Hannover Marathon, May 7th, 2006

[Rick]

www.marathon-hannover.de

Another one where the price goes up in the new year. Currently 37€. 42€ from 1st Jan. No way to enter without a German bank account or contacting the organisers to ask for a IBAN number.

Merten and Michi were thinking of this one this year as it is closer to them than Dusseldorf.

[Michi]

I think Hannover more likely for us. And there is also a half marathon for those of you who do not want to start with a full one (I hope my information is correct...).

If there are problems in entering, I think I can help out 'cause I have a German bank account  

[Gav]

Merten/Michi... do you have the list of races in Germany yet? I would really like to see the Categories of all of these

[merten]

Hannover will only have a half marathon this year!

I just had a look at the website and they're not doing a full inline marathon. Could not find any reason.
But: Entry for the half is only 10 EUR at the moment, so this could still be worth it, Air Berlin does direct flights from Stansted.

[Tim]

Ok i'm up for a half to start the season with  
I should be used to my new skates by then so will make for an interesting trial run.

Michi/merten...looking forward to seeing you guy's there.
I'll sort out registration 2nd week in jan when i come back from austria.

[merten]

Gav: Nothing about categories yet. But expect all these to be lower class (in terms of DRIV licence).

Usually only German Blade Challenge and WIC races get CLASS=A, smaller ones are usually CLASS=C. This defines some criteria to course, judges etc. Hannover was C last year, Düsseldorf was revoked a license last minute due to security hazards on the course! No idea what will happen this year as Hannover is changed and I don't know if Düsseldorf is trying for a license again.

The InlineNews ranking will do its own independent classification.

[Michi]

[Gav]

Thanks Merten... I remember last year, a lot more of the top guys went to Hannover than Dusseldorf, looking at the rankings. Couldn't remember the categories tho. Thought Hannover might've been a B race.

[Rick]

Hannover was a small race and was skated in the afternoon. Not worth flying out for a half marathon though.

[Rick]

Just got an email from BA today that they are suspending their flights from London to Hanover and to Cologne/Bonn next year. If you are going to either of these races, you may want to book your tickets with the competition in case they put their prices up with the reduction in competition.

[merten]

Just signed up, so I'm definitely going there and might be able to host somebody.

[Michi]

Ok, the race is done, here is my race report. First the results:

Men:
309 starters in total
1   (1)Ramali, Pascal Rahman   MAKT   Creative Rollerblade Team   00:36:34   00:36:34
2  Zschätzsch, Daniel (GER) M Creative Rollerblade Team 00:36:48
3  (2) Hahn, Boris (GER) MAKT Creative Rollerblade Team 00:36:48
...
40 (12) Schüler, Merten (GER)   MAKT   skate-connection.de   00:45:12

Women:
171 starters in total
1  (1) Sell, Maritje (GER)   WAKT   Zepto Skate Team   00:38:29
2 (2) Gradert, Isabell (GER) WAKT Skate-Team Celle 00:43:24
3  (1) Becker, Colette (GER) W40 IC-Hannover 00:45:02
...
9   (1)  Kessels, Janina (GER)   W30   SCC XSpeed Team Berlin   00:47:43
...
27   (8 )  Hilger, Michaela (GER)   WAKT   LondonSkaters Speed Team   00:52:55

And here my report: to sum it up: the worst race I've ever had. The start was a chaos: group start with all skaters. NO blocks. Starting on cobbles. I've lost a lot of places there. Then I've been skating a long long time alone cause I wanted to reach a faster paceline.
Then some time later we entered the "walking zone" of Hannover. Cobbles again. One wrong foot setdown from me and another skater pushing against my frame and I lay on my side again. Well, the other road rash was nearly gone   Some kind of medical asked me whether I wanted to quit. NO !!
Then I lost my paceline again of course... some time later I found a guy to skate with. Suddenly the road made a turn and I followed the road (sensible isn't it?). But that was wrong and I stood just in front of a barrier. I was supposed to skate across some cobbles again. Well, turn and start again chasing a group.
Later on we had to cross some trackage and cobbles again. Everywhere cobbles. After 15km I had no fun doing the race and hoping it to end soon. I think the people of my paceline now know some more swearing in English  

To sum it up: the weather was ok (sunshine with a lot of wind), the track was, in my view, really bad. I think I will not do this race again.

[Alan]

Poor Michi; considering your report about the course (and the winning times), you both did very well.
Michi, really pleased that you kept going. Well done!

[merten]

I had heard some so-so things about this half marathon in the days leading up to the race, and what I experienced today proved that.

It was a cheap race to enter And if you go for it like a training session it is actually not too bad. Which is what I really did from the beginning. Start went OK-ish, given only two lanes with cobbles and more than 400 people of all abilities together. So I still overtook quite a bit and ended up in a pack with Janina and loads of others. Must have been the second pack, but this just split when I arrived, so stayed in the third. Janina fell back after 6/7 km, where the pack split again, I stayed in the third. From there, the race went OK, had no trouble keeping up. But this gave me more time to enjoy the course a bit, which was good from a spectator perspective, but not well marshalled and a bit like London streets in places. Did not really sprint in the end, was one of the last of the pack to finish, the first one came in position 30, still not a bad result for me.

I think I could have done better probably, but only by risking much more - not with a lot more and greater races to come, this was a training session after all. The course is OK if you know what is coming, but better marshalling (flags or so) would be good for some parts. The crowds were nice, and also the refreshment and other organisations people.

Too bad that Michi had another fall, and once again with "external help". This is getting into a fashion, hopefully it stops right here...  

[skaterliesel]

Michi and Merten are absolutely right ... this was just on the better side of hell (only for the weather!). And there is not much I can say to defend my original home city : the only "plus" was an immense variety of locked off streets to do the warm up  
As the race was not DRIV-licenced, there was no "team-/licenced-block" and even the colour codes on the race numbers were marginally indicative. Looking around and seeing too many "heel-break-rubber-duck-on-helmet-50+ guys"   ... (sorry, if I offended anyone, but more than two of those around me, scare me breathless ) I managed to persuade Michi and Merten to move up more to the front   , which was probably a wise thing to do as just around the first corner (300m from the start) I heard the first bunch going down somewhere behind me.

I will never ever complain about London roads anymore   and if I do, just hit me   . Having lived in Hannover for more than 20yrs, I know that city pretty well and knew some of the tricky turns that Michi could not forsee ... and only that knowledge saved me two times from slamming straight into barriers or leading the whole group into the watching crowd instead around the turn!!  Marshalls yelling at you "turn right !" when you have to take "the other right" turn , is pretty bad indeed    and will have me write some nasty e-mails to the organising committee.

Well, no more comments on the course  ..... the sad facit is :  
Even if it's a "cheap" race, give Hannover a wide berth as long as they do not resurface the roads and take out the part of the course through the pedestrian zone.   (The Berlin 25km is more fun, anyhow - always on the same weekend)