After months of training and posting incessantly about preparing for this race, I've finally gathered my memories of the day. It was such a unique experience, I wanted to capture every single detail. It's probably the longest I’ve ever thought about a race, and that’s including the 2014 Dopey Challenge that I trained for for 9 months. I love looking back at what I wrote during that time– you think you’ll remember, but looking back at my own words from 10 years ago, I'm always surprised at little things I'd forgotten.
This was my first World Major and my first international race. I’d entered the lottery in September of 2022, which began the process of waiting to hear if I’d been selected. That was followed by a long period of waiting to actually begin training, trying not to think about all the ways I could be derailed in the span of 12 months (hello, hip injury!), then finally beginning the training and the travel preparations. Running the race was just one piece of a pretty huge puzzle! I was very grateful to be sharing the journey with my daughter, Morgan, who has always inspired me to combine the adventures of travel and running together!
In short, it was a fantastic experience from beginning to end. It wasn’t my fastest race, and I don’t even know why I feel the need to comment on my finish time, since that wasn’t even a goal of mine, but it IS a race, after all. This was actually one of my slower marathons, but without question, my strongest. This was the first marathon I ran the whole 26.2 miles! My legs felt great up until the last few kilometers, and at that point, there was just a slight winge in my calf that I was able to ignore as long as I held my stride, kept my eyes up, shoulders back, moving forward. With the exception of my PB in 2019, this was the absolute best I have felt at a marathon finish!
The perfect word to describe my race is “level.” Level course, level pace, level energy… a solid consistent effort. I went out a little hot, I’m gonna go ahead and blame the crowds at the start. I always want to find an open space to run. The middle two 10Ks were right in my sweet spot pace, and by the last 10K it was warming up and I was slowing down just a bit. But the best feeling was feeling “nothing”... just running right through the Brandenburg Tor, then through the finish line, no hip pain, no knee pain, no back pain, nothing! It was glorious!!
One huge highlight was seeing friends from Raleigh on the course! We had talked about meeting for a photo beforehand, but with the size of the crowds in each corral, it just wasn’t in the cards. Somewhere in the second mile, I heard my name being called, and it was my friend Theresa coming up behind me. We got a fun selfie as we ran. It was such a fun surprise to see a friend so early in the race!
Later, right around mile 10, I heard my name again, and it was Pragya! We chatted a bit, and got a couple of selfies. Pragya always makes me smile!
I was so glad I’d started near the front of the corral or I’d have missed seeing both of them! Just past the halfway point, my daughter said “I think there’s another one of your friends over there!” and sure enough, it was Michelle, one of our Fleet Feet Family who had come to Berlin to cheer us on!
I enjoyed all the crowds and signs and support along the course, but the joy in the unexpected sighting of a friend is unparalleled!!
As we were heading into the finish at Brandenburg Gate, I heard people to my right cheering and calling “Hey, Raleigh/Morrisville! We’re from the Triangle! She went to Duke!” and I see the unmistakable blue sweatshirt. (I’m not from the Triangle, so I have no loyalty to a particular shade.) Just a few steps later I heard someone yell “Fleet Feet! Which store?” I answered “Raleigh!” and they called back “We’re from Raleigh! We love Fleet Feet!”
I was so happy that the weather had cooperated for me to wear that bright yellow Fleet Feet Running Club shirt! I had three options for the race (tank, short sleeves, long sleeves), but this was exactly why I was hoping to wear the one that shouted "Fleet Feet!" so that maybe someone in the crowd would shout back! Anything that will result in a big smile, especially in the last miles of a marathon, is definitely a huge boost!
As with most large races, there were multiple start waves, and multiple corrals within each wave. The official start was at 9:30, with the elite runners, Eliud Kipchoge, Tigist Yessefa, and Amanal Petros in that first wave. While Kipchoge claimed his 5th Berlin win, Petros set a new German marathon record, and Yessefa absolutely smashed the women’s world marathon record with an astounding finish time of 2:11:53!
After the official start, waves 2-4 were released, and we got to experience the dramatic Viking Clap I’d seen in so many videos of the Berlin Marathon. 40,000 runners, hands raised high overhead, beginning with a slow clap that gradually builds to excited applause!
We were in Wave 4, which included everyone who expected to finish in 4 hours or more, as well as all first time marathoners. I know a LOT of runners, most of them faster than I am, and the vast majority do not run a sub-4 hour marathon. Wave 4 was huge! We were standing shoulder to shoulder waiting to finally start. Fortunately, as each corral was released, the crowd around us thinned, and I found I had a fair amount of personal space.
I had planned to run/walk intervals, as I generally do all my longer races. But in my training I’d been doing a lot of longer intervals and longer distances running without walk breaks, so I kept that option open. If you run/walk and people tell you that running would be faster, ignore them. Run/walk is a strategy, not a pace. I definitely could have run a faster overall pace with walk breaks, it’s a matter of having different goals.
The weather was mild, ranging from high 50s at the start to high 60s at the finish. I heard a couple of comments about the humidity, and wondered where these runners had trained all summer. Certainly not North Carolina!
Typically, the only thing I’d have to say about water stops is how crowded they were, and generally they’re pretty crowded at big races. I’m kind of used to the messy, and I always slow down or even walk through water stops, just to be safe. I’ve seen runners try and run through at full speed only to wipe out and end their race early, and I’m not interested in that experience. But stops in Berlin where the sports drink was served were a unique challenge.
I was initially questioning whether it was my imagination or maybe my shoes… I’d never run in these shoes on wet pavement. NOTE: I do not recommend. If you don’t want to purposely go for a rainy run (I do not), at least go out after a run to see how your shoes respond to those conditions. Some have better traction than others. Good to know what you might be up against!
I overheard another runner comment, “this is slippery to the point of being dangerous!” and I figured it wasn’t just me. Then I heard this really strange “crunching” sound, almost like you hear running on crushed gravel, but we were on black asphalt. It dawned on us all at once– it was the sound of shoes sticking to pavement! I’ve run through my share of sloppy water stations, and I know I’ve run through whole puddles of Gatorade, but I’ve never experienced anything like this before, and hope never to again! Fortunately, this was only in a couple of spots, for a very short distance... no huge impact overall, just odd. (And a good reminder to add wet pavement to the training plan!)
We were told that in addition to the sports drink, at some stops there would be “sweet tea” on the course. We were warned this is not the southern sweet tea we’re used to in the US. It was served warm. Not hot, but definitely not cold. Just a bit sweet, and with lemon. Once we were past the halfway point, I decided to give it a try, and really enjoyed it! It wasn’t quite Bojangles', but it was nice to have something different to the LMNT I was carrying.
I have heard all sorts of opinions about crowd support on the course in Berlin. It’s definitely not NYC, but we knew that, right? It’s not the deafening sound of the 5 boroughs, but people were out and cheering all along the way! There were tons of signs, mostly in German, which made me wish I could translate! Of the ones that were in English, there was loads of inspiration, lots of Power Ups, well wishes from Michelle Obama, and several reminders that “You paid to do this!”
People were out at restaurants and bars along the route, cheering from their balconies, and so many drum line bands! I’ve seen these at races before, groups of people of a wide range of ages, the unique energy of a marching band drum line without the heavy uniforms! I’ve added this to my list of things I’d like to try!
From beginning to end, there were people calling out names that they, for the most part, were reading phonetically from runners’ bibs. It was so exciting to hear my name, people I would never meet encouraging me to keep going, telling me I was doing great! After being so careful in the last couple of months and especially in the weeks leading up to the race, I wore a mask on the flight from JFK to Berlin, just to be on the safe side. Race day, I was eating cut up apples and bananas being handed out by volunteers, and I feel like I high-fived every single child in Berlin cheering along that route! Absolute magic!
We set out at a strong, steady pace, and I felt good, so I kept running. I was thinking maybe I’d switch to run/walk after the first half... well, then maybe for the last 10k... but running felt good so I just kept going. I didn’t have a finish time goal for this race, just to make the cutoffs, and we were well inside that window. I’ve run a few half marathons straight through, but this is double the distance, which is not insignificant. I decided this was the day I’d just go for it!
There were three “hard” cutoff points, where we would be prevented from finishing and receiving a medal. The first was at 33K, which was right by our apartment. It was really fun, after 20 miles of "touring" Berlin, to run along a block that was very familiar to us!
We were comfortably ahead of the clock at this point, and the next cutoff was at 38K. We had well over an hour to run those 3 miles. A man who seemed to be struggling asked, “Are we going to be able to make it, at this pace?” “Absolutely!” we assured him. He said, “My back is really giving me trouble,” and I could see his shoulders were rounded forward, a common sign of fatigue in those later miles. I shared our favorite run group posture reset: put your hands in the air, open up your chest, and make big circles with your arms to get yourself out of that forward lean. He smiled, said “that feels much better!” and we carried on, with just under 10K left to the finish.
At that point, I could process my own relief, excitement, amazement, and absolute joy at finishing! In a race this long, a lot of things can happen, both predictable and unexpected. But through the entire course I felt solid, confident, never hit a wall, never questioned whether I’d finish. It was a long "distance" from back in March when I thought I might need to stop running all together, and for that, I’m immensely grateful!
There are two hashtags associated with this race: #BERLINLEGEND and #RUNFORJOY. Both are emblazoned on the wristband sealed onto each runner's arm at the expo (and which I am still wearing, weeks later.) By definition, legend means famous, or very well known, especially in a particular field. Throughout our time in Berlin, we heard "you are all legends!" and I will say, running this course with people calling out my name for 26.2 miles is probably as close to famous as I'm likely to get. But that #RUNFORJOY part, I fully felt that, 100%, and still feel it as I remember that beautiful afternoon in Berlin!
As I said, it's been a really long training cycle, and there was a time earlier this year I doubted this race could even happen for me. I never thought I'd appreciate a summer of marathon training, early mornings, long miles, historic levels of heat... but I can honestly say I enjoyed every step. Largely because I was so grateful to be out there doing it, and with much credit to my running family for the camaraderie and for making it fun! I will always think of Berlin as the marathon that helped me find my way back to the joy of running. #runforjoy. Literally.
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