After the Mannheim Marathon, which went quite ok for my training this year, but not quite ok for my general ambitions, I first thought that after a break of like 1 or 2 weeks, I just continue to train and can either run a real fast marathon or even an (my first) ultra run (80km) a few weeks later. However, none of this did become true because family, job and some other things like fixing some stuff in our house.

Still, I spontaneously decided to run the 10k in our neighbor village Sandhausen. In the 5 weeks after the Mannheim Marathon I ran in total 4 times and toghether maybe 40 kilometers. Cycling I just did when I had to go somewhere, but never dedicatedly as a training session. So in the end, I was not well prepared, but in March, I ran a 10k race with a even worse preparation in 40:03mins, so I thought a time around 40mins should be realistic if there was no „but“. The but in this case was that my wife was on a day trip with some friends and so I had to take my daughter Meike with me in our child carrier (see picture below).

While it is a very clear „break“ when I use the carrier on the bike (I guess 5 to 10km/h slower), I never felt it was a read burden when using it for running. So in the end, I thought I just give my best. If everything goes perfect, I thought I can get close to a time around 40mins and my minimum goal was to be faster than 45mins.

Since I did not want to bother other runners with the carrier, I started somewhere in the middle and not in the front and thought „I start a little slower this time“. This turned out to be a clear mistake, simply because the other runners around my were super slow and on the first few hundred meters, I really just jogged. It is very difficult to overtake since the front wheel is more than 1 meter in front of me and very short in height, so overtaking runners tend not to realize it/me and as such cannot/will not give me some space and I don’t want to collide with them either. So the next time, I should rather start from one of the front rows and let the (not that many) others overtake me, because they will at least see me and the danger of a collision is very low.

But back to the run. After a few hundred meters, the road got wider and I used the sidewalk to overtake as many people as possible before the course went into a more narrow forrest track where overtaking will become difficult again. Here, I definitely ran a pace of less than 4min/km but it was already clear that I cannot keep this.

After we entered the forrest, I was finally surrounded by runners with a similar pace. I still overtook till like 5km, but much slower than before. Here, I also did not run a 4min/km pace, but more close  – though a very little faster  – to 4:30min/km. It was the best I could give and I cannot judge if it is only because of the carrier of if my form was just not so good. After 5km, I did not overtake any one any more but 3-4 runners overtook me again till the finish.

Meike seems to like the race as she did not complain. She even clapped her hands when others were running in front of us. From time to time, I talked to her a little, which is not very easy if you run at full pace also because I feared to get stich because talking interrupts my breathing rhyhtm. Only 2km before the finish, she complained as she did not find her „Schnuller“. Since I knew already that I will finish only in around 44mins, I did not care stopping for 3 seconds giving it to her.

Meike and me, 100m to the finish. Source: www.duenenlauf-sandhausen.de

In the end, I finished in 43:39mins and rank 39 out of 256 men. My worst 10k ever, but of course my first with a carrier in front of me. I believe without the trailer, I still had a time of 40mins+. Nevertheless, since I did not train much, definitely gave my best and in the end, did run pretty constantly from kilometer 2 till 10, I am not disappointed. Now I have repeat this to see if I am always that slow with the carrier ;-).