This week the chiropractor managed to crack my lower back and hip. In the process he must have unblocked the nerve that caused troubles with my right adductors since 09 april 2012. The day after my visite on Tuesday I already felt my right leg was more powerful. Now it was time to turn the mental switch in my head and to focus on running 42 km as hard as I could.
The race:
Pacemakers are worth their weight in gold or at least my pacemakers proved their unprecedented value :-) Their names: Jesse Stroobants and Jamal Baligha. Thanks guys !!!
Patrick Stitzinger and Willem Van Schuerbeeck were my associates in our compact group.
We asked the pacers to pass the half marathon point at 1h 07' blank, in reality we passed in 1h 06' 59", believe me: this is outstanding pacing.
When the pacers left the race our pace immediately slowed down a lot. Willem accelerated at the 30 km mark, I found it a little bit too soon and stayed together with Patrick. Afterwards at 35 km I closed the gap one time with Willem but then he accelerated again. At the end Willem was too strong for me, he ran a great 2h 16' 13" and Patrick became Dutch marathon champion in 2h 16' 51". The strongest belgian was Abdelhadi El Hachimi with a superstrong 2h 11' 53".
More results marathon Eindhoven: Stijn, Koen, Harm, Florent, Dieter, Guy, Nico and Philip.
Some post-race thoughts
It's a good thing to put my marathontime in the right perspective: the winner Dickson Chumba (KEN) ran 2h 05' 44'' he averaged 20,1 km/h over 42,195 km. When you run a marathon at this pace, running becomes art.
This marathon was a unique experience for me. It is not a miracle because the years of training made it possible to run this time. Nevertheless without problems the future of my marathon time looks bright.
Tomorrow their will follow some pictures. Thank you for all the support! Greetings Lander.