See the route of the half marathon in a web browser.
Here is a link to a KML file for the route (e.g., for use with Google Earth).
Here is a link to tomorrow's diary.
Here is a link to yesterday's diary.
Here is a link to the index of the days of this holiday.
Today I do a road race, a half marathon from the village of Spitz to Krems. It's alongside the River Danube for the whole distance. On the same morning, there is also a full marathon and a quarter marathon which also start in other villages on the Danube.
On the day before race, I had walked the last 3K of the route of the race, and had found white paint marks on the ground for the 19K, 20K and 21K markers. On the morning of the race I had to get a bus from outside Krems railway station to the start of the race. There's a choice of a ship at 8am (which takes 90 minutes) and 20 buses at 8am and another 20 buses at 9am. I have booked a seat on the 9am bus. I do a 2K warm up by running from my hotel first to the 20K marker, then to the finish and then back to the railway station. I'm in plenty of time for the bus.
It's very crowded in Spitz, there being about 4 thousand runners. About 6 weeks ago in Finland, I'd done a flat half marathon in 1h55m55s, that's a pace of 5m27s per K. That day, I was aiming for an average pace of 5m20s per K, but failed to achieve that pace because it had been so hot. I try for that pace again today. But again I don't achieve it.
However, today it's not very sunny and, although it's warm, it's not too hot, and so it's ideal to get a good time but I don't feel motivated. The course is again flat but it feels long. Because the Danube doesn't twist much, the route has long straights. The only thing that motivates me are the crowds alongside the route as we run through the villages of Woesendorf, Weissenkirchen, Duernstein, Unterloiben, Oberloiben and Stein before reaching lots of support through the streets of Krems.
In the early stages of the race, I see a runner that has no feet. His legs end in stubs to which are attached some weirdly shaped, artificial legs/feet. It's impressive and some times he's ahead of me and some times behind. I don't know whether he beat me.
Although my 0.5K splits don't change much, they gradually get slower: at 5K I'm doing 2m45s, at 10K it's 2m47s, at 15K it's 3m00s. Aside: at about 10.9K, my Garmin watch goes AWOL as we go through a 0.9K tunnel and it thinks I do an extra 0.11K. At 16K, with 5.1K to go, I work on how I can get in under 2h. I keep working out whether it's achievable to do this if I average 3m00s per 0.5K (which I can do without too much effort). It keeps looking that it's on.
When I get to the 19K marker (which I saw yesterday), I start to speed up. I'm encouraged by passing several runners and by knowing these streets. I get to the 20K marker which is where I warmed up earlier. As I enter the long straight finish in Ringstrasse I look ahead. Because I've done my homework I know where in the distance the finish is and I get my 0.5K pace down to 2m30s. Foolishly, in the last few seconds of the race, I keep glancing down to my watch. I really want to finish in under 2 hours. The watch only shows hours and minutes and not seconds; each time I look it says 1h59s, and it still says 1h59s as I cross the line. Yippee. I made it 1h59m46s.
The winning time was 1h05m03s which gives me a ratio of 1.84 which is not impressive. My 0.5K splits were: 2m31s, 2m37s, 2m35s, 2m44s, 2m35s, 2m42s, 2m41s, 2m42s, 2m43s, 2m45s, 2m43s, 2m54s, 2m46s, 2m43s, 2m47s, 2m48s, 2m44s, 2m50s, 2m45s, 2m47s, 2m48s, 2m52s, 2m57s (0.39K), 2m51s, 2m49s, 2m54s, 3m00s, 2m55s, 3m01s, 3m00s, 3m05s, 3m06s, 3m03s, 3m06s, 3m04s, 3m06s, 2m57s, 2m58s, 2m45s, 2m48s, 2m33s, 2m30s, 1m15s (0.30K).
The first seven finishers in the Half Marathon were from Kenya and Ethopia. The first woman was 10th overall. Although I should have done a better time, I came 17th out of 41 finishers in my age category.
The races are very well organised with lots of details truely thought out. There is a free early morning train service from Vienna and a free bus shuttle from car parks in Krems to the railway station where there is free transport (bus, train, ship) to the starts of the three main races. The race is chip-timed from start to finish. And after the race, the competitors pass through a large funnel containing water, isotonic drinks, bananas, energy bars, apples, cakes. There is then a park where you can buy lunch (such as bratwurst) and beer/coffee.
Two criticisms: although there were numerous refreshment stations en route (where you could get water, isotonic drinks, banana, gels), there were insufficient people manning the drinks and so you would have to wait to get a drink. You could purchase a chip or pay a deposit for a daily hire of a chip, and, although there were lots of signage for various things after the refreshment tunnel, I didn't see any for getting your chip deposit back. Being shattered, I nearly forgot to get my deposit back, and when I did remember I didn't know where to go. In the end, it was obvious: it was where I had got the chip in the first place.