RUNNING GERMANY – Mockenhaupt wins her 35th German title and targets the Zurich 2014 marathon – European Athletics – (EAA) – News

Sabrina Mockenhaupt won her 35th German title over all distances when she came home first in the national 10km championships at the weekend. Practically unchallenged she came home in a time of 32:56, over a minute outside her best time for the distance.

"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."

European Athletics – (EAA) – News