Wach year, Jo Schindler will follow the last minutes of the marathon this Sunday in front of a small screen in the Frankfurt Festhalle. He will hide the jubilation, the shouts. Schindler is then completely focused – on the steps of the leader. Even when Wilson Kipsang almost set the world record in Frankfurt, Schindler was where he always is; That was in 2011. The last 60 meters in the hall, across the red carpet, Schindler looked into Kipsang’s eyes: he couldn’t make it. Kipsang laughed afterwards, but not Schindler – he was so sorry.
Three seconds too slow. Schindler knows the stars of the scene, but it’s not just about them. He is a marathon organizer. His customers are the ones who slowly trample over the plastic cups, complete the run for a deceased partner, attack the personal record, seek an experience. It’s not like Schindler tells you that directly. Almost as long as top athletes need for the 42.195 kilometers, you have to work on him until he speaks emotionally about his passion.
A life for the marathon
If you ask him what it means to organize a marathon, he says: “It’s like any event, we have a plan, many pages long, that we work according to.” But that’s actually a lie. For Schindler, 63, a marathon is not like any other event, it is his life.
Schindler loves to look into the faces of the finishers. He knows many faces, he knows happiness, suffering and life crises, tears and the silence when runners are at the limit because they can no longer physically. He also associates emotional moments with his own marathon races. He says: “Of course I won’t tell you which ones.”
A Regensburger says yes to the main marathon
One might think that chance brought Schindler to Frankfurt, but that’s not the case. He ran his marathon best here, 2:46 hours, in the mid-90s on a cold October day. Schindler prefers it too cold to too hot when fighting himself.
At that time, the marathon did not end in the Festhalle, which Schindler came up with, but at the Messeturm. When he was asked by the city if he could imagine that – Frankfurt, Marathon and he. Of course he said yes. 2002 was that.
Schindler actually lives in Regensburg, his hometown, and commutes between the Danube and the Main. Before that he had organized and professionalized the marathon in Regensburg. For this he gave up his old job in adult education, decision for the marathon.
So this long run shaped everything. His wife is also a runner. She ran the 400 meters and started for a club in Regensburg. “She was able to really push herself over the whole distance,” says Schindler. He was never able to do that, always had a talent for medium and long distances – and was not in the same club as his wife. But Regensburg is small, so people cross paths.
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