Lisa Haner reports from Marathon Training Camps in New Zealand
Parasites are gone. Full of energy, marathon runner Lisa Haner prepares to compete in the Berlin Half Marathon in New Zealand. The 33-year-old from the Fulda region gives insight into the training camp and more.
Written by Lisa Haner
Rotorua – Kia Ora from New Zealand. With my training group, I have decided to travel to New Zealand summer at the beginning of 2023 to prepare for the spring semester here. The Berlin Half Marathon on April 2nd is supposed to be my entry into the competition.
The more training sessions I do here, the better I feel. A feeling I haven’t had for many weeks in 2022. The start of training was always good, the next units were even better, but instead of being able to top, which is so important in competitive sports, my body needed a break.
FULDA: Lisa Haner talks about the marathon training camp in New Zealand
something unbalanced. Once too many training stimuli came on, my body was just overwhelmed. In late fall it turned out that parasites were the main cause of this imbalance. It’s been overcome: Instead of feeling insecure, I now feel confident.
Even if my legs were heavy and tired during one training session, there were no longer any thoughts about whether my body would ever fully rebel again. Now the unit isn’t great, but that’s totally fine as long as it’s going forward in the long run. And that’s it.
For me, unconditional love is the best relationship to walk into. I invest sweat, discipline, and lifeline, but I don’t expect anything in return.
An almost childish anticipation of the difficult contingent takes hold of me in the morning when the sun is up. So I spontaneously decided to run a competition this past Monday, a public holiday in New Zealand: the Karapiro Half Marathon in Cambridge.
It is not specially prepared, but as an incentive for training. So that I can mentally get used to standing at the starting line more often. The conditions were tough, the road was hilly with a longer section of meadow, constant rain, wind and falls including a mudslide on my side.
It was fun, the time (1:22:29 hours) doesn’t make much sense given the circumstances. Nevertheless, I was very happy with the overall victory (at the same time I was faster than all the guys). I see the training camp in New Zealand as an opportunity and a privilege.
I no longer depended on running results to pay my rent and food. My twin sister and I have built a second brace through Hahnertwins Coaching, for which we write training and nutrition plans.
The internship work is so much fun, it has to do with our actual studies (Bachelor of Education) and we can do it ourselves from the other side of the world – New Zealand is actually on the other side of the world. . New Zealand is a beautiful country consisting of the North and South Islands.
I’m in the North Island, more specifically in Rotorua. I can’t think of a better training area. Whakarewarewa Forest is right on our doorstep. Huge forest area (more than 5,600 hectares) with countless trails and beautiful lakes. Wide forest roads, fun little trails, ups and downs, all in the most beautiful natural surroundings.
Rotorua, an indigenous Maori city with a population slightly larger than Fulda, is built on a volcano. There is still thermal and volcanic activity underground. That is why almost everywhere in the city smells of sulfur or – in other words – of rotten eggs.
Speaking of eggs. I can’t rely on my intuition when cooking. For us Germans, the temperature controls for the hot plates are incorrectly arranged. So sometimes I wait in vain for the pan of fried eggs to heat up, meanwhile the vegetables on the other plate are burnt.
Lisa Haner tests her “running talent” at boot camp
The faulty console turned on again. In addition, the levels increase counterclockwise from 1 to 6. So exactly the opposite. It is clear that you can count on the sun, which also shines here in the east. But then it’s all the other way around again: at noon it’s north instead of south and then it turns west.
The time difference for Germany is 12 hours. When it is eight o’clock here, it is also eight o’clock in Germany. Only not in the morning, but the evening before, that is, at 8 pm. We recently had a craftsman in our accommodation, after which I talked to him about the cultural differences between New Zealand and Germany.
This is a gift from running: through our sport we not only see many places in the world due to competitions and training camps, but we also get to know many people and cultures. In our competitive sports careers, we’ve learned that the journey is just as important as the destination. As a competitive athlete, you are always looking to aim big, and reach for the stars.
A race, a certain time – and sometimes on the way there you forget to stop and see the weeks leading up to the race not just as preparation, but as part of the whole. The training is exhausting, but without a certain lightness in the head and joy, the legs become stiff. Yoga and meditation, homemade chocolate with coffee, phone calls home, music, a nice movie or a good book help me with this.
I fell in love with running when we gave First Spark, a motivational speech to Joy Kelly in February 2007 at Conzel. After ten years as a professional athlete, I’ve come to realize that the best relationship I have with running is unconditional love. I invest sweat, discipline, and lifeline, but I don’t expect anything in return. I run for the sake of running, so I decompress and am excited about everything I can achieve in the future.
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