, do & dreamrunner. george, doraemon, fennel & renohtaram were already speeding away. here and there i would take some snapshots with the camera. it was hot. quite hot for me. i guess it was around 25 degrees. a difference of about 20 degrees. ouch. the humidity too. whew.

after about 5 km, we stopped for a while cos brokie were taking photos of us. a rehearsal for the finishing line for the standard chartered singapore marathon in a week time. so everyone would put up their hands as if they had just completed the gruelling 42.195 km run. fun to see this mock -up celebration.

we continued our run again. this time to the other end of the carpark. the weather was killing me. i was totally drenched. worse still, i forgot to taped my nipple and it hurt damn bad. it bled a little. by the way, i wore my new asics cumulus shoes and it was super. strange though, i felt a bit different wearing this shoes compared to my other cumulus shoes, even though they were exactly the same model, just the colour was different. it felt a lot better with this shoes. running towards the turning point was like hell, so hot and no shades. i decided to put a little more speed to getaway from the sun. after the turn, i quickly ran to one of the toilet to get a sip of water. thank goodness that singapore's water are clean, if not i'd be dead from thirst!

even though running 20 km wasn't a problem for me, this time it was really torturing me physically and mentally. the weather was part of the problem. i kept cursing as i ran passed a carpark, where the hell is the carpark f5. it seemed like forever. i was quite mad. kept running and running till i saw some
familiar stuffs. huh, the final destination was not that far. ran towards it but i was wrong. damn. i ran further and finally saw some runners sitting at the pavements. the sgrunners. whew, my torture had finally came to an end. george and doraemon had completed their runs already. minutes later, came the rest of the runners.

later on, after taking showers, we went to have our breakfast at marina square. it was just a happy atmosphere. finally i could eat some singapore food.

pre-scsm international friendship run

running everywhere

2006-11-19T22:12:00.000+01:00

5.5° celsius. dry and sunny, then rainy and windy. 10:31 (34.574 km - 3:13:41)

the weather at 10:29

it all began with a nice sunny dry weather and a bit of hazy. my target for today is either to run 3 hrs or 34 km. drove to my favourite lake, the alster. before i began my run, i saw my running mates (dagmar, heiko and hartmuth) doing their morning runs. after doing a short stretching, i started my run and halfway through i decided to run to the stadtpark (my training ground). i did a really slow start cos i knew it would be really, really a long day for me. luckily for me, the route towards the stadtpark from alster was a familiar ground cos i had been constantly cycling from home to stadtpark (before my bike was stolen). i just did a big aussenrunde and training-warmup round at the stadtpark, eager to check the distance with my gf 305. the scenery at the stadtpark was really lovely with brown and golden leaves filling up the ground. most trees are still having their yellow/red or brown leaves hanging onto their branches. during my usual training (after 7 pm) in autumn/winter, i couldn't see these cos it was already dark. running in the morning around the stadtpark was boring cos very few people and joggers were there. i guessed these people only come to the stadtpark in the evening and in summer. it started to drizzle as i was about to complete my big aussenrunde.

by the time i finished my stadtpark rounds, i realised that i had already done 17.8 km. another 17+ km to go or 2.5 round of alsterrunde. the rain has picked up a bit and the intensity was getting higher. i was wet all over. i was very determined to run these 2 alster rounds to complete my goal. met another running mate, carsten, 3 times (what else when both of us running in opposite directions) around the alster and "high fived" during our brief meeting. he was quite fast or was it i was too slow after 23 km? hmmm...

the last round was really a torture as the rain poured heavily and it felt really, really icy. my legs were very tired but i just dragged it for the few kilometers. it was all in the head - either i do it and run or stop and walked in this bad weather. run baby, the "finishing line" is almost there.

after almost 3:15 hrs, i finally completed my lsd - the longest ever running alone in my entire life. it won't be the last though. hamburg marathon lässt grüßen.

the weather at 14:01

the stretching/warm-down after the run was necessary. i felt good after that and my legs felt bit relax. due to tunnel closure, a massive traffic jam hindered me from getting home earlier after this long day.

alsteration (week 46) : 57.670 km
alstering : 37.0 km
non-alstering : 20.670 km

total running (november) : 108.292 km
davon
alstering : 59.2 km
54.67% gehört zu alsteration

spring feelings

2006-11-15T23:37:00.000+01:00

13° celsius, cloudy but dry. 18:12 (20.30 km - 1:49:58)

the weather forecast for today and tomorrow is good. it was supposed to be warm during these few days. a friend of mine in dresden told me that he went running in shorts in the forest. so, i decided to do my run today, to improve my mileage.

running almost the same route (i know it is boring), i ran towards the alster. as i reached there, lots of joggers were running the clockwise direction, maybe they didn't want to run up the bridge but going down. i managed to overtake only a few during my rounds, but that was not my goal today. today's motto was just to run more than 20 km. i was dead tired after yesterday's training and the multiple stops at the traffic lights made the run more difficult but i finally dragged my feet to complete this run and reached my goal.

alsteration (week 46) : 23.096 km
alstering : 14.8 km
non-alstering : 8.296 km

total running (november) : 73.718 km
davon
alstering : 37.0 km
50.19% gehört zu alsteration

indoor training

2006-11-14T23:57:00.000+01:00

13° celsius, indoor condition. 19:30

today's training was a bit tough, doing the usual lauf-abc + coordination programs that made my right calf hurt, or rather, tight and hard. i love sprinting and we did a few fun relay (200m) as well as so-called time trial - chasing your partner from the other side (100 m away) or vice versa. a warm-down exercise was integrated after the training.

but the best part is still after the training. went to café memorandum and i had a nonalcoholic alsterwasser with puten macaroni. yummy.

alsteration (week 46) : 2.796 km
alstering : 0.0 km
non-alstering : 2.796 km

total running (november) : 53.418 km
davon
alstering : 22.2 km
41.56% gehört zu alsteration

29. quickborner 25 km straßenlauf

2006-11-13T00:50:00.000+01:00

what a day. drove to quickborn and the car broke down at the traffic right after the autobahnausfahrt (expressway exit) quickborn. 2 km away from the start point. it was 5.5° celsius, stormy rain, strong wind and a bit of sunshine dominated the run i guess. i was soooo angry and disappointed at the same time cos i couldn't run and had to fork out extra cash for the damn car!

running (in) shorts

2006-11-10T23:21:00.000+01:00

7° celsius. clear sky & slightly windy. 17:56 (20.19 km - 1:54:46 hrs)

i just want to get my mileage correct for this week, cos last week was a total desaster - no nennenswerter run. so after getting ready (+ my gf found its satellites), i ran "blindly" towards alster. my choice of the route today was to go thru berliner tor and came back thru bürgerweide. i don't need to care much about the distance anymore cos gf is doing all the calculating :-).

as i reached the alster, i realised that there were many joggers at this time of the hour cos it was cold and dark but dry. one thing i noticed was that, there were a few runners who were running in shorts at this kind of temperature. even though they had longsleeves running top, i still couldn't imagine myself running in shorts during this cold months. brrr.... i did 2 alsterrounds slowly but steadily. almost to the end of first round there was somebody who overtook me and running "wildly" forward. i kept my pace steady and after sometime i did manage to catch up with him and overtook him back while running up the bridge - my favourite point to shake off all the other runners. actually, it was not me that was running fast (i had quite a constant pace) but the guy's pace was deteriorating.

wanted to do just 18 km today but ends up with extra 2 km. what the heck, i don't think i can run fast for this coming sunday's 25 km run!

just becos i did extra kilometers today, i've decided to give myself a treat - philadelphiatorte & quiche ohne alles.

alsteration (week 45) : 42.070 km
alstering : 22.2 km
non-alstering : 19.870 km

total running (november) : 50.622 km
davon
alstering : 22.2 km
43.85% gehört zu alsteration

running in the dark

2006-11-10T23:20:00.000+01:00

DONNESTAG, NOVEMBER 09, 2006

8° celsius, drizzle and windy. 17:35 (6.26 km - 33:40 mins)

mini hailstones

the weather today was a mix of all - rain, sunshine, wind & hail. i only started my running in the dark, without sunshine. started the run after getting the signals from my garmin. nowadays, my run has been influenced by garmin forerunner 305. it's fun to see from time to time how far i've been running. i'm addicted to add more mileage everytime i run. then see the route i had ran. just a schnickschnack.

anyway, after 5 mins of running, my mp3 got on strike cos the battery was empty. thought that i had extra battery in the pocket but i realised that i had different running jacket today. errghhh... now i had to concentrate only on running! my luck wasn't that good either 10 mins later. it began to drizzle and the wind started to blow heavily. running against the wind had never been my favourite but adding the rain to it was worse. so i decided to run slightly above 5 km and call it a day. playing badminton in such weather was much better. and i did so after the run - for 2 hours :-).

alsteration (week 45) : 21.880 km
alstering : 7.4 km
non-alstering : 14.480 km

total running (november) : 30.432 km
davon
alstering : 7.4 km
24.32% gehört zu alsteration

leichtathletik sporthalle

2006-11-07T23:39:00.000+01:00

today is the first time that we are using the newly opened athletics indoor hall.

after passing through the police-controlled junction, i saw the new athletics hall, brightly lit up. it was such a hectic to find a parking lot outside the indoor stadium, cos there was a concert in the other sporthall. it took me almost 10 mins to find a parking space and ended up parking halfway on the sideroad. hopefully it would not be towed away!

not everything is fully complete though (eg. the light switch at the changing room is not done yet). before i went up, i was warned to take out my street shoes. hmm... as i entered the new athletics hall, i began to realise that it is such a nice place. due to parking space searching, i was late for the briefing today. my running mates started to warm up, running around the 200+ m outer lane. today's training wasn't emphasized much on running, sondern mehr an koordination und lauf a-b-c. a little gymnastics was integrated in today's training. it is almost 20% running, 40% coordination programme & 40% gymnastics. at the end, i ended up taking photos :-).

othering - a complete round

2006-11-06T21:15:00.000+01:00

12° celsius, slight ~ strong wind. 17:56 (71 mins)

last week was a desaster for me cos i didn't pick up lots of mileage for my run. was a bit sad though and angry with the weather. it is really depressing when darkness starts at 5 pm. i've been looking at the trees through the window to see if the wind is blowing strongly. nahh... not that bad. so went outside and laid my garmin forerunner on a brick, so that it could locate the satellites before i began my run. didn't want to wait long and get angry later.

soon after the watch got its gps system in ready, i started running. there was no particular route that i'm taking. just run towards alster. stopped at certain traffic lights to cross the road and thanks garmin, it stopped automatically without me touching any buttons :-). automatically starts again when i began to run - yeah...

did one big round of alster and the thought of doing second round was quickly put aside as i saw the time. too late to do another alster round. so i ran slowly back home and purposely not taking the same route. it was okay, but have to save some energy for sunday's 25 km run.

alsteration (week 45) : 13.120 km
alstering : 7.4 km
non-alstering : 5.720 km

total running (november) : 21.672 km
davon
alstering : 7.4 km
34.15% gehört zu alsteration

othering - running around the block

2006-11-04T00:15:00.000+01:00

8° celsius, cloudy, slight wind and drizzle. 17:06 (49 mins)

4 days of rest was long enough. so i decided to run just around the block cos the day was getting dark. the damn garmin forerunner was still searching for the satellites. i lost my patience and ran without the distance measurement. after 5 minutes of running, i stopped so that gf (garmin forerunner, not girlfriend) could locate the satellites. almost 5 minutes long! then i just ran around the hammer park twice before running around the along the road on the way back home. it started to drizzle and i had to speed up to reach home faster. at the end, it was just a good short run to "rest" myself away from the stress.

alsteration (week 44) : 8.552 km
alstering : 0.0 km
non-alstering : 8.552 km

total running (november) : 8.552 km
davon
alstering : 0.0 km
0.0% gehört zu alsteration