I am a D3 distance runner and this Spring/Summer I will be interning in Heidelberg, Germany. My plan is to continue running but I am wondering does anybody know how the running system in Germany works? Are there any clubs/local teams that I can run/train with instead of running alone each day? Any info would be great.
Thanks
Hi Kenny,
German athletics is very club-oriented and college/uni athletics is basically non-existent with all decent runners representing and competing for clubs. If you want to compete in open (club) competitions and/or local/regional championships, you will almost definitely need to join a club.
You may well be able to train with a club group without doing this though...
I think Heidelberg falls under the jurisdiction of the Badischer Leichtathletik Verband:
The club which springs to mind is USC Heidelberg:
http://www.usc-hd.de/verein/leichtathletik
Hope this helps!
Hi Kenny,
German athletics is very club-oriented and college/uni athletics is basically non-existent with all decent runners representing and competing for clubs. If you want to compete in open (club) competitions and/or local/regional championships, you will almost definitely need to join a club.
You may well be able to train with a club group without doing this though...
I think Heidelberg falls under the jurisdiction of the Badischer Leichtathletik Verband:
The club which springs to mind is USC Heidelberg:
http://www.usc-hd.de/verein/leichtathletik
Hope this helps!
Kenny, you might be able to find a few decent U.S. military runners vicinity Heidelberg. It is not difficult to find a club to work with. Check out one of the Lauf (running) calendars for info on races and organized runs. It is pretty cold here now but they do a good job clearing the bike paths in winter. best of luck.
I'm American living over in Germany, there are a lot of clubs that you can join of various abilities, as the other guy mentioned you can probably find some decent military runner's in that area, I'm about an hour from where you'll be. I'm sure you'll be able to find some people to do some long to moderate runs with. Most of the clubs are open to the public so you just have to find out their schedule which is usually posted on the club's website and then show up and integrate yourself into the herd.
There are quite a few "decent" runners around, in my area there are a handful of 2:22-24 guys and around the corner is a French guy that is coached by a former 1,500m French champion. In Frankfurt there also is a lot of competitive runners and the Frankfurt Marathon is there also.
If your looking also to get into some races and looking at your competition's results this is a great site to browse:
The one thing I have found is that german runners tend to be somewhat repetitive.
hipster doofus wrote:
The one thing I have found is that german runners tend to be somewhat repetitive.
The Germans do like their intervals.