Berlin Marathon 2021
/10 Things I Think About The Berlin Marathon
1. I’m Only Here Because I’ve an Entry
I think that it is an excellent idea to run a marathon a few months after a desperate injury. Four months is the perfect window of opportunity whereby you get to do enough training to get around but not enough training to have to worry about times. Training without time in mind perhaps.
2. Row H
I think that starting in row H would not have been excellent. When they gave me my number there was a small big H on the number. Row H means start at the back. Thankfully there is a queue for people who think they should start at the front. I joined this queue because I am a runner and a runners pride is based entirely on their marathon PB. The lady at the desk wouldn’t accept my 2:36 from Berlin in 2019 because it was too long ago, she said that while my arms looked skinny enough she needed to see proof of training, so I showed her my one marathon paced run of 15 miles on Strava which she agreed was super and worthy of an A sticker being placed over the H.
3. Tofu and Rice
I think that while I wasn’t too worried about the race I was determined to get my stomach right for this marathon so that I could use the protocol in future. The new protocol involved no restaurants, bread and hummus, croissants and a meal of basmati rice and tofu eaten 14 hours before the start with a tower of power 4 hours before. The protocol worked so so well. I had a perfect belly for the entire race and even afterwards, perfect. The maurten gels settled magnificently on top of that mixture.
4. The Silent Walk
I think that the walk to the start of the marathon is very odd, it wasn’t much different to other years except that people were made wear masks. The silence makes no sense as there are thousands of people walking along making almost no noise. Then you get to the startline and the noise of people talking about the times that they’re going to run starts.
5. Start
I think that it is great that the organisers didn’t change anything about the start. Apart from the masks there was no difference to any other year. Well there was one difference, at the start everyone I knew ran away from me very quickly, Viv, Trevor, Conor, Jeremy, John, all gone up the road never to be seen again after only a few metres. I pretended not to care but I kind of did, bad beatings are hard to take.
6. Joe’s Service Course
I think that Joe could start a new company. The company would offer personalised bottle and gel drop off during marathons. If people are willing to pay lots of money to coaches to get them to the marathon then why wouldn’t they pay to have someone give them a bottle and a gel twice during the race. The service was exceptional.
7. GPS and Reality
I think that a lot of people ran virtual marathon PBs today. The Strava police need to be on the watch for anyone claiming a GPS PB, this crime should be reported and should be punished by being made to start in row H in every marathon for every more. The GPS was so inaccurate you might as well have not had a watch. Only the 5k clocks were worth paying attention to. I didn’t really pay much attention to either, I ran along at what felt like about 6 minute pace roughly.
8. Ich Nichten Lichten
I think that I was lucky I hadn’t invested too much in this marathon. After about 20k it started to get really hot and really sunny. It was like the Charleville Half Marathon with all the humidity, less wind, more sun and extra heat. Because I wasn’t really planning on suffering too much and anyone I would have gotten pleasure out of beating was miles up the road, I slowed down a little bit sort of like how I imagine you’d drive an electric car if you were worried about the battery life.
9. Bowerman
I think that the Shalane Flanagan should go back to running properly. She had said before the race that she was going to run all the Major marathons in 3 hours. At about 33k she came past me flying, running like someone who was fed up running with useless articles like me. I jokingly shouted at her « you’re only supposed to be running 3 hours, don’t be taking the piss ». She turned and scowled at me worse than any scowl I received running in 2020.
10. Magic Shoes
I think that magic shoes are great, I have never run a marathon and been pretty much 100% functional afterwards. This was my first marathon in magic shoes and while it was one of my slowest this does not mean I am wrong about magic shoes being the work of the devil. I am even more convinced of their evil. Hopefully I will get the chance to exploit their evil properly next year.
