Mockenhaupt wins her 35th German title and targets the Zurich 2014 marathon | 17.09.2012
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| Sabrina Mockenhaupt of Germany. |
"It is difficult to keep the tempo going when you are on your own," she told Leichtathletik.de. "I knew the women behind me could run fast so I wanted to get away from them as fast as possible right from the start. But I only ended up tiring myself out. There were so many bends in the course that it was not such a fast course as I thought it would be and in the end I lost interest a bit."
Mockenhaupt has been picked for the World Half-Marathon Championships in Kavarna, Bulgaria, next month and is looking forward to it: "I know I have plenty in reserve for the half marathon. After the track it is always difficult to find the right stride for the road at first and this was a good training run for me since I ran this off the back of 180km a week training. I am not particularly tired, I would have like to have gone faster, but that would only have been possible in a mixed race with men. At least it would not have been so lonely up front.
"But I am looking forward to the worlds. Top ten is my goal and in a good time, around 1:10, but I will have to go through half-way in the time I have run here," explained Mockenhaupt.
Last year in Frankfurt, after targeting a personal best, she had a bad run and finished down the field in ninth with a time well outside her best of 2:26.21 from Berlin the previous year. Was she considering more marathons?
"I am still considering a trip over the marathon distance this year, but have not yet decided which. I really want to get a grip on the marathon distance and above all not die as soon as I did in Frankfurt (2:28.08).
The point is that the man with the hammer should not come as soon as he did in Frankfurt. It is at least important to finish the marathon with a good feeling. I can well imagine running the marathon in the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich."
