TiTs, Me, Kaz and Fozzy.
Berlin is a marathon that seems to have been on my “to do” list forever. I did New York in 1999 & Chicago in 2000, the natural progression was Berlin but family life came along and priorities changed. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining, I wouldn’t have had it any other way but it made competing in this “Marathon Major” even more special after such a long wait.
I flew to Berlin on Saturday to give me time to visit the Expo and collect my race number. What an expo, the word MASSIVE doesn’t even start to describe it. Loved the white BMW’s at the expo. Want one!
Back in 2000 I bought my timing chip at the Chicago marathon as a souvenir, it was great to be able to use it again in Berlin (I hope it has worked, I’ve not seen the official results yet).
After running Great Langdale last weekend, I had been pondering all week, what pace to run in Berlin and especially as I needed to save something for Chester & Liverpool over the next 2 weeks. But Berlin is one of the flattest courses and holds the world record so surely I’ve got to give it a good crack? Generally I felt I needed to do sub 3:30 to seem to have done the flat course justice but a bit quicker would be good. I set off with the intention of clocking up sub 8 minute miles to keep under my goal and anything quicker would be a bonus. I soon realised I was finding this harder than I had expected. My legs felt quite heavy, maybe the effects of my quick time at Great Langdale last week were having an affect. I continued at this pace well passed half way and was met by fellow TiT Paul “Fozzy” who was good company. By the time we got to 20 miles this pace was becoming increasingly difficult for me but mind over matter and I made my body push on. I couldn’t blame anything the weather was excellent, cool, sunny and calm. The course was every bit as flat as it had been billed. The only hills were the timing chip mats ever 5k. Maybe it was just because I was pushing the pace a bit. With 2 miles to go Fozzy pushed on and I faltered. At least I was inside my goal of 3:30 with a finishing time of 3:26:33. Most importantly I have now, at long last, completed the Berlin marathon and that is 4 of the 5 marathon majors completed. I’m not sure when I will get my chance to complete the last, Boston, as it is the hardest to get in.
I’ve really enjoyed the whole Berlin marathon experience and would definitely recommend it to any runner that wanted to experience a BIG city marathon. I can really see how this city’s marathon had earned the right to be one of the 5 marathon majors. I had stood in the starting line this morning, the organisation had been fantastic to just get us all there. What an absolutely massive start. I just stood there a gasp with a big smile on my face and thought how huge this race was and I still think that was a complete understatement.
I enjoyed the musical entertainment around the course. I think it is the best I have ever heard. The variety is what I think made it so great. We had the whole spectrum of bands from brass to rock. There was also lots of drumming and percussion groups, I really enjoy running and listening to these types of rhythms. One steel band was under a bridge, which made the sound echo and seem even louder, utterly fantastic! My favourite was on a long, very straight wide of road. It was a huge speaker cube about 25 feet high & wide at the far end of the road. Emanating from it was some of my favourite style of progressive house music. I could hear it quarter of a mile away as I ran towards it and watched it getting bigger and louder as I got closer. Only when I was pretty much passing it did I see and realize, stood at front of the speaker cube was the DJ who had a his mixing decks and he was doing his own club DJ mixing set, how cool is that?
After finishing the race and receiving my lovely medal, I collected my bag and lay on the grass in the finisher’s area. It was very pleasant just sitting there in the warm, late summer sun watching the others runners pouring into the area, some seeming like they had been out for a stroll, to others struggling to walk and sit down on the grass. After a drink and some food which I had from my goodie bag I left the finishers area and walked through the park passed the start where I had been only 4 and a half hours earlier. It was weird now seeing the place virtually deserted apart from walkers, cyclists, men taking down the scaffolding and forklifts putting the barriers on lorries. I then continued on to my hotel passed the victory monument with the beautiful golden angel on the top.
I’ve really enjoyed Berlin, not just the marathon, the city is lovely, the U-Bahn under ground train system is great easy way to see the city. The people are very welcoming with embarrassingly good English. If you like to shop then there is a nice mix of shops, from ones you will recognise in the UK to ones you wouldn’t but would find interesting.
The final thing I need to tell you about Berlin is that I thought the little green man who lights up to tell it is safe to cross the road is cool with his brimmed hat. You may think this is a weird comment but I then found out everyone else thinks the same, he has a name “Ampelmann” and a shop selling merchandise of him. How unexpected is that?
To sum up this marathon, totally brilliant, the German organization can not be faulted in any way, I think it is larger than London and it has got to be a very serious contender for the best marathon in the world. If you want to run a very special, BIG city marathon then this is probably the one to do.
