50km German Champion Ship in Ebershausen, Germany

Ebershausen is about 220km away from Dettelbach. Hence, Georg, Florian and I decided to drive there not before Sunday morning. Together with Florian we had a team, which we did not have for a long time at a German Championship. At 5am we met up at the Mainfrankenpark in Dettelbach. Florian and Nicole had pucked up Georg in Würzburg. Then we continued with our car. In the morning there was almost no traffic at Highway A81, that is why we get there quiet quickly. When we arrived at the parking slot in Ebershausen we had free choice of parking. Only a few campers are already there. We parked the car and walked up to the sports house to pick up our bids. They were just building up everything. So we first had breakfast and some small talk. Soon more friends arrived and the group was getting bigger and bigger.

The start was in time at 9am. We ran on a five 5km loop which we need to do ten times. Most of the loop was a detour part with a turn around point. It was on the entry road to the village. That is why it was wide enough not to cause any jam. Not as nice was the aid station which was located at the turn around point. On the one hand it was a bottleneck. Especially, in the beginning it took some patience since people had to fill their cups themselves. The advantage of such a short loop with a turn around point relies in the fact that people see each other. Besides, everyone can follow the race. For the womens classification there were no surprises. Nele Alder Baerens won easily and set up a new course record. The mens changed places in the beginning, but then Frank Meerbach won with a few minutes in advance. For him it was a personal best as well. Florian and I had planed to run together at the beginning. But I had to let him go quiet fast since he was to fast for me. While I was doing well in the beginning, I recognized after about 30km that I do not have enough endurance yet. Still I caught up with Florian after. He had to slow down due to his pollen allergy. While there was less pollen flowing around in the morning, it got more when the sun broke through. And with it the temperatures rose as well.

After the race we did not stay very long. It was still a while to drive home and none of us suspected a placement at the top three. Afterwards we heard that Florian was placed third in his age group.