Berlin Marathon 28/09/08
The flight to Berlin was good laugh – it’s the first time I’ve been on a plane that was full of really thin, sober Scottish people, all wearing Asics trainers! There were a few running clubs on board, and a few unattached runners I knew from the gym. When we got to Berlin, the weather was beautiful. In fact, the sun was shining throughout all of the events over the marathon weekend. Saturday was the “in-line skaters’ marathon”, “bambini race” and “kinder race”. Sunday was the runners’ marathon. There was also a massive marathon expo all weekend, which was more stressful than useful!
On Sunday, the event was amazingly well organised, although getting to the start was a bit of a drama. I guess that’s what happens when you have 40,000 runners who’ve all left it a little too late! As well as the 40,000 entrants, there were over 1 million supporters and 60 live bands en-route. Lots of the bands were great, a couple were terrible! The supporters were fantastic. The entire route was covered in supporters, 2 or 3 people deep, and they were all shouting, cheering, clapping, ringing bells, waving flags and dancing. It really was the best atmosphere I’ve ever seen on a race, and it really helped.
The route was superb. Mostly flat, along big wide and smooth roads. We passed through lots of historic areas, and saw lots of beautiful sights. Although it was sunny, the buildings kept us in the shade for most of the race. However, I did manage to top up my tan! The local fire engines were also out with sprinklers that you could run under the water to chill out. This was great, although I ended up with one wet foot, resulting in a huge blister on my big toe.
I ran the race really well for the first 40k, with relatively consistent times for each 10k split. I was aiming for under 3 hours, and it was all on target up to 40k. However, I lost it a bit at the last 2k, and ended up finishing with the time of 3hr00m35s. The organisers sent me a text message with my official time and place 30 mins after I finished. I have a mixed emotion about my time as it is my new PB (25 secs quicker than last marathon). I really wanted to get under 3hrs, so I was a bit disappointed. However, I really could not have gone any faster on the day!
Meanwhile, Haile Gabreselassie won the men’s race setting a new world record with a time of 2hr03m59s, and Irina Mikitenko won the woman’s race with a time of 2hr19m19s.
Afterwords, I set a new world record for drinking beer and going clubbing. Needless to say, Monday was a bit rough and sore!
Report Moray Paterson
