Greifenseelauf race pic! I now have a series with pictures from the last four editions of that race. Quite funny to look at, will post it sometime soon!

There was a camera filming everybody’s finish at Greifenseelauf, here’s mine. Not too spectacular, sorry!

To celebrate the end of my pre NYC marathon training, I ran Greifenseelauf one week ago, one of the biggest half marathons in Switzerlands. It was already the fourth time I ran it; the only race I’ve done more often is the SOLA relay (nine times).

Even though racers were supposed to collect their number two hours before the start, it was no problem to get it later. Everything was well organised and I didn’t have to wait in the queue at all.

I bumped into three different ASVZ tri camp people and chatted a bit before heading to the start; I was in the first wave this year because I indicated a sub 90 minutes goal time.

Actually, I wanted to break 1:24:24, which corresponds to exactly 4 min/km. Last year, I ran 1:29:59.8 in this race, and a few weeks later I set my half marathon PB of 1:27:21 at Hallwilerseelauf. A few weeks ago, I would have been confident that I can make it, considering for example Flughafenlauf, a 17 km race where I had a 3:50 min/km pace on not even a very good day. But my running mileage has been reduced quite a bit for some weeks (more cycling, more swimming, less overall time spent for training) so I wasn’t that sure anymore.

Near the start I met Julie who had the same goal as me, we chatted a bit until the gun went (upon which we stopped chatting). Starting in the first wave was really convenient: no pushing, nobody blocking your way, just smooth running from the first second on. My plan was to avoid going too fast in the beginning, the stick to the 4 min/km pace until half of the race, then go and see if there was any fuel left in the tank.

The first two kilometres were a bit fast, so I was about 15 seconds in front of an exact 4 min/km pace. I used the “virtual pacer” feature of my watch to check on that. Going at that pace had me run a little slower than the average runner in my vicinity, but I hoped to collect them all later and focused on my own pace.

For some kilometres, my pace was spot on, sometimes I was a bit faster, but overall I kept my 15 seconds. According to my watch, that is; the fifth kilometre seemed a little long, and from then on I arrived at the kilometre signs pretty exactly when my lead was gone.

I felt okay, but not like I could go much faster. At the 10K mark, I clocked 40:21, thus slightly behind schedule. My original plan to go faster after eleven kilometres was on the fly replaced by a new plan: going faster for the last third. Once the 14 km mark was past, I really tried to go a bit harder, but couldn’t get anything faster than a 3:54 split.

My parents were watching about three kilometres from the finish and dad took some pictures. Here’s the winner, Tadesse Abraham:

A bit later, the fastest Swiss marathoner, Viktor Röthlin (ended up third):

Fast amateur Christian Kreienbühl (eighth in the end):

The fastest woman, Monica Jepkoech:

And then, finally, myself. Looking to somebody on the other side of the road and seeing my parents only after the pic was taken:

On the way back, my weird motions mean: “It’s going to be close!”

“Don’t know if I’ll make it!”

Running.

“Will be tight on time!” (And heel-striking.)

And with that, the final stretch came. After a flat bit, there was the dreaded (actually rather gentle) slope, making for a slow second to last kilometre, putting me behind schedule even according to my watch, and I knew the watch was showing too little distance.

Last year, in a similar situation where I wanted to be sub 1:30:00, I managed exactly and got a 1:29:59.8. This year, all the sprinting was in vain, as the clock stopped at 1:25:02, 38 seconds slower than my goal. I wasn’t disappointed too long though, that was a new half marathon PB and a pretty decent one at that. I’ll have to beat 4 min/km in another half marathon then.

In the finishing area, I chatted a bit with my parents (wearing the rather ugly finisher shirt of 2011), a lot of other people, and finally headed for the showers and home.

The next day, my NYC marathon preparations would officially begin!

The race pictures from Greifenseelauf are finally online! That took two months…

These are all from the very painful last few metres when I realised that my GPS had been cheating in my favour all the time and I needed to hurry up to stay below my 90 minutes goal. That’s why they look super graceful and my face is so relaxed.

Also, the quality is awful, but I’m not going to buy them ;)

Featured, in no specific order:

• My “left wrist is bent” disease
• Carefully curated tan lines from cycling
• The elegant “looks like nailed to the street” shot

Last Saturday, I participated at Greifenseelauf, maybe the biggest half marathon event in Switzerland. This year there was a total of 11’699 finishers, including 10K, walking, baby jogger, “Mini Greifenseelauf”… participants.

My last half marathon race was in Winterthur in May, where I almost hit the 1:30:00 mark, so my natural goal was to beat it this time. I wasn’t too sure about that though, as the one month of almost no training in the army certainly hasn’t made me any faster.

On the other hand, my new girlfriend ran with me:

I’ll write separately about the whole Forerunner 310XT experience, but in short: it’s great. I can look at my training runs now like that:

Bonus points for recognising any buildings on here!

Anyway, I left for Uster about three hours before my race started. I met two friends in the train (let’s call them “triathlon girl” and “Ironman boy”), and together we collected our number bibs and did some people watching. Endurance races are perfect for people watching. The so-called “nut density” is unparalleled! Here’s two pictures from the “festival” area:

Nothing super weird to prove my point, but you have to believe me.

We didn’t start at the same time, so after a visit to the wardrobe/large gym to drop off clothes I headed to the start. The half marathon runners started in about ten blocks of roughly 1000 runners each; before my block, there was the elite one and the “City Challenge”/”Adidas friends” blocks. “City Challenge” has 100 runners from two places run against each other, with the better average time winning (this year: St. Gallen beat Aargau), and “Adidas friends” were, as I understood it, people who did some training with the Adidas miCoach.

I was a few minutes too late to see the elite go, but this is what it looked like:

In the front row, you can spot Swiss top runners Christian Belz and Viktor Röthlin (European Marathon Champion), next to Abraham Tandoi, Röthlin’s training partner who won the race. On the far left, there’s ZüriLaufCup dominator Christian Kreienbühl next to world class triathlete Sven Riederer.

In the starting crowd, I met a colleague from work (let’s call him “Jungfrau marathon man”) who had about the same goal timewise, so we started together. I had set the “virtual pacer” on my Garmin to 4:15/km, which would give a finishing time of pretty exactly 90 minutes. The virtual pacer lets you check how you are doing compared to somebody who runs with exactly that pace.

As usual, people started super hard, and after 2 km I already had a 10 seconds lead over my virtual pacer. Also, Jungfrau marathon man had to pee after 1 km, and he never caught up those 30 seconds again ;) After 2 km, we switched onto a narrow path along lake Greifensee – pretty if you’re there alone, but with 1000 people around you, it’s quite annoying, especially as I started catching up the slower folks from the starting block before mine.

The narrow part was short though, and I kept between 50 and 100 metres over the pacer. I listened to music all the time, mainly Symphony X (don’t ask) and that catchy song from the Ghost Busters sound track. Drinking at the stations went well, and whenever I realised that I had slowed down, I could make up for it during the next kilometre.

Around half of the distance, I realised that my GPS distance was off by about 100 metres when comparing to the signposts along the road; the signposts came later. No worries, I thought.

After kilometre 14, I was really looking forward to the gel they handed out there around last year, but alas, no gel this time! I had to make it without that little booster.

Greifenseelauf used to be something like a 17.5 km run, and when they turned it into a half marathon, they had to add the extra distance somewhere. It’s here, just before the 19 kilometre mark:

Needless to say that it’s a bit unnerving to run up a street and then run back down that same street. Once you’re past that bit, it’s more or less straight forward to the finish. My pace started dropping below 4:15 now, but I still had a good 50 metres over the pacer. The actual 1:30:00 pacer, by the way, started eight minutes before me, so I never saw him.

I started hurting a little, and the meanest little bit of the course was coming up: a ramp of about 20 metres elevation difference, spread over two kilometres.

Or, with the super awesome cool google earth view in Garmin connect, looking backwards from the finish area:

It doesn’t look like that much, but it certainly hurts after 19 kilometres. My pace on that ramp was 4:31, so I only had a few seconds spare to reach the 90 minutes. At the end, the track does another mean little turn:

So you run past the finish, about 250 metres down and then back towards the actual finish. This is where the 100 metres difference of my GPS almost killed me: I suddenly realised that I had to be a little faster than my pacer to reach the sub 90 time! There really wasn’t much power left in me for a strong finish, so I just gave all I had, glanced on my watch and thought that I’d hate myself for a long time if I missed it by just a little.

Crossing the finish line, I hand stopped 1:29:59.77. Pheeeew. The question was now if the official timing was also below 1:30:00; it was! 1:29:59.8, to be precise. Among the 10’000 or so runners doing the half marathon, I was the last to finish below 90 minutes :)

Viktor Röthlin won the pro race and became Swiss champion, by the way. Quite obviously, second place was the first loser.

I’ve recovered pretty well since last Saturday, and now I’m looking forward to next Sunday, where I’ll participate in Pfäffikerseelauf (12.3 km), the second to last run of the ZüriLaufCup series.

There probably was a photographer somewhere; I’ll post race pictures as soon as I get some.