Season peak
One week after the race it's time for a short race recap of the German halfmarathon-championships. I took 19th place in 1:09:31h, so I reached my aims of getting into the TOP 20 and running under 70 minutes. The track in Bad Liebenzell was flat (but not super-flat) and the weather conditions were just perfect (around 15°C, dry, almost no wind). The first 15km I ran in a group of around 5 guys and could save some energy by just "rolling" with this group. The last 5-6 km I increased the pace, consequently blasted the group and passed some runners lying in front of me. Since I ran without a watch I don't really know the splits (except the first 5km which were around 16:15) but I think the pace was even with the first 5K and the last 3K being somewhat faster.
My body was working well but I could feel that I did only few fast kilometers. The last 10km all the leg muscles (calves, quads and hamstrings) were quite stiff and even the lower back sent some pain every now and then. Well, that's one thing to improve: getting more fast kilometers, especially on hard surfaces. After the race it took me around 4 days to get rid of the pain in the calves.
Following the race I spent 3 days at home and enjoyed being with my family and meeting some old friends. At the same time I continued a reduced, slow training because the next halfmarathon (Finlandia marathon here in Jyväskylä) is already next weekend.

before the race

early in the race (~4km) in a big pack - I'm on the left, wearing number 40

later in the race (~11km), still in the (now reduced) pack - I'm between number 227 and 35