|
About three miles into the marathon, it dawns on you. You’re breathing hard, sweating and it’s a long way to the finish. In fact, you’ve barely started. After the excitement of a big city marathon start – who talked you into this stupid thing? The answer is the same for all 50,000 participants. This is Germany – so they don’t do fun-runners. This is serious. Everyone here has responded to the same inner voices that make mankind different from the other species – the determination to keep going despite immense physical discomfort. Moreover, the marathon demands respect because it is a cruel race. It lasts long enough for any niggle, any flaw in preparation, to turn into a crisis – even for the elite athletes. Or you may just be unlucky.
But that’s enough melodrama. Six Striders flew over to Germany to take part in the 2007 Berlin Marathon. Dawn arrived there first, having cunningly set up enough meetings beforehand for it to classify as a business trip. Nick arrived on the Friday. The rest of us – Darren, Mike, Terry and I, and our supporters, Kate and Russell chanced it and converged on Berlin during Saturday afternoon. Two o’clock in the morning starts, long car journeys, lots of queuing at the airports and a flight were agreed as excellent preparation for the hell of “Collecting Your Race Number from the Exhibition Hall a Few Hours before the Race”. Orderly queues, like miserable service, warm beer, milky tea and the Queen are part of our heritage. Elsewhere, they shout and jostle for service like the mosh-pit at a rock concert. Sensing that I was going nowhere, I pushed, barged and cut my way to the front of several queues (one to get in, one for the number, one for the T-shirt and one for the race chip). By the time the exhibition hall spat me back out on the streets of Berlin I was a sweaty wreck with a dehydration headache and sore feet. Dawn, Nick, Mike and I stayed at a hotel within a couple of miles of the start/finish at the Brandenburg Gate. A walk along the Kurfurstendamm, Berlin’s main shopping street, and also part of the marathon course, was followed with a short trip to the supermarket for breakfast food. An evening meal at an Italian restaurant, sharing useful information such as “There aren’t any mile markers - it’s all kilometres,” and an early night completed the preparations. Unusually, for a strange hotel room, I had a great night’s sleep and felt ready when I awoke. After checking that my hair was suitably fluffy, we all converged on Dawn’s room for breakfast before posing for photographs upon departure from the hotel. We knew that we would travel many miles before our return. The anticipation built with each increment – the ride on the Strassenbahn, the disembarkation at Hauptbahnhof, the trudge to the start/finish area outside the Reichstag. To top it all, however, was the beauty of the portaloos – both abundant and purple. Amazingly (amusingly) though, despite the prevalence of portaloos, and our well-timed arrival at 7.45am (for a 9am start), Dawn had to go 25 minutes before the start. So we stood at the back of a queue for the toilets. And we waited for ages. And then we pelted our way to the F start. We got there just in time to be impeded by spectators and fences. No, there’s nothing like the exhilarating panic of a big city marathon start. And then we were off. We ran out of the Tiergarten, then past a huge statue – and then I can’t really remember much of it. Russell and Kate cheered me on at the 7km mark, looping back past the Reichstag. I lost Dawn at a water station at 9km – they seemed to ambush me – and I was on my own, still in a huge river of runners. Not a lot happened for ages. At 25km, Dawn sailed past, and then at 30km I realised I was really quite knackered. The route took us back on to the Kurfurstendamm, within metres (we’re metric here) of our hotel – but I didn’t even notice it. The final corner came, and the last 2km to the Brandenburg Gate and the finish. One last yell from Russell, and then it was over. I could barely pick my leg up to extract the chip from my trainer. A short walk to the reunion point … and then beer! After endurance races, it is an established fact that re-hydration and carbohydrates are necessary. So it was a beer or three at the reunion point, and a hobble back to the hotel, where we showered and changed, before hitting the cafés of Berlin for cake and more ale. Medals were proudly displayed at any opportunity. We still had an hour or two to kill before our evening meal, so we decided to keep drinking. At about 7pm we caught a taxi to the Turkish restaurant. Duly fortified, Team Strider then hit the town. Nick had heard about a bar in East Berlin so we went there to start. Eventually we caught the last underground train back to the hotel. On Monday we had a few hours to spare for sight-seeing, so we decided to spend most of it eating breakfast. Top of the list of things to see was the last bit of the Berlin Wall.We caught our flight home, had a tedious car journey back to Leamington fighting through Monday rush hour traffic, and came to the club to show off our new medals. |
Race 
