German cross- and country championship at the P-Weg in Plettenberg, Germany

On the way to Plettenberg it started to rain, and continued non-stop upon our arrival. The first thing we did, after we arrived in Plettenberg, was to pick up our start numbers. After that we informed ourselves about all important locations and went to the gym where we would spend the night. We prepared everything for the night, then met again with our other colleagues, who preferred to stay at a hotel. We went together to the pasta party in the city. Because it was wet and cold we decided to go to a bar next to the party location. There we spend the evening.

It was about 200m to get from the gym to the organization office. The breakfast was placed there. We arrived at the office about 6am the next morning; a lot of people were already eating breakfast. The start was at 7:30am. We had enough time to have breakfast. After that we did the final preparations. Now we were ready to start. Only about 110 runners were signed in for the German championships. But still, there was a huge concurrence and good runners. Immediately after the start Shascha Velten, the acting German Champion, tried to run away. We followed in a group of six. After a while the group raised to seven. After about 30km the group started to split. After we passed kilometre 40 we saw Sascha again. Stephan Hinze started to catch up to Sascha after 50km. About ten kilometres later he got him. Also I did catch up and was about 50m behind them. Sascha was able to speed up with Stefan until about five kilometres before the finish. They enlarged the distance from me. After that point Stefan began to enlarge the distance to save his placement. I was able to reduce the distance to Sascha. But still it was not possible to get in second place. That there was a good front field at the race was shown by beating the old course record with six people, even though the condition of the course was not the best. Because of the rain, paths were wet, dirty and slippery. Because of that a lot of runners needed extra time and had to concentrate a lot. Especially the downhill held a huge risk of accident. Lucky there was no news of bad falls or injuries. Well, it would be interesting to know, how the bikers made it the following day. Actually we were lucky with the weather. On the day of the race there was no rain. Also it was about 12°C, which was not too cold. It was not possible to enjoy the panorama, because there was not a clear view.

Once showered and recovered, most of the runners went to one of the bars or to one of the stands. There they waited until the awards ceremony. Because the ceremony did not take too long, we arrived “early” at home. Even though it was a championship race and there were some small races besides, it was a nice and familiar race. In short words, definitely a race to take part in again.

Results of the organisation
Homepage of the organisation
Course as KML-File
Course as GPX-File