The race is over and results and are in. I neither managed my stated, nor my true, objective in Cologne on Sunday (3:19:59 and 3:17:59, respectively). But, overall I am happy enough with my time (3:25:27).

The day was spectacular yet terrible for running a marathon. Clear blue sunny sky with air temperature around 18°C at the start and 23°C two hours into the race.

My race strategy

20°C and sunshine are of course no Badwater conditions, but still not ideal. If you run for more than three hours and don’t drink and eat enough, the sun will get you. I therefore opted for a nutrition strategy that involved stopping at every single drinking station, and carefully downing two glasses of water (and later some energy gels, cola and isotonic drinks on top).

My personal trainer and friend made me a plan, which I followed, until I couldn’t. The plan was fairly simple. Run the first 15 km at 4:44 pace, then run the next 10 km at 4:35 and the last 17 km at a leisurely 4:40 pace. This plan should have gotten my over the finish line comfortably under 3 hours and 18 minutes.

My strategy for the man with the hammer? Just before it comes and slams me down, I was going to slow a bit down, listen to my body and speed up once he runs out of steam.

My execution of the strategy

I managed my nutrition exactly like planed. According to my math I downed around 3-4 liters of water and cola during the race and started stuffing my face with energy gels at kilometer 12 and did so every 6 km thereafter.

The pace strategy I managed to follow until the 26th kilometer, when I was supposed slow down from 4:35 to 4:40. For some reason I just could not find my rhythm again. And to top that, I knew that the man with the hammer would be sneaking up on me any moment.

At kilometer 31 I could feel the cold breath of a horrible creature with a hammer on my neck. I knew who was coming for me. I did not push through, but slowed down and made sure I did not get made into a pancake.

And slowing down preemptively worked. Semi. The the scary man with the hammer never really materialized, and he did not make me into a human-pancake somewhere in Nippes. Instead, little man with a little hammer — Das Männchen mit dem Hämmerchen — arrived and gave me a bit of a bump on the head. My sensible first half of the marathon and my reaction at kilometer 31 probably prevented me from spiraling during the last 7 kilometers, as I did in Frankfurt.

Updated model suggests that I have now pushed my personal, average, hammerman back to around kilometer 32.

Lessons for Hamburg 2024

In hindsight, I slowed probably down more than I needed and begun to empty the tank too late, I only really gave it my all during the last 500 meters. This can be seen quite clearly from my average pulse. It was much lower in Cologne than it was in Frankfurt, all the way until the very end.

More important lesson, however, has to do with training. When I run Hamburg next year, I should actually train for a marathon. Not just do a blitz training in the weeks leading up to it.

I went back to my training data and what I noticed is that in the 60 days leading up to the race, I spent a lot of my training time for Cologne on intervals (fast and short) and too little covering ground at marathon pace (long and steady).

If I compare the training I did in the 60 days leading up to London 2015 (where I manged my PB) and Cologne 2023, the lack of long steady runs are the key thing that separates the two.

• For London, I completed three 20-30 km trainings at an average pace of 4:43 and three trainings exceeding 30km at 4:55
• For Cologne, I completed two 20-30km trainings at a pace of 4:36 and only one training exceeding 30km at a pace of 5:07.

So, I guess the true lesson is the more common sense than profound: If I want to get better at something specific, I should do more of that specific thing.

A great race, great run, I would not change a thing

I could have run faster, I could have trained more, it could have been less sunny.

I could have been born with wheels instead of feet.

And honestly, I don’t really care.

I ran it sensibly, I felt fine after the race and overall it was a fantastic event, the supporters were great, and none of them greater than my wife and three year old son who came out to give me the emotional energy needed to turn a man with a hammer into a boy with a Fisher Price spiel hammer.