"Finally" a race to remember - Berlin Marathon RR

Similar to the conditions seen at Kona World Champs, the Berlin Marathon conditions for this year was ever so slightly harder than the nearly perfect conditions seen last year. Needless to say, this made overall winner Bekele winning performance slightly more impressive. Bekele finished only 2 seconds off from the world record set last year in the same course by Kipchoge, famously nicknamed the GOAT on social media.

For the over 40,000 rest of us non Berlin Legends, the marathon distance is still a grueling task just to reach the finish line on race day.

Can you find me?

The 42.195K course (I like the German precision already):

From what I gathered, the Germans are efficient and flawless in operations. Recycleable environmental plastic cups were introduced as pilot project to reduce environmental footprint. I couldn't help but noticed a lot less potties at the start unlike Chicago and Boston (perhaps I'm accustomed to NA wasteful resource standards). Unlike other years, this year's medals was a nice tribute and honoured a long time organization employee and past technical race director, Lutz Derkow, who unfortunately passed away this summer. 

The clockwise loop around the city starts and finishes in Tiergarten park, where the centre of the financial and political districts meet in Berlin.
The giant projector screens allowed for the start to pass by relatively quick with inspiring videos of everyday runners before they marched off the various groups. It felt like a outdoor movie theatre. They have very friendly spectable guides with many wi-fi hotspots to catch the action, including the AR adidas Runners and Red Bull arches between kilometre 36 and 37.

Personal reflection:

Following a busy triathlon season, I was going to attempt to break 3 hours for the first time (finally) with assistance on the world's fastest marathon course. Since July this year, my Coach Jen keeps me in check with every long run focused for the 3-month marathon build to this event. I say "finally" because I've been stuck at 3:01 since 6 years ago and have ran multiple 3:01s in progressively harder conditions. I think people in the running community is wondering why I haven't got this virtual monkey off my back yet. This virtual monkey is annoyingly good I must say. I am however very grateful to be fortunate enough to get in through the lottery, also finally! I've been rejected a minimum of 2 times in each of the missing 4 majors until I got in Berlin, drastically improving my odds to 1 in 9.

Too early to celebrate yet. :)

In order for sub 3, it's not difficult to presume with favourable temperature and humidity conditions, lack of hills, and better run specific training should all contribute to a time quicker than 3:03 established earlier in the year in DC. This engineering approach seemed reasonable like breaking 2 project, but of course not all variables can be controlled. 

Vapourflys 4% and next % were everywhere

Well, I found out on race day the hard way that my cold with a running nose was no match for sub 3 hours virtual monkey. Despite running a 3:01 in Chicago 2013 hacking away a lung or two and running a 3:03 earlier in the year on a course built with hills in Washington DC. Perhaps my arrogance had caught up to give me a bit of reality check. Trying to run a marathon averaging a higher heart rate by 15 bpm was a game changer. 

Up to the start line, I didn't want to believe that at only kilometre 3 shortly leaving the beautiful Tiergarten park, my effort already felt harder than it should be.   

I had a bit of optimism during the week because I thought I can replicate the Chicago 2013 performance. 

Here comes the bags of excuses. It seems like my body actually needed an offseason, but my mind wasn't willing since I've made so many commitments for travel and visiting friends.

I held my typical 1:29 half split as I normally do, but was hoping for a slightly better result. Now to think of it, my aerobic base was gone since adopting more runs and less bikes and swims over the summer. My expectations had to be readjusted by 10km and hoped I made the right call at the time to back off the pace early to mitigate the risk of not finishing. Quitting wasn't an option for me.

The second half of the marathon was still steady up to the start of the final 7 kilometres when the rain hit. My pace dropped about 10 to 20 seconds per km after holding 4:20s. My high heart rate could no longer battle the rain. 

Kilometre 39 was tough, seeing the Canada banner in Potsdamer Platz meant that I was running away from the finish at Tiergarten.

The Brandenburger Gate seem to wipe off all that rain-mixed sweat and tears off my face, and I was able to finally enjoy the race a little bit after a long conservative effort.

Climax of the race under the historic Brandenburg Gate!

The virtual monkey won this time as the time ticked 3:03, but I was happy with my race day execution and overall experience. What an epic race in a city riched with history and stories from the cold war. 

I'm optimistic I'll have a better crack at it next time with improved wellness at another marathon.   

I started walking towards the warm tea and alcohol-free & free beer. The plastic tarp felt like my Harry Potter's invisible cape as I felt pretty crappy at this point and started questioning my life's decision to run marathons. Funny enough the beer made this go away instantly.

I know I need to freshen up and go back to what I was familiar with to get aerobic base. I was never meant to be high mileage low intensity athlete. More of a lower mileage, medium intensity kind of athlete.

Thank you for reading and following my journey.

Fantastic crew Kat, Eric, me and Merick.