CRIScom travel experience flow – The personal website of Christoph Potzinger

Tomorrow in three weeks, on Sunday April 13, I am partaking in the 7th OMV Linz marathon . As my third marathon, the challenge is set. I am going to try to beat three hours for 42.195 km. Therefore, I have changed my training methods and since November I rely on a program by Georg Ruess, a champion marathon runner and marathon coach. Thus, I have been able to improve my performance considerably with the same training effort as before. (more…)

I really appreciate any runs I can do outside Graz. For me running in Graz is what I do on a daily basis: I jump into my runners, head down the stairs and out of the building. Then I have to run for about ten minutes across the city in order to reach Augarten, a park situated at the river Mur, from where a bike track goes all the way down to the border of Slovenia
. There I get a taste of running in the nature but with the constant background noise of the city and the smell of cars it is nothing compared to runs I occasionally do in Gabersdorf or Leibnitz, approx 40 ks down south . Last Saturday morning, I teamed up with two excellent athletes for a long jog from Leibnitz to Heimschuh and Tillmitsch. Erwin (middle) is a triathlete, (more…)

Thinking back on how I used to spend New Year’s Eve – heavy drinking that is – this year has seen a change to a completely different approach on how to close the year . Participating at the Silvesterlauf 2007 in Graz, an 11.4 kilometer run around the Schlossberg (3 rounds á 3.8 ks), was part of my preparation for the Linz marathon on April 13, 2008

. The run was quite challenging as there are three steady climbs from the river Mur to the Stadtpark on gravel sideways. Still, the run was great, taking place in bright sunshine . Kudos go out to Georg Ruess, my coach, for his great training plans and his assistance and advice. This performance wouldn’t have been possible without his expertise. Now we have the official results from the Pentek-timing website: Total time: 43.26 min; 3:49 min/km; 15.75 km/h; 169 av. HR; Position: 11 (total runners 166) Age-Group-Position (30 – 40): 8 1st round (3.8 ks): 14:07 min 2nd round: 14:51 min 3rd round: 14:27 min Oh, I nearly forgot: HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! Hope to see you soon in 2008.. .

It’s been now a year since I started running on a regular and competitive basis. I have been able to dedicate a good deal of my spare time to an activity which slowly has become an indispensable habit. There are a lot of rewards some obvious and easy to grasp, others are more subtle, slowly oozing into the consciousness. I have talked about them already, so I will not go into too much detail here. After my last marathon in Graz in October 2007, I realised that I have come a long way from my humble beginnings, which most of all revolved around trying to introduce a regular running habit into my daily routine. You might not believe how difficult it actually turned out to be. This difficulty may stem from my past as a soccer player, where activity and running was closely tied to play and a ball. Running for its own sake in this light appears to offer small rewards and little satisfaction. As a matter of fact, I only managed to make running a habit after I had moved from the countryside to the city. At that point I started discovering a whole new universe. Everything that followed, by comparison, was easy . Having scratched on the three hours mark, (more…)

What a perfect day for runners this Sunday happened to be . Cool temperatures at around 16 °C and wonderful sunshine set a perfect scene for about 6.000 participants at the Graz Marathon 2007. Training more than 143 hours and 1.580 ks, I was well prepared for my second marathon. The conditions were just perfect for me and I had a good first few kilometers. I chose my speed according to my heart rate at about 158 – 163 beats per minute, clocking in the kilometers at about 04.10. After 12 ks I joined two guys running exactly at my speed, also trying to challenge the 3 hrs mark. With joint effort we made good progress towards the end of the first round. When I finished the first half marathon at 1:28:13 still feeling (more…)