03:33:30
This post was originally published on d1db3k.blogspot.com on 2013-10-08. I migrated this post in January 2026.
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.
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.
