Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Thomas Ganzhorn Resilience led to 2hr 46min 55sec in Frankfurt Marathon 2012

Note:

If you are keen and have queries, please contact Coach Rameshon at 9100 4369 or you can email him at m.rameshon@gmail.com or swift.rameshon@gmail.com. Please refer to website http://flexifitness.com.sg (for more information on him and his programmes)

By Rameshon
Bsc (Hons) Degree in Physical Education, Loughborough University (1992-1994)

Masters in Education (University of Western Australia, 2005-2008)

Thomas Ganzhorn - There is more in him


Before we discuss on Patrick Makau's winning of Frankfurt Marathon 2012, I would like to mention of a big improvement made by a very good athlete of ours by the name of Thomas Ganzhorn who also took part in the race as well. 

In the year 2009, Thomas Ganzhorn joined the Singapore Management University (SMU), as an exchange programme student. He came from Germany. He was introduced to me by SMU triathletes. Within a short span of time, Thomas surprised everyone by improving his running time in a short span of time. His improvement in the workout was rapid such that I told him that he could do a sub-2hr 50min for Stanchart Marathon 2009.
 
In that year, he did 2hr 56min while Ashley Liew did 2hr 51min. In that marathon, we were wondering about the reasons for him not to do well. Eventually, we found that his drink was contaminated and he did not do well because of this, although he was fighting fit that year. Even though, he did not do a sub - 2hr 50min, he was very happy with his 2hr 55min. He brought his parents to meet me after the race. 

After the event, I felt that we were going to miss a great pal from Germany who was about to leave Singapore for good. I had to suggest to him not to give up his improvement in the marathon.

My advice to him was to continue running and keep training in Germany. I saw great potentials in him to do sub -2hr 30min in the future. He eventually decided to train very hard in Germany. This time around he had to train in Germany without the presence of us. Nevertheless, he still maintained very good contact with me and Ashley Liew, on Facebook and e-mails. I told him that with modern communication facilities like Facebook and e-mail, distance does not matter. Only a distracted person will lose track of their goal. Thomas was not distracted in any way. He was a focused person in terms of doing well in running even though earlier on things did not look good at first.

For a few years, while in Germany, he was going through several injuries around the shin area which hampered his improvement a lot. He had to do optional training like doing alternative training methods like cycling etc. 

He ran some minor races and kept improving by his consistent training and eventually did the sub-2hr 50min in Frankfurt Marathon. He worked very hard for this and I salute his resilience. 

This time, while Patrick Makau did 2hr 6min 08sec, Thomas Ganzhorn did 2hr 46min 55sec for the race. Thomas eventually proved that he is a force to be reckoned with. Ashley and I are very happy to hear this piece of good news! Congrats, Thomas! 

We hope that many can learn from him on taking the painful long-term approach to training which finally has led Thomas to be our special mention for this blogspot by his sub-2hr 50min performance in Frankfurt marathon. 

Frankfurt Marathon News
Patrick Makau, Kenya's world marathon record holder, won the BMW Frankfurt Marathon  in a time of 2 hours 6 minutes 08 seconds


www.runningcoachsg.com


Note:

By Narayanan

Rameshon has taught in Hwa Chong Institution, plus several schools, and Republic Polytechnic as well. He has won many accolades and he was awarded Merit Award for 1991 marathon performance in breaking the national record of Singapore, at that time. He has made 22 male athletes do a marathon in sub-3hrs. He has made 7 female runners do sub-4 hours for the marathon, as well. He was inducted to the ‘Roll of Honour’  by the then College of Physical Education, organised by Singapore Olympic Academy, in 1998, for breaking the National record repeatedly 4 times, till he did 2hr 24min 22sec).

He also has a Coaching group and he trains them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7pm at Botanic Gardens. Those interested can call him at 91004369 for coaching assistance, to improve performance. There is also personal training that he does for many in a week. You can e-mail him at swift.rameshon@gmail.com.