Obstacle runner Gesa Krause: "I was simply over physically"

Friday 25th December 2020

Obstacle runner Gesa Krause
"I was just over physically"

"I was so ambitious that I forgot the pain," said world-class obstacle runner Gesa Krause in an interview with ntv.de. In the first of two parts of the conversation, Krause speaks about her tendency to torture, the processing of the Olympic cancellation and her mental hole after the botched German championship.

ntv.de: Ms. Krause, do you like to torture yourself?

Gesa Krause: A runner simply has to have a certain tendency to torture. I practice a discipline in which you push your limits and deal with exhaustion. I've always liked that and I have to like something about it, otherwise I wouldn't do it.

By mid-December you were in the high altitude training camp in Iten in Kenya for the 20th time. Each time you say afterwards: never again!

There I am faced with a special challenge every time. At an altitude of 2,400 meters, running is much more strenuous and accordingly you have these borderline experiences more often. It was the first time I was in Kenya for six weeks, we were separated in our hotel like living in a bubble. It's been a tough time again, especially the last few days, and I'm glad I got through it. I'll be flying there again in January. (laughs)

Have you always been good at this: pushing your limits?

It's just part of me. As a child, I took part in my first competition as a layman after just a few months of athletics training. I started running and went right beyond my limits. I came in second at the finish, collapsed and cried because the exhaustion and the pain were so great. As a child, I missed the mark, I was so ambitious that I forgot the pain. Over the years you learn to divide your limits much better.

The Corona year 2020 also seemed agonizing to many people. Before this season they were in world-class shape, broke the German record for the 3000 meter obstacle (9: 03.30 minutes) in September 2019 and it seemed as if Tokyo would be 2020 Your Olympics will be.

I won bronze at the 2019 World Cup in Doha and that showed me that I can really be among the world's best. That gave me wings, I was in very good shape and I jumped straight back into training. In March I flew to the USA for a competition that was canceled, but I stayed there for another five weeks. Then I found out that the Olympics had been canceled.

What was going on in your head?

As an athlete, you're so polarized that you keep going and don't let yourself get down. At the time, I didn't assume that Corona would keep us busy for so long and still believed in a summer season, the Diamond League and the European Championship in August. I wouldn't have thought that everything would then be canceled or postponed. To train for so long without a goal was difficult. The floor was torn from under my feet, something is simply missing. When the German Championships were supposed to take place, I threw everything into training again and said to myself: The competition has to work out now. Unfortunately, I then completely ruined the race. Only then did I realize what the postponement of the Olympics had really done to me.

In fact?

Of course, my body didn't know that the competitions were no longer taking place. I continued to train as if I had a normal summer season. The bigger challenge was: I have to do another Olympic build-up. That means: a lot of privation, being away from home, difficult travel conditions in Corona times. As an athlete, you normally think in terms of Olympic cycles and in the year after the games you should be able to take a breath. Actually, I wanted to take a few months off in autumn, but now it's just going on. So it was especially important that I regain my mental freshness.

Keyword: mental freshness. At the German championships in Braunschweig in August, you had to give up your race exhausted and then canceled the season. Many asked: What was going on? You felt that was an attack on you.

Something like outrage arose: Why didn't Gesa Krause win? A lot of people didn't expect it, I wanted to defend my title too. I had to explain myself more and more, and I just showed humanity. Many do not know what is behind such a competition that you need a very long training period of around 10 months for world-class performance.

You are sometimes called "Miss Reliable", otherwise you always performed and since 2015 you had always won the German championship over 3000 m obstacle.

I am not a machine. Sometimes I just have a really bad day. At the end of the day, the explanation for the poor performance is quite rational for me: I trained very hard beforehand in the training camp and just wasn't recovered enough. You can of course blame my coach and me for not timing things properly, but in a year without competitions, this is of course all the more difficult. I only fell into my mental hole afterwards. Physically, I was just over the top – beyond what is good. Due to the postponement of the Olympics, I no longer had the strength or saw the point in fighting my way out of the hole.

Part two of the interview will follow on December 26th.

David spoke to Gesa Krause in need.