I still remember one of my first runs. It was December 1999, the day after hurricane “Lothar” had just swept through southern Germany. I did this run toghether with my dad. Since then, I’ve done roughly 2,000 runs - just a rough estimate, but with 26 years of running and about 1-2 runs per week, the math checks out.

I enjoy competition, so getting faster was always my main motivation.

For the first few years, getting faster was easy. I grew stronger, ran more, and naturally improved. My peak 10K speed came in 2009 - exactly 10 years after I started running - when I was 19 years old. After that, I shifted my focus to longer distances and never reached that speed again.

My overall fitness hit its peak at 23. Then life kicked in: a full-time job, three kids, and suddenly, my workout time was filled with… well, everything else. My fitness didn’t crash overnight; it just slowly declined year by year.

Three years ago, I hit rock bottom. That’s when I made an active decision: I needed to do more sport again. What if I could get faster even as I get older?

Last year, for the first time in over a decade, I actually got faster. I ran 10K faster than the year before. I’m 35 now, and in theory, I should still have a few fast years left. But injuries became one of the biggets threats to my training routine. So the question is: How do I keep improving without breaking myself?

My current training framework is heavily inspired by a former world record-holding speed skater. His strategy made sense to me, so I adapted it (with much lower volume, obviously).

I combined his philosophy with my golden rule for injury prevention: Only increase your training volume by 10% year over year.

So what I do now is:

  • Build a strong base with lots of easy miles
  • Strength training to avoid injuries
  • Focused intervals for 2 months per year leading up to my key race

Is this the best way to train? Maybe not. There are probably more efficient methods. But this system fits my life, and more importantly, it’s something I can stick to. To see real results, I need to be consistent over several years.

My expectation? I’ll keep getting faster for the next few years—maybe until I’m 45. After that, age will probably start working against me. But until then? Let’s see how far I can go.