Thank you all for your support, good wishes and concern after the Frankfurt Marathon. Yes, I dropped out. Not what I planned to do, and it certainly doesn’t bring up any good emotions. In short: The two antibiotic treatments for respiratory inflammation within the last 5 weeks finally caught up with me.

Everybody knows how hard it is to interpret the body’s signals in the two weeks before the marathon. I was clinically healthy and day by day feeling stronger and the side-effects seem to have nearly vanished. The training over the last 10 days wasn’t bad either. Surely these weeks were far from ideal race preparation but no reason not to give it a shot. I was excited and marathon-hungry.

The day before the race my mouth was a bit strange again and I was sweating an unusual amount. Don’t freak out – it´s just the funny pre-race sensations I was telling myself. We finally started and: My legs were simply powerless. My muscles were already burning strongly on a little uphill in the first few kilometers. We had already been running slightly slower than planned and I was prepared to push relatively hard to warm up on the 10K´s to get into the race. But it just got worse without even being halfway through. I had great support from my pacemaker.

Roger Königs (THANK YOU!!!) and also the spectators on the course were pushing me forward. However, nothing could change the fact: I was not able to perform and I did not want to challenge my body any longer than necessary. Thus, I stopped at the half marathon.

At the moment I am mentally worn out but I am taking this fall as a lesson and looking forward to my annual leave – it is overdue. My problem is manageable – my immune system is not back yet and naturally, it needs time to get the balance back though we often wish the situation would be different.

Congratulations to all the marathon finishers! It wasn´t an easy day and you made it!
Yours Mona

Thanks to Henri Salavard for the great shot!