No GPS watch or pace alerts, just Germany’s fastest marathon debut

Most of us would probably obsess over the numbers if we were about to run our first marathon. Blanka Dörfel went in the opposite direction. The 24-year-old German ran Sunday’s Frankfurt Marathon without a watch, trust her instincts and see what happened.

What happened was a 2:20:46 finish. Dörfel’s time makes her the second-fastest German woman in marathon history, behind only Irina Mikitenko’s national record of 2:19:19.

She also produced the fastest marathon debut ever by a German woman, comfortably beating Melat Kejeta’s 2:23:57 from Berlin in 2019. Only Irina Mikitenko has gone quicker, running the long-standing German record of 2:19:19 in Berlin in 2008.

No watch for her marathon debut

What caught our attention before the race was Dörfel’s approach to pacing. Speaking to European Athletics, she said: “I will be running without a watch and will trust my instincts.”

That is unusual in a sport where even recreational runners have access to live pace, heart rate, running power and estimated finishing times on their wrist. Dörfel preferred to judge the effort herself. Of course, she still had the benefit of pacemakers, course clocks and plenty of experience at shorter distances.

And her pacing certainly didn’t fall apart, despite the lack of a sports watch. Dörfel passed 30 km in 1:39:52, moved into second place later in the race and was actually closing on Yimer during the final kilometres.

By 40 km, the gap had fallen to around 52 seconds as Yimer began to slow. Dörfel couldn’t quite catch her, with the Ethiopian taking victory in 2:19:45. Still, Dörfel’s 2:20:46 finish was enough to put her among Germany’s best ever female marathon runners.

A very different approach to race data

We’ve seen plenty of unusual watch choices among elite marathon runners recently. Lemi Berhanu won the Amsterdam Marathon wearing a Garmin Forerunner 255, showing that the latest hardware isn’t exactly a requirement at this level.

Dörfel’s approach goes further because she planned to remove the watch from the equation altogether. That doesn’t mean GPS watches suddenly have no value, particularly for amateur runners who rely heavily on live pace to avoid starting too quickly.

But her Frankfurt performance is a useful reminder that the numbers on the wrist are only one part of the equation. Dörfel trusted her own sense of pace on her marathon debut and put in a great performance.

There was plenty of drama in the men’s race too. Ethiopia’s Jirata Dinki pulled off a surprise victory in 2:05:26, with Germany’s Amanal Petros finishing just 20 seconds behind in 2:05:46. Kenya’s Benard Biwott rounded out the podium in 2:06:23.

And Frankfurt isn’t the only marathon happening today. It’s a packed Sunday for distance running, with marathons also taking place in Dublin, Venice, Washington (Marine Corps Marathon), Nairobi, Chengdu, Jakarta, Casablanca, Lausanne, Lucerne and Tirana.