Berlin Marathon Recap

This past Sunday I ran the Berlin Marathon and earned my second star. After months of preparing for the weekend, it came and went quickly, from arrival in Germany to crossing the finish line.

Starting from the beginning...

If you’re a marathon runner, you know the importance of race week. Especially the 72 hours leading up to arrival at the start line. But those 72 hours looked a lot different for an international marathon than they did when I ran Chicago in my home city.

There were long travel days, jet lag, figuring out how to carb load with foods I’d never heard of, getting punked by sparkling water one too many times because I couldn't read German and trying to stay off my feet while also wanting to explore a city I’d never been to. You spend months training for one morning, and suddenly the challenge becomes getting yourself to the start line feeling as rested and ready as possible.

One of my favorite things about the World Majors is that the race completely takes over the city. Everywhere you look there are runners, shakeout runs, running shoes, Boston finisher jackets, and strangers talking about the race we've all spent months preparing for. There's this shared excitement throughout the city, if you've ever ran a Major, you know what I mean.

On Sunday morning, the train stations, walk to the start village, and the start line itself were electric. 

Berlin has a tradition of getting everyone hyped with synchronized clapping before the race, and standing there taking it all in was one of the moments I know I’ll remember. In the start corral, surrounded by thousands of other runners who've spent months working towards this day, realizing it was finally go time. I was one of 56,000 getting the chance to accomplish whatever it was that brought us to Berlin that day, reach a goal, fulfill a dream, honor a commitment or something only we could put into words.

Going into the race, my training had mostly gone according to plan. The one exception was my second and final 20 mile long run, which I completely botched. I only made it 15 miles and struggled the entire run. I had to move on from that run but I can't help but wonder if it hindered my performance on race day.

My goal for Berlin was sub-4. I trained for it, I believed I was capable of it, but I didn’t deliver it.

I started the race conservatively, sticking to the pacing that had worked for me during training. Around mile 13, the sub-4 pace group passed me. I tried to hang with them for a few miles, but by mile 18 I could tell that if I kept pushing that pace, I was probably going to pay for it later, so I backed off.

By mile 20, I knew sub-4 wasn’t happening. My calf and knee started cramping badly, and the final miles became less about a time goal and more about continuing to run and taking in what was happening around me. I fought through some pretty serious pain for the last five miles but I'll never forget the last 2 miles or when I finally saw the Brandenburg Gate.

Even during the harder parts of the race, the atmosphere made the miles easier. There were stretches that seemed to fly by because there was so much happening around me and many times where I stopped to realize how lucky I was to be in that moment. It seemed like a stranger always yelled my name off of my bib at a time I needed to hear it.

I didn’t get the time I came to Berlin for, but I still walked away with a PR and my second star. 

Berlin reminded me that the finish time is only one part of the experience, nothing could overshadow how special it is to get to run 26.2 miles through a city halfway across the world with thousands of other people who love this sport as much as I do.

I think that’s part of what keeps me coming back to the marathon. You can spend months preparing for exactly how you want the day to go, but 26.2 miles still gets the final say.