29th – Racing from west to east and back

The travel company I travelled with had a bus leaving the hotel to the starting area at 0645 so it was an early start for the day. But we were off on time and 15-ish minutes later we arrived at the Victory Column where we left the bus and walked the rest of the way. From there it took 20 minutes to get to an entrance, and from there you had a bit again to reach the main area, the large lawn in front of the Bundestag. I decided to making my way to my starting area – it was still early, but not knowing the area and it being expansive I’d rather stand there waiting than suddenly being in a hurry and not being able to find my way. I ended being there for almost 1½ hours and freezing towards the end (standing still in shorts/t-shirt in less than 13°C is not recommended) but it was worth it – especially when seeing how packed it got in the last half hour. 

But finally it was on: at 0915 the elite and fastest were started and 10 minutes later we got to go. It started off really well, and I was still feeling optimistic since a half marathon 2 weeks ago I completed in record time (for me) 1:43. The weather was quite grey and it never got warmer, but despite the occasional drizzles it never felt too cold. The run had more than 44000 starters so especially in the beginning it was quite congested. Luckily there was plenty of room on the streets until the runners were a little more spread out.

The first kilometer took you past the Victory Column.

Photo taken by Sportograf.com.

Passing by Koncerthaus Berlin where we had lunch yesterday.

Photo taken by Sportograf.com.

Unfortunately it turned out things started out a little too well – having passed the halfway point it didn’t take long before my legs decided that this marathon was a very bad idea. It meant that I went from a calculated finish time of around 3:40 to 3:45, then to 3:50 and finally finishing at 3:58:16, half a minute from my PR. I ended up being 2915 out of 4915 in my class (top 59,31%), 15939 out of 30775 men (top 51,79%) and 19402 out of 44064 overall (top 44,03%), and while I wasn’t too happy about not getting a new PR putting it up like that I'll admit it doesn’t look too bad.

Coming through Brandeburger Tor makes you tingle (and it's not the feeling of exhaustion).

Photo taken by Sportograf.com.

Photo taken by Sportograf.com.

Crossing the finish line. 3 moods are represented. The overly happy one on the right, me feeling happy it's over (but still happy for doing it) and the one in the bottom left corner who has seen death.

Photo taken by Sportograf.com.

The route itself was nice and you did get to see a fair bit of (the central part of) Belin and the route didn’t repeat itself along the way. The last 500m felt quite amazing as you ran up towards and through Brandeburger Tor and the view was great despite the bad weather. Finally crossing the finishing line I slowed down (even more – to a walk) and my legs thought it would be a great idea to get all wiggly. It took a moment to get everything under control again before continuing through the finish area, get some snacks, drinks and most importantly my medal.

I returned to the Victory column where the bus would be transporting us back to our hotels – the walk back took close to an hour on my tired legs. But I got there, got into the bus, sat down and soon after could take a nice, much needed, not shower.