03:33:30
The idea to participate in the Berlin Marathon came up together with the idea to move to the capital. So that must have been around April or May. I had not been running all winter long. Seriously, after the "3 Länder Marathon" in October last year, I did not want to run at all. Looking back, that was a traumatic experience. Not that the result would have been bad, not at all. The problem was, that I just wanted to run this 42k to "put a check on this". I was in quite good shape at that time, as I had trained for the 70.3 IronMan in Austria for quite a while. I just wanted to take advantage of this and then stop all of this endurance sports bull*. That's what I thought at that time. I made it, but it was a horrible race. Pouring rain, cold, wind - real pain was already starting at k25. That is too early! So I was fed up with running after that. For sure, I did not stop with sports. I swam a lot all winter through, went skiing, practice yoga. But no running.
So I picked up running again in April or even May. I thought about the marathon, but skipped that idea as projects brought me to Brazil and it turned out that I would spend quite a lot of time of my summer in Florida. Better to focus on swimming in such locations.
Why didn't I stock to that? At some point - already leaving in Berlin - I realised that I did not participate in any sports event this year. That's OK, that's actually what I wanted to do, but it didn't feel right anymore. So my real training for the marathon started in August - not even two month before the event. And training conditions in Florida are hard - not bad, but hard! It's the heat. I cannot really deal with it. It makes me feel horrible. So my longest run in 2013 - apart from the marathon itself - was 21k. I did that two days in a row in order to simulate the tied legs, but still this is not enough. Normally you should run for more than 25k for a couple of times as a preparation. But no way to do this in n that heat for me.
The event itself started pretty chaotic for me - as to expect. I came back from Florida the day before, so I had quite a jet lag. I did not even hear my alarm clock on the day of the marathon. Luckily I woke up in time. One hour later as planned, but still enough time to get to the starting area in time. On my way to Brandenburg Gate, I met Christian, who was participating for the sixth time in the Berlin marathon. What a luck to meet him! He helped me to save a lot of time by knowing the right entrances and shortcuts - and by calming me down.
So the only thing I had to do then, was to run. 42k - I was prepared to suffer. But there was no need to. Almost not. The conditions were perfect. Sunny autumn weather at about 14°C. A little bit cold initially, but perfect during the run. A great course leaving enough space for more than 40.000 participants. A great organisation team. It was amazing! I am still fascinated.
And I was lucky, the "man with the hammer"did not show up. Or he did, but not before km35 and then it was too late. With such a mass of people standing besides the road, you don't start walking, unless you are in sepsis trouble. Unfortunately there we quite a lot of people getting into trouble at that point of the race. But I am sure that ask of them made it through the race.
So I finished Berlin Marathon 2013 in 03:33:30. BAAAAAM. I never would have expected that. That was about five minutes faster as in the previous year. And more important: I was enjoying that race. Now I can forget about last year's marathon trauma.
So I picked up running again in April or even May. I thought about the marathon, but skipped that idea as projects brought me to Brazil and it turned out that I would spend quite a lot of time of my summer in Florida. Better to focus on swimming in such locations.
Why didn't I stock to that? At some point - already leaving in Berlin - I realised that I did not participate in any sports event this year. That's OK, that's actually what I wanted to do, but it didn't feel right anymore. So my real training for the marathon started in August - not even two month before the event. And training conditions in Florida are hard - not bad, but hard! It's the heat. I cannot really deal with it. It makes me feel horrible. So my longest run in 2013 - apart from the marathon itself - was 21k. I did that two days in a row in order to simulate the tied legs, but still this is not enough. Normally you should run for more than 25k for a couple of times as a preparation. But no way to do this in n that heat for me.
The event itself started pretty chaotic for me - as to expect. I came back from Florida the day before, so I had quite a jet lag. I did not even hear my alarm clock on the day of the marathon. Luckily I woke up in time. One hour later as planned, but still enough time to get to the starting area in time. On my way to Brandenburg Gate, I met Christian, who was participating for the sixth time in the Berlin marathon. What a luck to meet him! He helped me to save a lot of time by knowing the right entrances and shortcuts - and by calming me down.
So the only thing I had to do then, was to run. 42k - I was prepared to suffer. But there was no need to. Almost not. The conditions were perfect. Sunny autumn weather at about 14°C. A little bit cold initially, but perfect during the run. A great course leaving enough space for more than 40.000 participants. A great organisation team. It was amazing! I am still fascinated.
And I was lucky, the "man with the hammer"did not show up. Or he did, but not before km35 and then it was too late. With such a mass of people standing besides the road, you don't start walking, unless you are in sepsis trouble. Unfortunately there we quite a lot of people getting into trouble at that point of the race. But I am sure that ask of them made it through the race.
So I finished Berlin Marathon 2013 in 03:33:30. BAAAAAM. I never would have expected that. That was about five minutes faster as in the previous year. And more important: I was enjoying that race. Now I can forget about last year's marathon trauma.
Da hat der "Mann mit dem Hammer" wohl die Verabredung verpasst. Ich bin total Glücklich. #Traumbedingungen #PersonalBest #BerlinMarathon— d1db3k (@d1db3k) September 29, 2013
Even though I want to focus on swimming now, I already signed up for next years event. Chances to get a slot are pretty small. I will see how it will turn out. In any case it was the right decision to give it a shot and to accept that it might get a bad race or a really bad finfish time. There are so many things that have to come together for a good race. Sometimes your just lucky.
