Bis the last day Marc Reuther had fought in the summer. About catching the plane to the Olympic Games in Tokyo. But at the end of June, the 800 meter specialist from Frankfurt Eintracht missed the standard for a start in Japan of 1: 45.20 minutes by the tiniest of two hundredths of a second. That and in the private sphere the separation from his long-time girlfriend and athletics colleague Lisa Mayer rounded off a phase that brought difficult moments for the 25-year-old in many ways.
“Pretty much everything came together, what there were low blows,” says Reuther looking back, without going into further private matters in this context. “But sometimes it is better to really blow in the face than just a little.” Because then you are forced to question a lot. What he really wanted, what made him happy, what sport still meant to him – the Düsseldorf native tried to find out that and much more.
The restart is done. Last Saturday, Reuther was back in a race for the first time this winter. In the Kalbach athletics hall, the favorite won over 600 meters in 1: 16.56 minutes and left his training and club colleagues Dennis Biederbick (1: 17.42) and Marvin Heinrich (1: 18.09) behind in the remote duel. The unfamiliar route is “great” for entry, explains the winner. On this Saturday, when there is another running evening in the calendar, he will tackle his main discipline for the first time.
Mo. – Fr. at 4 p.m.; Sa. – So. at 6 p.m.
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The surprising early start to the season has a system. The running group of middle-distance national trainer Georg Schmidt is adjusting the training model in the hall to that in summer, when two highlights are on the agenda in the German championships and the respective international major event. After three competitions under the roof in 2021, the Hessians will pause with such performance reviews until February. According to Reuther, this also has the advantage that the athletes can relax and “let the mind rest” during the holidays. “Last year, on a Christmas morning, I climbed over a fence to do my laps on a sports field instead of having breakfast with my family,” recalls the athlete who grew up in Wiesbaden. He doesn’t want anything like that anymore.
Friends, family, a good environment, that has always been important to the European and World Cup participants. “I have to feel good in order to perform well,” he says. But in the past twelve months, the two-time German outdoor champion had lost sight of this personal drive. At the beginning of 2020, he had relocated his training location to Leipzig in order to try something new under running national trainer Thomas Dreißigacker. It got off to a good start with a new best time of 1: 45.39 minutes indoors, a successful title defense at national level and a further increase in performance outdoors to 1: 44.93 at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco after a broken elbow.
At the beginning of the year 2021, the participation in the Olympics seemed only a formality for the Germany-wide dominant on his route. But after the desired results were not achieved in the hall, the ambitious Hessian wanted to step on the gas and urged Drei 30acker to support him. At some point the body said stop; then the top strength in training was withdrawn from younger people. “In the season it was only about damage control,” says Reuther. But the damage could no longer be repaired.
Scope reduced – standards achieved
After a disappointing fifth place at the German championships in Braunschweig in early June in an indisputable 1: 48.30 minutes, Schmidt offered his former athlete to take him to Frankfurt in the car. “We never spoke out when I left,” says Reuther. Now was the time for that. The thought of returning to the Frankfurt training group matured.
The fun quickly returned there. The economics student has significantly reduced the scope and places more value on quality than quantity. That gives him more opportunity to spend time with people he trusts. In Leipzig he missed someone to talk to. In Frankfurt, when there was a crisis, several friends rang the doorbell after ten minutes.
At the end of the summer season, Reuther proved that things are going up again for him from the deep hole. At a meeting in Luxembourg he was faster than ever in 1: 44.71 minutes and thus secured the standard for the European Championships in Munich and the World Championships in Eugene in 2022 a year in advance. Of course, this is also thanks to the hard work been in Saxony. “But I was walking in a trance.” Now Marc Reuther is back in the middle of life.
