Finally...A post!!

Well, I started this blog to follow my training for the Brighton Marathon...and gave up before I did finish the marathon...;)
So, I am going to start this blog again...! This time I really hope I will be able to keep up with it...!


So, I managed to finish Brighton in 4:07 and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life! I did not stop with the marathon and did some more races over the summer before...well doing another marathon! This time it was Karlsruhe which I finished in 3:58 and...again...it is not enough;)


Next year, so 2011, I will run two more marathons! Of course, one of which is going to be Brighton and I cannot wait to run the course again! The atmosphere was amazing and I never thought there would be so many people cheering us runners on! The support you  get from the spectators is just amazing and it pushes you along the last painful miles. Even tough people told me this before I never really believed that crowd support could be so relevant.


After Brighton which I hope to run in a time of under 3:55 I will run Berlin in September...so one of the five major road marathons!! yay!!
I hope to run Berlin in a time under 3:50 but what is most important is that I plan to run both the marathons for  charity!


I hope to raise 850 pounds for Winston's Wish, a charity helping bereaved children helping with the loss of a parent or a sibling. I really think that children in such difficult situations need special support and I hope that running the marathons I can raise some awareness of this and give my support to the charity!


If you want to know what Winston's Wish are actually doing, please visit : www.winstonswish.org.uk
If you want to help me support them please go to my fundraising page! Every little counts! => www.justgiving.com/paule-kremer

i am a lazy lazy blogger!

It is two weeks before the marathon and I haven't posted anything in over a month. I am back in Luxembourg at the moment and I hoped the weather would be nice (last year I remember running in shorts and a top while being at home for easter). I was mistaken, it is still cold and it seems that summer is far far away...

Now my hopes are up for nice weather once I am back in Brighton again, which will be in a few days time! I heard the weather was quite bad over there as well with stormy weather, rain etc. Sounds like a  nicesetting for the marathon! I could cope with rain over 21 km but I do not want to remember my first marathon as my first big swim.

Anyhow, training goes down smoothly, ran 30 km 5 times some 32 km, 34, 35...long distances are no longer scary. The only thing that bothers me is that my cold and my cough won't go away...so, I will run this 30 km hoping it will not get any worse (I read some horrible horrible things on the internet about people running with colds and getting heart muscle inflammations...:S). Since tomorrow is a public holiday, I will queue for a doctor on tuesday and I hope he will not give me any antibiotics since this would mean no running for the time being and the marathon is less than two weeks away...

Even tough I will be tapering down after today I do not want to stop my runs!  I hope for the best and I hope I did not make things worse because I ran with the cold over the winter..

Keep your fingers crossed! Anyway, I am off for my laaast long run:)!

By the way this is "tapering": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapering

1:43:35...!!

Pouring rain and wind blowing at 25 mph and I managed 1:43:35! 10 minutes off my first time!!

I've never felt more confident during a race and I am really happy with the result. I am confident that for my next half in "normal" weather conditions I'll finally manage 1:40...!

I was exhausted after I've crossed the finish line, I nearly fell over but it was the best feeling I've ever had! This race was so worth it, never mind the cold and the rain (and the hail?)!

Here are some pictures, you can see my stupid happy face on them;)...!And how wet it actually was!!

The route!

Here is the route for tomorrow by the way:

http://www.beaconhalf.org.uk/pdf/2010amendedroutemap.pdf

Sussex Beacon Half Marathon

After a week of total rest because of a cough and a cold at the beginning of February, I've managed to do another 3o km after I'd recovered! YES! I was afraid  I would loose some stamina but they went even better than my first 30 km so I have nothing to worry about!

For the marathon, training goes allright so far. 

But I am a bit anxious about tomorrow; I am going to run the Sussex Beacon Half Marathon in Brighton! It may not be my first half but I really want it to be the fastest so far! I have trained hard for the marathon and achieving a personal best in the half would mean a great gratification at the moment!

The time I aim for is 1:40...

I am not sure whether anyone can understand these but here are my splits I am going to pin on my t-shirt tomorrow:

5 km:    23:42

10 km:  47:24

15 km:  1:11:05

20 km:  1:34:47

I am afraid that it is too ambitious...I could say everything under 1:45 would be fine as well...if worse come to worse anything better than my last half will do but I'll aim for the 1:40 nevertheless!

I hope it will not be too windy as the last 10 k along the seafront was hard to manage because of the wind! Plus, the weather forecast doesn't look to promising! On the other hand, it is supposed to be a fast and flat course and I have my wonderful supporters with me;)!

Well, let us hope for the best, I'll keep you updated!

thank God for carbohydrates!

yes!

I've managed even tough my legs started aching after km 26. I took a gel at that point and have to say that they are the most wonderful thing ever! as they don't need to be digested you immediately feel how your body uses the carbs!

by the way here is a little proof of my achievment:

30 km...

fueled up by a massive bread and cereal breakfast I hope to run 30 km today!

never been that far...hope I'll manage;)

my ipod is charged and my carb gels are ready for their first time mission:)!

no post for a looong time!

Wow...I've been a lazy blogger! 

My last post has been nearly a month ago when I was still at home in Luxembourg! I did go on a lot of runs at home but unfortunately did not manage to go longer than two times 25 km!

I had a fever that knocked me down for several days which was so frustrating. Just to be at home and not go out and run in the snow was so hard! But, I waited till I felt better and signed up for my first ever trail!

It was such a nice run! Since I've never ever run a trail I did not know what to expect but hoped to do well even tough I had been sick the days before.

Surprisingly the people that were ahead of me stopped at several points during the race, I noticed that they did so because the route went down steps that were so icy that it was impossible and too dangerous to run them down. The hills that you had to run up were similarly impossible to run and so people walked these as well. I was surprised that everyone did so and everyone was really polite and did overtake another runner during these passages. 

Here are some pictures from the race:

 

 

  

I prefer the last one, with my stupid face! I actually got a flower, first time I "won" something at a race (even tough it did not last until the next day).

Here are my results: I managed to come forth as you see "4 dam" yaay!

F

KREMER Paule

1988

LUX

1:02:45

1:03:24

6:21

9.46

4

dam

WALFERDANGE

I was surprised by how good I felt during the race and how I liked the route and the type of the race!

Next year I will not run the 10 km one but attempt to aim for the 22 or 37 km route...let's see;)

So, I hoped for better weather conditions in England but as everyone knows...England and snow equals chaos..

I did go for 4 runs on what was basically ice...It was hard and frustrating...

Thank God everything as melted now and tomorow I'll go for a looooong run!!

Looking forward to it because it has been ages that I was able to train properly...the marathon is drawing nearer and nearer as well, so I hope this was the last month that the weather has been this awful!!

paule

it's freezing in Luxembourg...

...I went for an hour run on Sunday instead of a long run because the weather was awful...I don't mind rain or snow. I went for a 25 km run in the snow the first Sunday I was at home (that was a week ago) and I loved it! but I HATE THE COLD, last Sunday it was  -12 degrees...and it was horrible!The scarf I had in front of my face even froze...brrr...

I hope the weather gets nicer, I'll be frustrated if this goes on for another week!

27.88 km!

Holidays just started and I am going back to Luxembourg next Friday...I am well excited! I am looking forward to train around my home town:)!!

I really hope to get 30 km done during the month I am home! Last week, on Friday I managed to do 27.88 km without feeling too bad the next day:)! I was sooo happy...:)! Distances become less and less scarier over the last few weeks!

I noticed that this is already my 7th week of "training", so still 17 more weeks to go...!!

I'll keep you updated!

Runners, yeah we are different.

Some days ago, a friend of mine send me a picture of an old adidas running campaign which was made in 1999 or 2000 I think.

I tried to find all the pictures and I really think that this, for once, is a campaign that shows what you sometimes need to experience being a runner. How running can change you or make you do things you would not do otherwise. Things non-runners will always fail to understand, things that happen that can be really private but still funny to experience.

Especially the picture with the girl peeing behind the tree, what can I say...this is just me! Thinking about the half-marathon in Germany, I see myself sitting in a field, with thousands of runners passing me and watching me while peeing. I couldn't care less then I still do not care today.

Have fun looking at the adverts!!

 

 

HELL YEAH.

Just a quick post:

FINALLY, the weather was nice enough on friday to go on a 25 km run!!! I could have gone further but leave it for next week:)!

so happy!

on saturday I went for another 18 km run along with Jemma, who is also doing the marathon and it is so nice to have someone to run with who also aims towards the 42 km!!

hear from you soon!!

brooks brighton 10 k run!

Hello!

Just a quick word on the race on Sunday...I did achieve a personal best of 45.55 minutes. But I am nevertheless disappointed, I thought I'd easily manage under 45 minutes. Well, next time then!

The weather was weird as well, the wind was blowing hard and it always looked as if it would start to rain every second. At around 5 k into the race I started to slow down and no matter how hard I pushed myself to keep the pace, I failed. I lost my precious 55 seconds there I think...Well, fortunately I managed to get faster again at the 7 km marker!

I do wanna thank my supporter team here:). thanks for cheering and just being there guys, it helped me to stay focused;)! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Here are some pictures from the race, the expression on my face is pretty intense...!But then again, this was not a beauty contest but competition!

visitors and second week of training!

The training this week went down nicely and on Sunday I did go on a nice 20 km (turned out to be 23 km) run together with the Running Club and Jerry.

Jerry and I ran down to Brighton Pier to meet up with the group and we ran up to Rottingdean and had a look at the nice windmill that is up there! There it is:

'

To get there we ran along the Brighton Marina along the cliffs and you had a splendid view over the open sea. You had to be careful about the waves tough!;) After running back to the Pier again we had done around 18 k, so there were 2 left to go. Jerry and I decided to run back home to the house together and the run turned out to be 23 km long. I noticed that I do no longer have any difficulty with these distances. I do feel sorry for Jerry tough and I officially apologize that he has to participate in my running madness! And a big thank you for not letting me down and actually staying with me during the whole distance!

This is all I can think of right now. At the moment I am thinking about the race I entered which will take place in two days. It is a 10 k run along the Brighton seafront and I do hope to get a personal best out of it! I hope I can participate because I twisted my ankle this morning, only slightly but no wonder this happens to me!

I rest till Sunday and let myself be surprised by what the race brings!

Week 1 of 24

FINALLY

training has officially started and I kicked it off with a 21 km run. Yes I know it planned on doing 30...but no disappointment here because the schedule said: Monday: resting day. So, this is me again respecting the rule of resting. 

No, I do not believe in resting even tough I should. I try to convince myself to respect my 3 resting days per week. (But 3 days...come on!)

On Wednesday I did approximately 10 km with the Running Club and I took over the faster group which was fun because I could go on my full speed and talk with other non English people about Halloween crazyness in England, I mean...come on? What's up with all the fake blood anyways?

Yesterday (Thursday) I did some Interval training which consisted in 10 minutes running-in and then 5 x 800 meters in a time of 4:10 per km. Interval training is definitely not as easy as you think, you constantly need to force yourself to keep going at such a full speed. And even in btw the intervals you are not allowed to stop but just told to run slower.It is a good way of improving your stamina and your respiration, so I hope I'll manage to convince myself to do this every time it is on the schedule. 

So, this is it up until now. I feel good and happy that the first week is on!

I'm off to my Friday morning run:) (again, not on the schedule...I can't just NOT go)