wEvery year Jo Schindler will follow the last minutes of the marathon this Sunday in front of a small screen in the Festhalle in Frankfurt. He will hide the jubilation, the shouts. Schindler is therefore fully focused on the leader’s steps. Even when Wilson Kipsang nearly set the world record in Frankfurt, Schindler was where he always is; It was 2011. The last 60 meters in the corridor, 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 long. Schindler knows the protagonists of the scene, but it’s not just about them. He is a marathon organizer. His clients are the ones who slowly step on the plastic cups, complete the race for a deceased partner, attack the personal best, seek an experience. It’s not like Schindler tells you directly. Almost as much as the best athletes need for the 42.195 kilometers, you have to work on him until he emotionally talks about his passion.
A life for the marathon
If you ask him what it means to run a marathon, he says, “It’s like any event, we have a plan, many pages long, to work on.” But it’s actually a lie. For Schindler, 63, a marathon is not like another event, it is his life.
Schindler likes to look the finalists in the face. He knows many faces, he knows the happiness, the suffering and the crises of life, the tears and the silence when the runners are at the limit because they can no longer physically. He also associates emotional moments with his marathon races. He says, “Of course I don’t tell you which ones.”
A Regensburger says yes to the main marathon
One might think that the case brought Schindler to Frankfurt, but that is not the case. He ran his best marathon here, 2:46 hours, in the mid 90’s on a cold October day. Schindler prefers him to be too cold to too hot when he fights himself.
At that time, the marathon did not end at Schindler’s Festhalle, but at Messeturm. When asked by the city if he could imagine it – Frankfurt, Marathon and him. Obviously he said yes. 2002 was that.
Schindler really lives there Regensburg, his hometown, and commutes between the Danube and the Main. Previously he had organized and professionalized the Regensburg marathon. For this he gave up his old job in adult education, a decision for the marathon.
So this long period has 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 all the way,” says Schindler. He has never been able to do that, he has always had a knack for middle and long distances – and he wasn’t in the same club as his wife. But Regensburg is small, so people cross paths.
