CRIScom travel experience flow – The personal website of Christoph Potzinger

Der Boston Marathon (kurz BM) nimmt für sich in Anspruch, der älteste und traditionsreichste Marathon der Welt zu sein. Am 19. April 2010 wurde dieser Lauf über die legendäre Distanz von 42,195 km oder 26.2 Meilen zum 114. Mal ausgetragen. Er wurde zum ersten Mal, ein Jahr nach den ersten Olympischen Spielen, 1897 veranstaltet und findet seither mit einer kurzen Unterbrechung jährlich jeden dritten Montag im April am Patriots Day statt. Beim ersten Lauf 1897 nahmen 15 Teilnehmer teil, jetzt sind es 26.000 und mehr. Für den 114. Boston Marathon meldeten sich insgesamt 26.735 LäuferInnen, 23.126 nahmen tatsächlich teil, 97,9 % davon oder 22.645 schafften es über die Ziellinie in der Boylston Street.
Gerade von einem beeindruckenden Marathon-Erlebnis heim gekehrt, entschloss ich mich im Oktober 2009 spontan daran teilzunehmen. (more…)

Quick entry for now
. The 114th Boston marathon has been successfully completed, again under 3 hrs, the 5th consecutive time. While this marathon was one of the hardest because of ugly head-wind gusts starting after 5 ks and a hilly course with quite a few of 300 – 1.000 m climbs, the atmosphere was just outstanding – the Americans can get really crazy when it comes to sports. Sometimes the noise was deafening.

The second half was especially tough with the wind getting stronger and more climbs coming up, especially Heartbreak Hill, a hilly section in the suburb of Newton between miles 17 and 21. My feet worsened as soon as kilometer 15 and I had to run very carefully in order to avoid early cramps .

After Heartbreak Hill it is mostly downhill. But with sore legs this is quite a task to accomplish, especially when time is against you. I almost sped up too early but managed to overcome a cramp problem with just 1 mile to go soon enough in order to finish in 2:59:31 hrs: mission accomplished.

Then it was another long walk to gather my changing clothes and meet up with Sylvia, Jean-Pierre, Susi, Stefan and Julian and celebrate the successful run. We went to Jakobs Wirth, a Bavarian beer house in Boston city, and relished on Fish and Chips, Paulaner Hefeweizen and a Guiness. Spiro, a friend from Melbourne, joined us, putting a perfect end to a breath-taking day.

More on the marathon soon…

Sunday afternoon here at the Kallanian’s, waiting for lunch with just 18 hours to go for my 7th marathon. When I will take the first step into my 2nd marathon in the masters series at the oldest martahon of the world, I am already a winner since I was lucky enough to even have made it to Boston.
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With the last day of March, my 7th marathon is almost on the threshold. Today I received my Number Pick-Up Card and Welcome Booklet for my second marathon in the Masters series – the Grand Slam of marathon running.

With only 18 days to go, I have completed the major part of my preparation for the marathon. I started my training in late January and have completed 954 kilometers in 2 months.I should be in perfect condition and on the one hand I am feeling very confident, on the other I am struggling with rising temperatues and humid weather . My heart rate has increased tremendously (often 10 to 15 beats higher than usual) and the warmer conditions have also affected my achilles tendons.
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It’s been a busy autumn with lots of interesting projects, some nice trips with Sylvia and a lot of running. I am aware that I have been neglecting my blog and as a kind of new year’s resolution I have taken up blogging again.

I will take up the thread in September when I attended the biggest sport event I had ever been to. After partaking at the Austrian marathon championships in Salzburg in May, Jörg, my friend from our Running Team, and I decided to tread ourselves to a really big event and run the Berlin marathon, second biggest marathon in the world.
I trained hard during the hot days of summer assisted by (more…)