4th – 7th of April – Berlin half marathon

Having completed the SuperHalfs a few years ago I assumed that it was an over and done project. Then Berlin pops up and gets added to the group. So now, to be able to say I have completed the SuperHalfs, I’ll also have to run the Berlin half marathon. It’s not like I have a choice, right?

I had booked at a hotel that was close to the start- and finish area of the run, located in the Tiergarten where half of the park had been closed off to the public. It was all nice and fine until I realized that the only entrance to the area was in the other end of the park, so the close vicinity of the hotel suddenly wasn’t so close after all. On arrival in the city the weather was nice and warm but the closer we got to the run the colder it got – on the day the forecast said something along the lines of 5-7 degrees and windy. I ended up in long sleeves and pants, but throughout the run I realized that the long pants were overkill (and looking at photos of the run I was clearly one of the few not in shorts – at this point one would think I was better at estimating correct clothing for a run).  

 

The National Bismarck Monument.

My sister was also in town to run and we had planned to meet for dinner the night before. I had booked a table at a restaurant near my hotel, but on arrival they denied any knowledge of my reservation. Yes, I had booked on the restaurant’s own page, and yes, I had received confirmation. We were offered a table outside; at this point it was maybe 10 degrees and windy so that was not particularly tempting, so we left and found another place nearby. They had plenty of room and we got a table and got our food. When we were ready to order desserts we were informed the table had been booked so they would have to give us our bill and ask us to leave. It would have been nice to know from the beginning we would only have an hour before getting kicked out.

 

The Victory Column.

 

 The Berlin central station.

The morning of the run the weather was nice but cold. Arriving outside the entrance there were loads of people gathered but as such a big area had been blocked off for the start- and finishing area it never felt crowded at all until you were standing in the starting blocks. And the area being in a park it was just nice walking around under the trees and taking in the mood of the morning. And on time we were sent off.

As with the marathon we started off by circling the Victory Column and continuing west until turning slightly north along Otto-Suhr-Allee and turning south on Schloßstraße. Continuing on crossing Bismarchstraße before turning east along Kurfürstendamm, Tauentzienstraße and Potsdamer Straße, crossing Potsdamer Platz and following along smaller roads until doing a u-turn on Strausberger Platz and going back west again until we came to Unter den Linden, ran through Brandenburger Tor and crossing the finish line.

Having come through the Brandenburger Tor and nearing the finish line.

A slight irritation was the water stations that were set up as they were quite short so it was hard to spread out and not be in the way for each other – and there were no warnings before they showed up so if you weren’t paying attention and looking ahead past other runners you had a hard time preparing to place yourself optimally to get water. The worst situation was a water station right after a sharp turn that couldn’t be seen until you were right at it after the turn. Other than that it was a very nice run. 

I ended up finishing in the official time of 1:43:01, coming in as 7444 out of 43542 overall (top 17,1%), 6154 out of 19446 men (top 31,65%) and 901 out of 2521 M40 (top 35,74%). So I was happy with both the result and relative result. And I got the new SuperHalfs medal now also including Berlin so I was coming home with two medals.

 

Another huge SuperHalfs medal! 

That evening I met up with my sister and two of her friends (who also ran) and one’s partner and kid. A nice dinner and company, concluding another good day of running. I had a few hours the following day to trot around before returning to the airport and ending another trip.

 

Very odd building just outside the central station. At first glance you don't notice the weird shapes 

so you get really confused by the mirror image until you get an understanding of its structure.

Full album can be seen here.

SuperHalfs pt. 2

I guess it was just a matter of time, but the SuperHalfs added a new participant in the group of runs. I was happy to complete the original 5 (Copenhagen, Prague, Valencia, Cardiff and Lisbon) in 2022 and getting the "final" medal, assuming I by doing that finished this challenge. 

But alas, that was not to be. A new run has been added to the group, increasing the number of SuperHalfs to 6. It also means, though, by running the 6th I get another fancy final medal. The old 5-run medal is rmeoved from circulation so there is only one final medal, making the original a rarity. Fancy! Also, I'm making all this sound like it's a bad thing.

4th-5th of April
Flying out to Berlin on a Friday planning on only a short extended weekend. I had actually looked into taking the train instead, but realizing how long it'd take and the number of changes needed I realized it wasn't worth my time - especially considering the price difference on top of that. I'm glad I have been fairly quick at booking hotels as the one I ended up booking at close to the start and finish area is already sold out half a year in advance.

6th of April
The Berlin half marathon has very similar - if not identical - start and finish like the marathon; we start off in Tiergarten going west past the Siegessäule and finishing coming through the Brandenburger Tor. On the way we will be passing Schloß Charlottenburg, crossing Lietzensee, passing Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche and crossing Potsdamer Platz before passing Berliner Dom before reaching Brandenburger Tor and the finish line. The runners get sent off past 10 so at least it's not an too early start.

7th of April
Flying back home, hopefully not too sore considering it's "only" a half marathon and having more runs planned in the following months.

Remembering back to the marathon in 2019 I'm expecting plenty of support along the way and a very well-executed event. It'll be a nice trip.

SuperHalfs conclusion

Back in the good ol' days, in 2019, 5 European half marathons - Prague, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Cardiff and Valencia - announced they got together to give runners an opportunity to earn a fancy medal if you completed all 5 within 36 months from 2020 onward. Off course such a thing was right up my alley and I quickly signed up for all of them. And then that happened, so they were all cancelled and/or postponed. 

And postponed a bit more.

Until towards the end of 2021 where the first started again; Copenhagen and Valencia. So I participated in those though after the Copenhagen run I realized that they wouldn't start counting until the beginning of 2022. They argued they wanted a fresh start and fresh year, and while some of the community complained about this - the communication about this decision hadn't been clear before the Copenhagen run - they held onto that decision and I would have to also run them in 2022 despite completing them in 2021. The horror!

So getting through 2022 I have finally run and completed all 5 Superhalfs.

Prague (2nd of April); 1:44:41
Lisbon (8th of May); 1:46:35
Copenhagen (18th of September); 1:40:05 (PR)
Cardiff (2nd of October); 1:45:11
Valencia (23rd of October); 1:48:08

My goal on the half marathon distance is 1:45 which I didn't achieve for 3 of the runs. Fortunately, due to my fast time in Copenhagen I still managed to stay below 1:45 on average, more exactly 1:44:56. This meant that in Valencia I had 18 seconds to spare. A bit close to comfort, but I am happy I managed and it is now over and done with.

The SuperHalfs medal next to the Valencia HM medal.

23rd – Valencia half-marathon

Staying in a hotel only 20 minutes’ walk from the starting area I relaxed with setting the alarm for 0630. With a snooze and slow shuffle around in the hotel room before leaving at 0715 I realized when coming outside that it was still dark (I had an internal room so I had no view of the outside). Arriving at the starting area, still dark, I shuffled around for a bit more waiting for the start at 0840 (with the elites leaving at 0825). Had I known that there wasn’t any water stations in the area I would definitely have waited a bit before leaving the hotel room. No water at the start (unless you brought it yourself) was a huge surprise to me. That was a first.

It turned out they had only installed speakers near the starting line so if you were anywhere else – and the area was huge – you didn’t have a chance to hear the music or the announcers. Coming up to the starting line it turned out I wasn’t missing much; it was all in Spanish and the announcers sounded like DJs on coke. 

Due to long lines at the porta potties I only made it to my starting group a few minutes before we were brought forward to the starting line. The group I was in contained the 1:30-1:45-runners and I only saw one pacer: the 1:45’er. While I would have preferred a more diverse pace team it was ok, but who’s idea was it to put him in the front of the group instead of somewhere in the middle?!

And, on time, off we went! At 21°-23°C along the way the temps were ok though maybe on the high side. The main issue was the high levels of humidity which made me struggle throughout most of the run. I didn’t seem to be the only one – only a few kilometers into the run I saw runners all over completely drenched in sweat.

The streets used for the course were quite narrow relative to the number of runners and how many they sent off at a time. That meant that it wasn’t until around the half-way point it felt like you could settle into your own pace instead of having to constantly adjust your pace and position due to the others. It was so frustrating. On top of this while running there were only water stations at 5, 10, 15 and 19km. For a warm and humid run like this it felt a bit underwhelming and certainly something you had to plan accordingly for. Personally I would honestly have preferred maybe 1-2 stations more along the way.

The support was good – a lot of people had shown up and stood along the course but there were few signs and the noise level was not near what I had gotten used to from my previous runs. On the other hand that just meant it was easier to concentrate on not crashing into the other runners.

The run was going quite well, the course is flat and turns are relatively easy, but with 5-6km to go my legs started feeling very heavy. I ended up getting in at 1:48:08, slower than my goal of 1:45. I came in as 7128 out of 16915 in total (top 42,14%) and 1324 out of 2383 M40 (top 55,56%). I couldn’t find the number for the position among men. Not the result I had hoped for, but I keep reminding myself that because this was the 4th run in 6 weeks (3 halfs and on full marathon) and the fact I don’t do well in high humidity these were far from optimal record-setting conditions. On the other hand I stayed below 1:48:26 which was the limit if I wanted my SuperHalfs average to be below 1:45. So a win overall. 

Crossing the finish line and getting a medal, snacks and drinks in (another) bag, I located the SuperHalfs desk (very inconspicuous – somebody just sitting at a table in the middle of the crowd of finished runners) where I got handed my medal for running all 5 half marathons within 36 months. As the runs didn’t count towards the medal until the start of the year it meant that this was the first time one could collect this medal.  

2nd – Cardiff race day

Being so close to the starting area I was in no rush in the morning – I set the alarm to 08:00 so I could faff about at my leisure before leaving. I woke halfway up 20-30 minutes before the alarm went off and all I registered was what sounded like torrential rain coming down outside. What a day for a run! I nodded off again, and when the alarm did go off the rain had mostly quieted down and not long after completely ended.

Half an hour before start I left the hotel and joined the flow of people going to the starting area where I quickly found the section where my wave was located (which was pretty easy as it turned out it was at the end of the street where my hotel was located). I positioned myself in the middle of the group and shortly before start the 1:45 pacer moved up towards the front – and then he left and ended up in the rear of the 1:30-1:45 group with the 1:30 pacer in the front. As it wasn’t possible to move around in the now gathered crowd of runners I decided to run without a pacer – and if the 1:45’er passed me I’d hook up onto him and have him pull me home.

Wheelchair racers where sent off at 09:50 followed by elite and sub-1:30’ers at 10:00, and as they were leaving the starting area we were moved up towards the starting line and at 10:04 we were let go.

While waiting at the starting line it was getting obvious that the risk of rain was rapidly decreasing as the cloud cover was lightening and the sun was coming out. While waiting we were in the shade but somewhere between 2 and 3 km we took a 90 degree turn putting us straight towards the sun which meant that with all the water on the ground from the morning’s rain and the rapid increase in temperature the humidity skyrocketed. Not quite the start I had been hoping for. Throughout the race I overheard multiple locals comment on the weather noting that the current situation was far from what they had expected.

Around the half-way point it became a common sight to see people hand out either Haribo or Bassett winegums or Turkish delights. That was great! It was also around that time where runners finally had been spread out enough that it wasn’t uncomfortably congested anymore. It wasn’t because there were more runners than at similar runs, the streets were just quite narrow for the entire course so while they were quite nice it was a bit impractical with this many people gathered all at once. 

We circled south from the castle past and across Cardiff Bay over the Cardiff Bay bridge, which turned out to be significantly flatter than I had expected. From there we went through the center of the city and further north before doing a (roughly) 180 turn and returned to the center and the finish line behind the castle. While there weren’t spectators everywhere, where they were they were very supportive. 

Crossing the finish line you were handed your medal, (very pink) finisher t-shirt and various drinks and fruits. I managed to find my way through the finishing area and a short walk later I had returned to my hotel. Extra bonus: the receptionist noted that I was the first runner staying at the hotel to finish. Yay? 

I crossed the finish line in 1:45:11, right above my goal, but without a pacer I was pretty happy with the result. Also considering the Chicago marathon next weekend I tried not to push myself (too) hard. I came in as 1718 out of 12.783 overall (top 13,44%), 1528 out of 7236 men (top 21,12%) and 265 out of 956 M40 (top 27,72%). So relatively speaking it was a very nice result which I am pretty happy about. You had to get to M75+ or F60 to find a group winner who was slower than me!

Returning to the hotel I had a much needed shower and relaxed the rest of the day. I left again around 17:00 and walked around for maybe an hour before I found a place for dinner – a burger place named Fat Hippo seemed right up my alley.

Returning to the hotel – again – before 20:00 I indeed felt like a fat hippo and did absolutely nothing productive the rest of the evening.

8th – Lisbon half marathon

When the alarm went off I got out of bed, got dressed, and left for the metro & train to get to the starting area.

Hah. Who am I kidding?

When the alarm went off at 0730 I snoozed it a couple of times before I grumbling trotted to the bathroom before getting dressed and leaving for the metro. A couple of stops later all the runners got out, bumbled around confused in one big group until someone, with the rest of the group following like lemmings, went up and out where we saw the train station across the street. Success!

Because the run starts with crossing the 5th of April Bridge from the far side only trains are able to cross it before noon, so that is the only way to get there if you are located in the city. As the train naturally was crowded I ended up in a hallway between two carriages making it impossible for me to see anything outside during the ride across. 

On arrival there was another 15 minutes’ walk from the station to the starting area. The sun was out at full force at around 0930 and the few shades found along the way were already filled by people who managed to squeeze into the already crowded spots. The starting area itself was just a big empty space with surprisingly few portapotties, so when I arrived there was a steady flow of people going to and from the bushes along the sides, men and women alike. There were no corrals or waves, and getting ready for the start I realized the 5:00-pacer was far up ahead, and with the crowd already gathered I would have no chance of ever getting to him before the start.

When the start went off at 1020 it had gotten warmer (mid-20’s) and the 5:00-pacer left almost simultaneously with the 4:30 and 4:45-pacers. What’s the point of having them if they don’t spread out?

The first 5km, with the exception of a few 100m, it was all downhill – but due to being stuck in crowds of slow runners and selfie-obsessed people wanting to document the view of the city (granted; it wasn’t bad) and running on the bridge I had to do a lot of swerving and sudden changes in pace (because it’s absolutely fine to just stop in the middle of everything to take photos!) I lost more than a minute on the first kilometer. After that I managed to get a bit away and things loosened a bit up and the remainder of the downhill part went so much smoother. But it was such a frustrating start.

From then on the course was flat. We ran east until we hit the 7,6km mark, did a 180 degree turn, ran until reaching the 17,1km mark, did a 180 degree turn again and 50 meters before hitting the HM mark we turned and finished at Centro Cultural de Belén – where the expo was located – and the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. Reaching the flat part of the course there were water posts every app. 2km. As opposed to other runs you were given 1/3 liter water bottles instead of small paper cups. It felt like a bit of waste, but in the increasing heat you quickly realized that it was all needed. Perfect for a combination of drinking and pouring it over yourself (buffs were handed out near the starting area and I ended up using one on my head to try and protect it from the sun – it had the unexpected bonus of retaining the water I poured out over myself thus prolonging the cooling effect). I was happy to see that firefighters had set up a couple of places on the course and spraying the runners as they came along. Any cooldown was appreciated. According to the forecast when returning to the hotel the temps were around 28°-29°C and with no clouds or shade on the course the sun was most definitely felt along the way.

My face is a perfect representation of how it felt running in the heat.

Unfortunately, despite running parallel with the coast for most of the run we didn’t really see much for the water; main roads and train tracks were between us and the sea, and on the opposite side it was mostly infrastructure, a few parks or large buildings. So the course, while flat, wasn’t the most interesting. On the other hand; had we been running through the old parts of the city it would have been a horribly hilly experience, especially in this heat, so I guess I prefer the less charming, at times somewhat narrow, course we ran instead. 

The bag we received when crossing the finish line contained a bottle of water, a banana, a protein drink which tasted absolutely atrocious and the medal. It took me a while to realize the latter – I saw no one handing out medals and it wasn’t because I had missed it as almost no one else were wearing one, either, and it took a bit of digging before realizing that it had just been included with everything else. I was a bit disappointed, though, that you couldn’t get more water to drink and there were no snacks apart from the banana. 

My finish time ended up being 1:46:35, not quite reaching my goal of 1:45. Even without the terrible beginning I wouldn’t have made it, and considering the good conditions the weather definitely had something to do with the performance. Of course the official numbers weren’t accessible until later as the tracking site crashed during and after the run. Who would have thought they would see a lot of traffic at that time?

8378 people completed the half marathon; 5491 men and 2887 women. Overall I came in as no. 1550 (top 18,5%), among men I came in as no. 1407 (top 25,62%) and in my age group M35 I came in as 244 out of 755 (top 32,32%). So in spite of being slow compared to my goal my result relative to the other runners is probably among the best I’ve had so far – the Royal Parks run where I got my PR is the only one I can think of where I managed to get a better relative result.

Taking the train and metro back to the hotel went surprisingly smooth. Being among a bunch of hot and sweaty runners inside a confined space was wonderful, and I can’t imagine it was any better for all the ordinary non-running passengers. After a quick shower I went down to a café around the corner (called Hygge Kaffe) and got a smoked salmon bun and what turned out to be a huge slice – chunk, rather – of apple pie. Resting for the remainder of the afternoon before going out for what was a disappointing paella and a traditional cod ball with cheese which was a nice end to the dinner before retuning to the hotel and kicked back for the rest of the night.

Always nice with a small piece of pie.

2nd – Prague half marathon

Waking up at 0800 I checked the forecast and it had now been updated to be -1°C feeling like -7°C at start – so no miraculous warming during the last 8 hours. Getting dressed I went outside for a for a quick jog around the block to get a feel for the weather. At least it wasn’t snowing despite the forecast last night. Moving around it felt like almost too much clothing, but turning a corner and realizing I had been out of the wind until then the amount of layers definitely weren’t overkill. I ended up wearing a thin baselayer, a thicker, slightly wind-breaking, layer/jacket-thing and the official running t-shirt on top. Sweating like a pig when inside but feeling much more appropriate outside.

I returned to my room, grabbed my jacket and wrapped up before leaving for the starting area. Around 45 minutes before start I entered the closed off area and wandered a bit around and tried killing time until the start. There was surprisingly little to see or do, and no one handing out drinks before the run. But to my surprised they probably had the highest portapotty-to-participant ratio I have ever seen. Even close to start the queues were very short. So happy to see that.

I handed in my jacket and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling the cold creeping in. At one point I just wished for the speaker to announce “screw it, guys, it’s cold, we’ll be starting in 5 minutes!”. It helped when one of the streets between the waiting area and the starting corridor turned into an improvised jogging ring where people circled at a gentle pace. Also, the street being shielded from the wind it was a nice way of (re-)gaining a bit of warmth.

But finally the clock struck 10 and we were off. The weather was nice even if it was cold, there was no snow (or rain) despite of the forecast, and it only really felt cold when you got hit by the wind (though that could also be due to the multiple layers). There was a part towards the beginning where we were running in a straight line south and I ended up taking off my beanie because I was starting to get hot and worry I might have put on too much, but as soon as we reached the 180 degree turn-around point and starting running back north I quickly had to put it back on again realizing that we had had the wind in our backs. It was windy throughout the entire run but at least there were passages where we weren’t affected by it. And there were definitely passages where we were.

The course was up and down on along the river on both sides so we didn’t get a chance of running through the old part of town. That was probably a good thing because there aren’t many wide streets around there, and even if “only” app. 11.500 people had signed up for the run and it wasn’t crowded after the first few km I could easily see a bit of traffic jams if we were led through those parts. There would also have been many more cobblestones if we had been led through the old part, and any chance of avoiding cobblestone during a run is a good thing. Running on both sides of the river required us to cross it a total of 6 times – fortunately they were all relatively flat so the amount of ups and downs were limited.

I crossed the finish line at 1:44:41, within my goal of 1:45, but only just. Walking through the finish area I was given heated energy drink (at this temperature it was worth its weight in gold!), a banana, energy drinks and obviously a medal before I wandered off to grab my jacket and return to the hotel. After a long hot shower I rested a bit before returning out to grab a chimney cake with ice cream (how people can eat those without making a mess is beyond me!) and a humongous hotdog. Returning to the hotel I rested before going back out (again) for dinner where I ended up in a place where I had a pork knuckle. It had a massive bone so it ended up not being quite as intimidating as it initially looked, and the taste was fantastic. And the meat was enormously tender – a well-made osso buco is more coherent than this was! 

Chimney cakes being baked.

Update on the Superhalfs

Just like with the Marathon Majors the Superhalfs have been affected by the current pandemic. What I had planned on running and completing in 2020 when the Superhalfs were introduced has now been postponed to 2022. So despite my annoyance to start this means that I still will be able to complete the Superhalfs series in the first year (completely ignoring you have 36 months from the first to the last run to get the Superhalfs medal). So as of now the schedule looks like the following:

Prague – April

Lisbon – May

Copenhagen – September

Cardiff – October

Valencia – October

Here's crossing my fingers that things will go smoothly going forward. Some of next year's dates have not been published yet so those are still pending. In any case, the fall looks like it'll be busy which will be a nice change of pace considering the recent lack of traveling. 

Second update on the Superhalfs

With already one update to the Superhalfs' dates I was hoping that that would be it, but as we all know by now there is no sign of the pandemic slowing down and giving us a break. This means that all the planned runs have now moved their dates for next year. The runs are therefore now planned for the following dates next year:

Prague - March the 27th

Lisbon - May the 9th

Copenhagen - September the 19th

Cardiff - October the 3rd

Valencia - October the 24th

Here's to hoping that the dates won't change anymore, but I guess that just by writing that I've already jinxed it. On the plus side I am still able to do all of them in the first year the Superhalfs in going on but that is the only positive I can see from all this.

Superhalfs pandemic update

As mentioned previously I have decided to participate in the Superhalfs - 5 half marathons in Lisbon, Prague, Copenhagen, Cardiff and Valencia, two in the spring and three in the fall. You can complete them over 3 years from the first run to get get into the Superhalfs hall of fame. And originally my plan was to power through all 5 in one calendar year.

And then the Corona pandemic happened.

It pretty much ruined all my plans for the first half of 2020 (after coming home from Antarctica). The organizers were forced to cancel or move the runs, and therefore my schedule has changed quite significantly. The schedule now looks like this:

Lisbon (September 6^th)

Prague (March 27^th 2021)

Copenhagen (2021)

Cardiff (October 4^th)

Valencia (October 25^th)

Lisbon got moved to the 6th of September, and a week later Prague was moved to the same day. A lot of criticism was voiced on the Prague HM facebook page, but apparently the organizers couldn't find another day that would fit everybody's schedule (city, organizers, etc.). So my Prague run will be postponed for next year. And I have had to postpone my run in Copenhagen until next year, too, as the Boston marathon got moved to the Monday the day after, and that run takes priority by a wide margin.

So here's to hoping that no more delays will happen, but I guess nothing is certain these days.

The Superhalfs

From 2020 a group of European half marathons have gotten together to create what they call “an adventure”. It is basically 5 different half marathons spread out throughout the year, two in the early spring and three in the fall. The list is as follows:

Lisbon (March 22^nd)

Prague (March 28^th)

Copenhagen (September 13^th)

Cardiff (October 4^th)

Valencia (October 25^th)

You have 36 months to complete all 5 races to be listed in the Superhalfs Hall of Fame, but I looked at it and concluded that I wanted to challenge myself so I decided to do them in within one calendar year. This has therefore resulted in me booking four extended weekends throughout the year (the Copenhagen marathon will only require a short train ride back and forth). They will all be Friday-Sunday with the exception of Prague which will be Thursday-Sunday as the run is on the Saturday instead of Sunday. Also, Prague will be a repeat visit but despite it was just in 2018 I went there last time I don’t really mind as I really enjoyed walking around in the old city (and the food was good and cheap).

I managed to get hotels close to the start/finish lines which fortunately were also quite close to the centre of the cities. Lisbon was an exception, though, as the start is across a bridge from the city centre. And from there the course mostly stays away from the main parts of the city centre. I tried to find a place close to a train station (the race instructions are to take the train to the starting area) and still close to the centre so I’m hoping I’ve read the map correctly and it won’t be a logistical nightmare when I get there to get to and from the run.