Last weekend Caroline and I went to Berlin to run the marathon – you might not even know we were running this race as we have hardly talked about it. We flew out on the Saturday leaving our flat at 5:45am to get a taxi the airport. We had decided just to take only what we needed, so turned up at the airport both wearing joggies and our Maryhill Harriers jackets – looking like complete knobs! We managed to get through security without too much hassle, although they did stop me to scan my transparent bag of liquids – I don’t think they had seen many lucozade gels before and maybe thought they were well-disguised bombs. We flew out of Glasgow at 07:10 and arrived in Berlin 2 hours later at 10:10. One of our friends had agreed to put us up for the weekend and kindly met us at the airport. He helped us navigate to the Expo so we could pick up our numbers, chips, and pre-ordered race finisher t-shirts (we had ordered these for 25 euros in advance and expected a technical shirt so were a little disappointed to get a mass produced cotton adidas top, especially as Caroline’s was a size small that fits me comfortably). We recovered from this low, by stumbling upon an all time high as we met Berlino the bear (mascot at the 2009 Berlin World Athletics Championships) and then quickly got ourselves out of the crazy busy madness that was the expo. We headed back to our friend, Richard’s flat, picking up some lunch and shopping en route. Caroline and I had planned maybe to do a bus tour to see some of the sights that afternoon, but were already knackered. Hence, after lounging about for a bit, we popped out to cheer on some of the 8000 skaters who rollerblade the marathon course the day before the runners take to the streets. The weather was minging but even then the atmosphere was great with lots of supporters lining the wet and fairly treacherous streets – we saw quite a few skaters fall as they tried to skid round the corners! Then it was back to the flat for a lovely seafood pasta followed by chocolate soufflé (both prepared by Richard – legend). Then after laying out all our stuff, it was time for an early night. We both slept surprisingly well considering the Christmas eve style excitement/expectation we had about the following morning.
I woke at 5am but lay in bed for another hour before we got up and got into our running gear. We both managed breakfast – Richard had prepared a fruit salad, I had some cereal, Caroline some porridge, and we both also had a little bacon. We thanked Richard for his amazing hospitality and left to wander down to the S-Bahn station where we got the train for 3 stops to Potsdamer Platz and then basically followed the throng of runners to the changing areas at the start. After changing, dropping off our bags, and queuing for the loos, we had time to do some strides and a quick warm up (just so we could say we did when Mick asked us). It was drizzly and grey, but quite cool – but the rain continued throughout the race at varying levels of heaviness. We then joined the crowd of people making there way to the start blocks – Caroline and I had decided to go in the 3:15 to 3:30 area and aimed to maintain 3:30 pace. We got to our pace pen but couldn’t get in as it was already crowded so waited at the side, ready to squeeze in as the crowd started moving across the start line. The atmosphere was damp but electric – the race was about to start…
At 9:03am the gun went and the elite athletes crossed the start line – 5 minutes later we ran over the timing mats and were on our way, ducking and weaving through the crowds of people who were allegedly going to be running sub 3:30 marathons. The pace wasn’t too bad though and we managed the first km in 5:10, then reaching the 2km mark in 10:00 and settling nicely into the 5 min/km pace we were hoping for. We kept this up for the first 10km splashing through the wet street of Berlin (any attempt to keep your feet dry went out the window within seconds of the start) still passing the majority of the runners around us. We had identified a few recognisable runners at that stage that seemed to be keeping the same pace – dutch man, giant calf man (his calves were as thick as my thighs), and the Scottish girl that said ‘Hi’ every time we see-sawed past. We hit 10km at just under 50 minutes and were feeling good. The next 10km we tried to put a little time in the bag – only a few seconds per km right enough. Initially we were doing this without really thinking about it, and then at 15km I said to Caroline we should maybe try and keep it up so that we had a little bit of a cushion on our target pace in case we “hit the wall”. Also 5min/km pace gets you to 42km in 3:30:00 exactly but that would leave us with 195 metres still to run, so if we wanted a sub 3:30 time we would need enough time for tired legs to sprint the final stretch. Caroline was not as big a fan of this idea as I, and thought we should just stick to the plan. In all honestly, I wasn’t feeling as easy as I thought I should at this stage – I wasn’t struggling, but did feel that maybe I was giving out more than I should be at that stage. Nonetheless, we successfully stole a minute on our pace and got to 20km seconds over 1:39. The plan was then to relax back to our target pace, but I think we found the next 5km the most difficult – we started losing a few seconds each kilometre, and I genuinely thought the slippage would continue. We had already split a gel at 15km and at 25km took one each, before entering the madness of the water station to grab a CUP of water (yes, not a bottle, but a CUP!) to wash it down.
Let me take a moment to basically slag off the German’s attempt at a water station – a row of tables with buckets full of water (for us to dip our free race sponges in to drench ourselves with – who used their sponge? it was pissing it down!), cups of water (did I mention they had CUPS not bottles? Not really ideal for drinking from or even running with for more than a few steps. I felt like giving them Duncan’s address, and telling them he probably had enough bottled water in his garage for next years race), cups of tea (which I found out after was some kind of energy tea, rather than milk and two sugars style), and then some solid powerbars (I wasn’t on a hill walk!). And to make all that more fun you had to engage in a game of British Bulldogs with a whole bunch of other sweaty drenched runners to even get near the tables.
Back to the race and fortunately, and also surprisingly, the gel worked. Without consciously trying any harder, our pace was back on 5 min/km and the slippage had ceased. We shared our immediate goals – it would be great to reach 30km, then to get to 32km and know we only had a 10k to go, then at 35km we planned to take another gel, then at 37km we would only have 5km to go. And as we kept plodding on, we passed these milestones getting ever closer to the end. At this point it is worth noting that the street side music was a great help in motivating us – almost every km there was a band or a stage or a busker playing inspirational music (often with some association to running in the lyrics). At one point we ran under a bridge where there were a group of drummers, and on every third beat the crowd and the runners all threw their hands in the air – it was awesome, and certainly made you smile.
Our bronze target for this race was to go under 4 hours (with Caroline previous pb being 4:01), our silver target was sub 3:45, and our gold target 3:30 or under (note the language I am using with hindsight). At this stage in the race bronze and silver were all but in the bag, with gold tantalisingly close, but likely just out of reach. We agreed to just keep our pace till 40km and then make the call, depending on the time and how we felt, as to whether we give it everything in the hope of 3:30. At the 40km timing mats (3:19:51) we looked at one another and silently decided to leave it – just keeping going was all that we had, and three thirty something would do just fine. The crowds were huge at this stage, people cheering everywhere – there wasn’t a railing space to be seen. As we crossed the 41km mark, we turned a corner and were literally in the home straight: 1,195 metres of it. We could see the Brandenburg Gate in the distance and it was game on! We started passing people like they weren’t even moving – many people had been reduced to walking, but we were about to put in our fastest kilometre of the day, we were flying. Just before the gate a Scottish voice shouted “C’mon Maryhill Harriers”, I raised a fist in acknowledgement/thanks and continued plowing through runners with my wife by my side. We passed the 42km mark with 40 seconds to spare and continued our sprint to the finish crossing the line in what seemed like only moments later. We immediately checked our watches and saw a time of 3:30:02, and were overjoyed! We had done it, we had finished and we had as good as hit our gold target (we also knew that we had started our watches just before the start timing mats and secretly hoped the chip might get rid of the 2 seconds).
We collapsed into a hug and then continued/stumbled through the finish area to get some water (again from a cup, but at least this time we could enjoy it stationary). We split up and arranged to meet under M (for Maryhill, of course) after we had picked up our bags and showered. I hobbled on, got my bag, ditched my chip into the appropriate area, managed to scam 2 goody bags that had complete rubbish in them anyway (but did each have a BOTTLE of water) and then made my way to the showers. I expected portable plastic shower cubicles like those I had encountered on big festival campsites. Instead I entered a tent that had a whole bunch of guys changing at fold up benches lined up and down each side. Once in this tent, one got naked and ditched their stuff in a pile on the floor, before moving through into an adjacent tent. This was about 15m long with an overhead pipe down the centre spine of the tent, with a showerhead every metre. There were about 80 naked guys in this tent all waiting patiently to stand under the water. Etiquette was that you would soak yourself in the water and then move out the way to soap up, while another guy took his turn to soak, then giving way to let you back in to rinse (if he felt you were taking too long, he would signal this with an audible tut – you were there to rinse not to enjoy the tepid heat), and then you would retreat back to the other tent and your pile of clothing, leaving him to rinse, and making sure you didn’t naked bump into anyone else on your way. Changing was a similarly tricky – dodge naked contact game in the ridiculously busy tent. I would hear later from Caroline that as there hadn’t been many women finish by that stage, hers was a much more civilised affair with one shower head per person and breathing space while changing.
We met up at M – obviously both proudly wearing our medals – then walked to the nearest station and got straight on a train to the airport where we had currywurst (sausage) and chips with ketchup and mayo and it tasted great. Our plane was a little delayed, but we were kind of in a seated coma at that point. I was not feeling great. We ate and slept on the flight, then got a taxi home, had a quick bath, ate some more grub and got ourselves to the pub for 10pm for some celebratory drinks with friends.
Thanks for everyone’s texts, support, coaching, encouragement, and generally just putting up with us talking about it so much. And well done if you managed to read this far.
And sure enough, the chip was our friend and our official time was 3:30:00 exactly – stats below.
Caroline Jones 3:30:00 57th in age group (W30) of 999
Stephen Jones 3:30:00 855th in age group (M30) of 3049
5km 24:45
10km 49:49
15km 1:14:27
20km 1:39:06
Half 1:44:37
25km 2:04:26
30km 2:29:39
35km 2:54:44
40km 3:19:51
