1:18:12 and I am very happy...

...with the result. Today was the 10th Mercedes-Benz Half Marathon in Berlin. My first race after I started running was the 2nd Mercedes-Benz Half Marathon in 2000. Back then, I clocked around 1:47 for the HM. In 2004 I ran my HM PB on that course, 1:17:47. So, here I was again. New age group, same course ;-) During the night, heavy rain showers went down and the forecast wasn't that great. However, the rain stopped at 8 am and 1200 runners could warm up under a cloudy sky with temperatures around 18 C. Ca. 10 runners from our running team in Berlin, the famous Pro Sport Berlin 24 e.V. participated in the HM, one guy ran the 10k. The course is a two looper with an additional out-and-back stretch between 18k-19k. This time I did not look at my watch but instead I tried to follow my body signals. 2k into the race my body told me: "Go on, everything o.k." At the 5k mark it said: "You're stupid if you stay with that group" and at 10k, after finishing the first loop, I was told: "Man, this sucks, slow down...!" At 15k, my body stopped talking to me since I didn't listen anyway ;-) The splits up to that point were 18:14 (5k), 36:42 (10k) and 55:21 (15k). I was in 8th position and one guy was still hanging on to my back. Since I had no idea which age group he was in I ran for my life. Unfortunately, he caught me at the 20k mark and finished with a great sprint. Fortunately, it was Michael Eis, who is a M40.
So, I finished 2nd in my age group, almost 2 minutes behind Hans Peter Wollny, who won the race last year. Needless to say that I am really happy since I was wondering what the Greif camp would have done to my legs. In fact, I felt the 198k from last week since I could not move my legs as fast as I wanted. But, I guess, I moved them fast enough for today ;-)