Drebber Lauf: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The marathon is the first event of the day and starts at 14:30, ninety minutes before every other distance. It runs on a 2.34 kilometre circuit of made-up village roads through the district of Jacobidrebber, from Schulstrasse via Kolkstrasse, Muehlenweg, Dorfstrasse and Mittelweg, over Zur Drebber Hoehe and Lange Wand with its out-and-back into Jacobistrasse, then along Hoopener Strasse and through the roundabout back into Schulstrasse. Start and finish are at the sports ground. Eighteen of those laps make the marathon; the recorded track measures 42.9 kilometres.

There is effectively no profile. The whole elevation band of the lap covers barely three metres, around 64 metres of climbing accumulate over the full marathon, and more than 96 percent of the course is flat. The only piece of terrain the area offers is the Drebber Hoehe, which the organiser himself calls a flat hill. Signs on the course show lap number and distance covered for every discipline, because otherwise you simply lose count.

What carries this marathon is the village. Roads are closed from 12:30, many residents and above all the households along the route use the day for barbecues and street parties, and the course is decorated. A feed station stands in front of the sports hall just past the start and finish area; you pass it every lap and can leave your own supplies there. Children's races, coffee and cake and two food stalls run in parallel on the school yard. The organiser is TSV Drebber von 1920.

Pacing Strategy

A marathon made of eighteen identical laps needs its own kind of pacing. Because you get an exact split every 2.34 kilometres, the temptation to recalculate and correct constantly is strong. Instead set a lap time you trust yourself to repeat eighteen times, and deliberately hold back over the first six even though it feels too slow.

The race is decided between lap ten and fourteen. From 16:00 every other distance starts on the same circuit, so the course suddenly fills up and you are passed by runners covering two or four laps. Let that carry you along and you pay for it over the closing four laps, when those same people are long finished and you are running alone.

The biggest trap is the time of day. A marathon start at 14:30 in mid-June falls in the warmest part of the day, and the village streets give little shade; only the second half of the race runs into the cooler evening. Use the feed station in front of the sports hall from the very first lap, leave your own supplies there, and plan your drinking for a hot phase that is ahead of you rather than behind.

Training plan for Drebber Lauf: 12-week build

For a typical age-group runner this race lasts between about 3:15 and 5:00 hours. The demand is pure, uniform aerobic work: no climb, no descent, no change of direction beyond the same village corners over and over. For four hours muscles and tendons work in an almost identical pattern, and that is exactly what has to be trained.

The main priority is volume: long runs from 30 kilometres whose second half is at planned marathon pace. Because the course is entirely on asphalt with no changes of surface, a large part of that belongs on made-up roads too; calves and Achilles tendons need to know the uniform loading.

The mental side decides the race. Anyone who has never run a lapped marathon underestimates what eighteen repetitions of the same street do to concentration. Simulate it by running some long sessions as laps of a short circuit rather than point to point, and practise thinking lap by lap rather than kilometre by kilometre.

Conditions call for real preparation. A 14:30 start in June means heat in the first third of the race and a finish in the late evening light, an unfamiliar shape to the day. Move some long sessions into the early afternoon, rehearse breakfast and lunch before an afternoon start, and test the nutrition you are going to leave at the station in front of the sports hall.