Hunsrück Marathon, Simmern

The Hunsrück Marathon was easily reached from Hahn Airport, and on the Saturday the centre of Simmern was given over to the junior races, registration, the pre-race pasta party and various other events. I got there in the late afternoon and collected my race pack containing t-shirt, drinks, energy bar, bottle opener and various other bits and pieces, as well as my timing chip, and we walked the half mile or so to our hotel on the edge of the town. On Sunday morning I had a quick breakfast at the hotel and walked down to the sports hall for the bus transfer to Emmelshausen.

The marathon course consisted of about 5K on roads around Emmelshausen, followed by the Schinderhannes cyclepath along the route of an old railway line, and a short road section to the finishing line in Simmern town centre. The route profile showed an overall drop of 140m, albeit with gentle gradients, and a climb of 50m between 4 and 5K. The sun had been out all morning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so even when the race started at 9am it was already quite warm, although not particularly humid.

A small group of runners set off at a brisk pace, so I tagged along on the downhill stretch right after the start. I was in about 7th place when I reached the 1K marker in 3:46. My plan was to run 4 minutes per kilometre for as long as I could manage, so I eased off slightly and dropped a few places over the next few kilometres. On reaching 4K I was in 10th place, but I used the hill over the next kilometre to get back into 7th place by the time we got to the start of the cyclepath. One of the runners I had passed on the hill had tried to keep up, so we ran more or less together for the next couple of kilometres before he gradually fell away. The hill had been steep enough to cost me a bit of time, but the kilometre markers were so accurately placed that I worked out my average pace at 4:07 and could see I maintained it exactly for quite a while. Somewhere around 12K it started getting difficult, and I began to think I hadn't recovered sufficiently from the previous weekend's marathon, or even from Thursday's training session, but it did eventually occur to me that I must be going slightly uphill as the undulating countryside made it hard to judge the gradient. The cyclepath was mostly lined with trees so the sun wasn't a problem.

Every few kilometres there was a water station manned by the sports club or volunteer fire brigade from the closest village. I let the first couple go by but had a quick drink of water at the next. The helpers were holding out pink cups of water, but there were supposed to be sports drinks available, and I had noticed some more small bottles on a table. One boy was holding a pink cup as well as a small bottle, so I took the bottle as I passed, but it turned out to be plain water. Some laughter behind me suggested those drinks were probably for the helpers. At this point, I could still see the 6th-placed runner in the distance.

By the halfway mark (which also had a separate sign) I had dropped to a 4:09/K average, which took me through in 1:27, a couple of minutes down on my previous marathon. I became concerned about running a poorer race on a superior course, and even possibly blowing up altogether and having to walk. The mental arithmetic for calculating my pace was also becoming more difficult. After what appeared to be a slightly downhill stretch I reached the town of Kastellaun, with nobody visible behind me and the 6th-placed runner apparently now a couple of minutes ahead. There was a tremendous reception from the half marathon participants (of whom there were many more than there were marathon participants) who had most likely just arrived on the transfer buses and were watching the marathon going through as they waited to start their own race. Every road crossing, water station and path through the fields also had a few spectators watching and cheering on the runners.

The last gradual climb of any note lasted a few kilometres, and there was another water station at the end, where I stopped to have a couple of drinks, one water and one isotonic, as the temperature had been rising all morning and the route was about to swing round towards the sun. One of the helpers kindly advised me not to drink so much, but dehydration was more of a risk than an upset stomach. The next 12K had a steady descent almost all the way to the finish, a drop of 140m overall, and although it looked very welcoming on the route profile, it began to present problems of its own when my quads began to hurt. My pace began to drop a bit more and one of the runners I had passed on the hill up to the 5K mark came through very strongly to move me down to 8th. I also stopped for a couple of seconds to try to stretch my quads.

With a few kilometres left, and somehow having managed to press on despite aching quads, it became possible to work out quite easily what pace I would need to maintain to finish inside 3 hours. I felt I should still be capable of 5 minutes per kilometre, and as I went past the last few markers, I noticed I was building more of a cushion. I had a quick drink of cola at the last water station, where they apologised for not having any beer, then struggled up the last little hill which passed our hotel's biergarten, and headed off towards the finishing line, which I crossed in 2:58:23. I was the last runner to finish inside three hours, in 8th place out of about 250 finishers. After collecting my bag of clothes we went back to the hotel to drink a recovery beer or two and watch the runners from the marathon and half marathon pass by.