But before applying these rules to your training program, please remember: Every training must be truly personal (but my rules might well be useful to you, when you are almost 40 like me).
All in all, I was quite content with my preparation, but did not dare to invest too much hope for a new personal record. It is always uncertain, if you are able to break your personal record. Weather conditions, road surface properties, drafting co-operation of unknown fellow skaters - too many factors to make race results comparable. In fact my worst half marathon race time was my best in relation to the winners. We all had to fight the storm and some snowflakes at the Berlin half marathon in the beginning of April last year.
When I left home on Saturday morning, the weather forecast for Hamburg Marathon race time - starting on Sunday morning at 8:45 - was acceptable: 9 degrees Celsius (okay), fresh winds (not so good), no rain (fine). So I didn't need to schedule annoying post-water maintenance work for my bearings after the race.
From Hamburg airport I went directly to my downtown hotel, put my luggage in my room, and walked to the Hamburg congress center. There it was the same procedure as for every major race: First shop some useful items in the marathon market, small-talk about the latest trends in speed skating materials and then receive your starter package (main content: start number and some material from the sponsors) at the registration desk.
I skated the Hamburg Marathon already twice, so I was familiar with the premises and organization. In earlier years I stayed overnight at my wife's cousin in Kiel, which is a one hour train ride away from Hamburg. But this time I decided to take a hotel in Hamburg, taking three advantages at one time:
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More sleep before the race
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More time for Hamburg's attractions
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Long warm shower after the race
The day before the race was the first real warm day (20 degrees Celsius, even in the evening) in Germany this year. So Hamburg 's shopping streets, parks and lakesides were packed with people.
I first visited the Museum of foreign cultures where I learnt about a tribe, which believes that there are two souls within a human being. One dies with the body, the other one jealously controls from the next world, what his descendants do in their lifes. I wonder what my ancestors think about my passion for speed skating...
Later I did a sunset harbour tour through the old "Speicherstadt" (storehouse town) and the new harbour of Hamburg.
The "Speicherstadt" was build in the stream Elbe on over a million oak tree logs, and is still used e.g. for the worlds biggest stock of oriental carpets.
Hamburg harbour currently is the 3rd biggest of Europe and ranks 9th in the world.
The photo shows the Russian sailing ship "Mir", the fastest sailing ship of this type. It is "hibernating" here. The tower on the left is Hamburg's symbol, the "Michel". St. Michael is a church built in the 18th century at a place where already in 1600 A.D. a chapel had been erected.
But that were of course only some appetizers for a lively town full of attractions like Hamburg. Next time I should bring my family and spend some more days here.
Having skated the event already twice I am also quite familiar with the course - and the threefold start in different streets to distribute the number of skaters - and late runners - more evenly. After the reunion of the field, it goes 5km to the West, first on aristocratic "Elbchausee", then back East through the red light district in quarter St. Pauli (no red lights in the morning and the red traffic lights can be ignored during a race). My favourite part of the course is the downhill towards the fish market after about 10kms, where you can take an aerodynamic position like a downhill ski racer and put all your concentration in keeping the skates from dancing like Gene Kelly. Shortly afterwards you pass the downtown main station, touch the elegant shopping streets like "Jungfernsteig" and then cruise on a circle around the big Alster Lake, where the course is forming the silhouette of a yet unseen cartoon character with a baseball cap on its head. The chin of this guy is badly shaved, i.e. the asphalt can be quite rough there. This makes Hamburg Marathon about 5 minutes slower than e.g. Berlin Marathon, where they say that you skate like on black ice. In Hamburg the people living along the route offer black coffee instead of pick-nick tables for breakfast, but I did not see one skater stop for a cup (but many picked up at full speed the complimentary water bottles offered at km 10, 20 and 30). At the brim of the baseball cap is the metro station "Ohlsdorf" shortly after km 30. For the marathon runners that's the place where the "man with the hammer" is waiting - and lots of fans to cheer both their beloved ones and the unknowns after the hit. They fill the metro trains for the next hours. Thank God there is no similar hammer threat for marathon skaters! Past Ohlsdorf the course turns back southbound towards downtown. When that is reached, then the real tough stuff begins: Hamburg Marathon 's last 2 kilometers go noticeably uphill. So you know what you have done when you cross the finish line close to Hamburg's TV tower at the Congress Center.
Like for all races I know, a helmet is mandatory in Hamburg. According to the regulations of the race even full protection equipment must be worn - official exceptions only for licensed top skaters. But I never noticed anyone pushing through this rule. For me no pushing is needed anyway. I am one of those skaters who preach the use of full protection during training and races alike. Full protection covers: your head, wrists, elbows, knees and ring finger (I will come to that later). If you complain about feeling uncomfortable with it and being restricted in your movements, then I recommend to buy equipment that suits you best. Do not tell me it hampers your aerodynamics. The total effect of skating equipment adds to some fractions of a second for the whole marathon, at least according to my humble guess.
Do not tell me you don’t need protection. I have seen too much blood during and after marathon races dripping from experienced skaters who made similar assumptions. I personally was lucky to have worn my skating armour three years ago in Hamburg. I was kicked by another skater exactly during the precious moment of imbalance where you change your centre of gravity from the out- to the inside of your wheels. I landed on five points of my right side: Tip of my shoe, knee, elbow, wrist and ring finger. You can see the inelegant beginning of my fall on the – apart from this embarrassing scene - very nice speed skating video by Sebastian Baumgartner “Video am Stock” (Video on a Stick). Sebastian was one of Germany’s best skaters some years ago and recorded a video during well-known speed skating long distance races with the camera attached to an aluminium pole of about 2m length. Even with this pole he was skating faster than I. Meanwhile he retired from top speed skating and is now focusing on editing a bi-monthly German inline magazine (http://www.skate-in-magazin.de) and organizing speed skating training seminars (http://www.experts-in-speed.de).
Oh, I almost forgot: Here is the solution how to protect your ring finger: Wear a wedding band (I still can see the scratches on mine). Sorry, now solution neither for singles nor for your other hand!
Looking back, that was a long paragraph on protection. Thank you for staying with me.
I mentioned spectators some lines above. Guess how many there were along the course Allegedly more than 450.000! With a participant limit of 2.500 skaters that’s a nice spectator-to-skater ratio, isn’t it? Well, most of them come to see the runners’ marathon, but who cares?
In my view 2.500 is a very nice number of participants for a skate marathon. It is high enough for a reasonable probability to find a pace line for drafting which fits your speed capabilities and small enough to leave enough survival room to your left and right – which is a problem in real mass events like Berlin Marathon with some 8 or 9.000 skaters. This year the participation of skaters in Hamburg was quite low: Only 906 reached the finish line. The reason for it might have been long discussions by the organizers, if there shall be a skate Marathon at all anymore in Hamburg.
But finally it took place and here is my personal report:
I set three goals for my race:
1. Don't push too hard during the first kilometers (I made this mistake too often)
2. Keep the sun in your mind (I tested this psychological trick to imagine a beautiful day, a perfect road and a body full of power during my training sessions and found a measurable effect on my lap times!)
3. Beat my record
Did I achieve my goals? Hmm, almost…
As usual I lost my first pace line after about 10kms. But this time simply because I was too fast. How’s that? My aerodynamics were so speedy on the fish market downhill part, that I managed to reach the pace line in front of my first one. But the static position during the downhill forced too much lactic acid into my legs, so I could not keep the pace of this pace line. I had to let it go and "wait" for my first pace line to swallow me again. And I did not loose it again, but kept the pace. My pace line had some co-ordination problems with the changes at the peak. Instead of calling for frequent substitutions and pushing their front men to relay the request non-verbally, some over-ambitious skaters started break-outs to get to the front if they regarded the speed as unsatisfactory . This is contra productive not only for the group, but also for the individual, so don’t repeat this mistake. Closing the resulting gaps consumes unnecessary energy (the more in the back of the pace line, the worse become these fluctuations).
Breaking out is a very inefficient way to change the leading position. It is useful for all kinds of tactics of top world class teams. But for amateur speed skaters like you and I you can only win (reach a satisfactory time) by perfect co-ordination. Of course this sounds not easy, because you usually have never seen your fellow skaters before. But implementation is straightforward: Call out loud how many skaters should take part in the rotation (5 is fine) and what the duration of duty at the front is (1 minute is easy to supervise on your stopwatch and not too exhausting). That was what we did and it worked acceptably well, finally.
One more advice for drafting: If you cannot bite in the bottom of your foreman, then you are not close enough! This is easy to memorize, but difficult to realize or to test during the race, so here is an alternative: You must be so close to the person in front of you, that you could easily tap him/her on the shoulder.
All in all I am satisfied with my temporal result:
First, I was only 19 seconds slower than my personal netto best (netto: time from start to finish line) and only 7 seconds slower than my personal brutto best (brutto: time from starting signal to finish line) - and I am two years older now.
Secondly I drafted most of my record race, but this time I actively took part in the leading work at the front of my train. And this gives a lot more satisfaction than hiding from the headwinds behind a big back.
But what is most important: I had a lot of fun and joy on my skates, especially by the surprised reactions of the spectators who detected the bathtub animals (duck and frog) on top of my helmet.
And Hamburg has one extra gimmick to be enjoyed after the race: A free massage service! And finally I found an advantage of an early morning skate start before the runners, marathon: No queuing for the massage.
I hope you will find your personal fun and joy before during and after your races!
If despite of my indications about being a mediocre amateur skater you are interested in my temporal result, please visit the official website at www.hamburg-marathon.com
Keep rolling!
Clemens Suerbaum
