Vienna Marathon Report

jlang

Not sure if we have a dedicated thread for reports any more but as I'm chuffed with my weekend I said I'd put a few words together in case someone wants a recommendation for next year.

Vienna Marathon, 19th April 2009

The race is actually a full marathon, half marathon and relay marathon that all start together. There were roughly 6000 marathon runners and 8000 for the half with about 2500 relay teams, so although there are less people running the full than Dublin, there's a bigger start and the standard did seem a little higher. I imagine if the entire Dublin race series was run on one day, the standard of those left doing the marathon would be higher too.

The majority of the half and relay runners were Austrian and over half the full marathon runners weren't. The official report says there were 29,054 entrants across all the races, but that probably includes the 5km Junior and 1km Kids races run at 8:30 in the morning, all finishing in the same grand area.

Exhibition/Pre-race

Registration was at the city exhibition centre, a 2 mile stroll or a very quick U-Bahn ride from the city centre. Open all day Friday and Saturday with the usual range of stands showing or selling gear/nutrition/races. I went on Friday and there was no queues to pick up the number, chip, goody bag or shirt. They had the option to buy or rent a chip so I rented one (EUR3+7deposit) as there isn't really a culture back here of people using their own chip at races.

On the Saturday at the Town Hall, there was an "International Friendship Party" with carbo-loading on Kaiserschmarrn (thick pancakes cut up and served with stewed plums and apple sauce). I was walking up to it but never made it because we got distracted by a festival going on all weekend just in front on the Rathausplatz and had some food/drink (non-alcoholic for me) there instead!

Start

A couple of km out across the Danube from the city centre with a very frequent U-bahn service to near the start. "Plenty of" toilets, long enough queues but I figure there will never be enough toilet capacity before a race (and I'd have liked another go, which came back to haunt me). They were giving out bottles of sparkling water, for some reason. Baggage was loaded onto trucks arranged by race number right up till the race start.

The entrants were split into 6 "pens", 3 on each side of a wide dual carriageway, based on predicted times and denoted by a coloured dot on the race number. Prompt start for the first wave at 9am and about 2 minutes between groups. I think I was in the 4th wave presumably based on the 3:29:00 I'd put on my entry form. Road was nice and wide so pretty much up to speed immediately, hitting my target time for the first km. The first 2.5km is straight towards the city and only then do the two sides of the dual carriageway merge before the first water station on both sides of the road. The race takes up the full width of a 5/6 lane road from then to about 6km so there was no real congestion to worry about. Definitely no tight bends into a narrow Holles St in the first mile!

Refreshments/Etc.

Loads of water stops, but water was given in cups only (boo). Powerade in cups as well every second stop and bananas and other stuff at later stages. There were extra locations set up in between with taps to get extra self-service water. The local kids were giving out cups of their own bottled water and the equivalents of fig-rolls and jelly babies. I realised early on what the sponge in the goody bag was for - each water station had troughs of water before the drinking cups and it was certainly hot enough for that to be useful. Of course, I hadn't brought mine.

One toilet cubicle at each km marker, no queue.

Route

Generally along wide city streets also going through a large park between 3-6 km and again at 29-36km and along the river for several miles. Pretty flat all round, the only hills being little bumps at bridges and a very gradual rise by the Schoenbrunn Palace (30m rise over 15km giving back that height over 5km). In many places there were tram lines along the road (no trams, of course) but I didn't see anyone stumble on them (or at all). The route is very scenic going in and out of the grand city centre several times. The support was incredible all along and especially along the first half (the half marathon route). There was live bands, cheerleaders, piped music etc at many locations, most notably playing Strauss/waltz at the Stadtpark and concert halls.

Weather was very sunny all day. The day's recorded peak was 21 degrees which was probably at about the end of the race. I tried to make use of shade from trees/buildings when I could and was glad I'd liberally applied sunscreen. Needless to say this was hotter than I'd trained in and in direct sunlight it felt hotter. Friday or Saturday would have been cloudier and a couple of degrees less, so I just had the luck/unluck. 15 degrees is the average March high.

Finish

A few km of huge crowds then through a large arch to a grandstand finish in courtyard behind the Hofburg Palace. Medal, water, goody bag and plenty of space to relax before emerging through another arch to the crowd. Then meet family, massage, return chip, get bag, engrave medal and a few hours of sitting in sun drinking beer, eating schnitzel etc. (The Germanic people really do good festivals).

I'm not sure of the details, but there was some kind of scheme where elite entry was restricted to debutants (I think this was first-time marathoners but it could have been Vienna first timers). Fast times were definitely possible as the winning man was 2:08:21 (the first 4 were all under 2:10) and the winning woman was an Austrian at 2:30:43. I found a site with nice information on world marathons: http://www.arrs.net/HP_VieMa.htm

The City

Great place for a weekend break. We flew with Aer Lingus, out 7AM on Friday and back on Monday mid-morning. Went to a tourist concert on Friday evening and did some light sightseeing on Saturday. Our central 3-star hotel wasn't the cheapest in the world but was very nice and did an early continental breakfast for runners on Sunday. We had a great weekend and my support team enjoyed their weekend too, which means I might get to set up another one in the future. It's a very good race for spectators as they can see the race from several locations and still get to the finish exit area without crazy rushing around.

My Race

Target was 3:30 so my plan was just to try to keep as many km splits close to but under 5min as possible. I had enough time set aside to cover a minute-long toilet stop that became necessary by 18km. Probably not surprising that my fastest km was the middle one as, fresh after toiletting, I got carried along with the half-marathon runners on their home stretch.
Through half way in just over 1:43 and kept on going. Steadily overtaking people for most of the race, but by the end I was noticing more relay entrants passing me with their fresh legs. Or more correctly, as I couldn't see their numbers, I assumed that because they were passing me they could only be fresh-legged relay runners.

I caught the 3:30 pacemaker at about 2km and stayed within 50m ahead/behind for next 5km, give or take a water stop or two which kept me on my toes as I saw his balloons sail past me. Then left him behind and only saw him again at 32/33 when the route doubles back for a short while so I knew I was safe.

Whether due to the few gels I took or just that I'm much fitter, there was no particularly noticeable wall-effect as had hit me hard at 20+ miles in Dublin '07. This time I did slow and lose a bit of time in the last 15km, but I figure this was more due to stopping to a walk at the water stations to make sure I got the fluid in and taking a few fatigued steps extra to get back up to speed.

Can I go faster? Probably. Could I have gone faster? Possibly, but in that heat I'm delighted with my time in only my second marathon and glad I didn't set a more extreme target and fail. Being immodest (not modest, instead of indecent), 25 minutes off my Dublin result is an excellent result, especially as I felt far more comfortable finishing and have no injuries beyond soreness and a desire to limit the amount of times I have to go up/down stairs.

Would I recommend Vienna as a marathon destination? Definitely. Would you run a PB there? I picked it as a place I wanted to visit rather than a place to run really really fast, but it's flat and well organised so you certainly could.


Chip Time 3:28:48
Raw Time 3:39:03

Official Splits:
First Half: 01:43:10
Second Half: 01:45:37
5KM 00:24:40
10KM 00:24:28
15KM 00:23:58
20KM 00:25:14 (including unplanned toilet stop)
25KM 00:22:25
30KM 00:24:46
35KM 00:25:34
40KM 00:26:04
42KM 00:11:35

1042/5008 across all marathon finishers
147/526 in Male 30-34 group
4/31 Irish finishers

Hard Worker

I was thinking of doing either Boston or Vienna next year. Your race report is very good and at least gives me an idea of how Vienna works. Very good PB by the way.

robinph

jlang wrote: »

Chip Time 3:28:48

That is very good improvement from your previous time and pretty much spot on to what you predicted, good work.

Looks like I'll have a lot of training to do next year to keep up once you inevitably beat my time in your next marathon.

ekevosu

congrats, good report and well done on achieving your goal.

This would be excellent in that marathon review thread which used to be stickied.