Badische Meile 2007

Today was day zero!

Let me summarize what happened until today: On November 6th of last year I started training for a run called Badische Meile. At first my goal was to hit the top 50, which I condemned pretty soon, after realizing how hard it was to keep up or even increase my pace.

I started training with a distance of 8.1 km and increased it to 8.7 km after a while, which yielded more realistic performances. Overall I did about 35 training runs, with approx. 300 km. The best timing was 8.7 km in 38:51 minutes.

And today was the day of the race. The 18th Badische Meile - 8.88889 km. I had racing number 793 (it's not a prime number by the way), which I got at registration in the morning. There were 3300 runner registered, which is the highest number ever in history of the race. The start was a 3pm at the palace in Karlsruhe.

Actually I thought it would be more crowded with so many runners starting at the same time, but I was surprised that it went pretty smooth. My start was quite good, I ran my own pace and overtook a lot of runners right from the beginning. Surprisingly I had no problems with my legs, in fact, I didn't even feel them during the run. Up to kilometer 6, I had no problems with my stamina, though I was thirsty from the very beginning. I started to get stitches, which made it hard to breath properly, I had to slow down a little bit. Another problem was sickness, I felt like puking at times, fortunately by kilometer 8 everything was gone. So the last couple of meters in the stadium, I did a very good sprint and pushed as hard as possible. I was exhausted after the run, in fact, I've never been that exhausted before running 8.x km. It took me quite a while to get back to normal breathing.

I took my own time, which was 39:09 minutes for 8.8 km with an average heart rate of 183. The official results will be on the website of the Badische Meile. So far they haven't been updated yet.

I must say I'm quite happy with my result. I aimed for a 39:xx time, which I successfully achieved. It was a unique experience, running with a lot of people instead of alone, like usually. It was fun and I accomplished what I trained for.