The Berlin Half Marathon
Berlin has always been one of my favourite cities to visit , the street photography is always special , the young vibrant atmosphere in the makes it a street photographers dream . There’s always buzz here wrapped in a whiff of decent . Politics are complicated and there German’s who think Berlin is very different to the nation and they be right . I love Munich and Frankfurt but they are very different in atmosphere to Berlin.
On this occasion however we came to as well as take pictures . With both proximity and interest in mind we located ourselves just around the corner from check point Charlie and the Trabant museum , the stable vehicle of the old DDR and iconic imagery.
There were two runs on the agenda , the Berlin mile and the Berlin Half Marathon. Both finish under the branddenburgh Gate , the latter however being the difficult one to get into. A ballot system , not quite as difficult as the London Marathon but never the less the odds where pinned at 14 % success rate. Thankfully they operate a partners ticket which meant that if one got in the other did to. The event is of course part of the Super Half series , our first one and hopefully not our last.
The first challenge in any big event is of course the Expo , which was held in the old Templehof Airport where walls can tell many stories. Probably more famously for it’s allow in breaking the Soviet Initiated blockage of the City in 19 ( please check dat) .Give me a few stats here
Friday morning two days before the big event we headed onto the UBAHN system and down to the airport. I’ve always enjoyed public transport in Europe , where ever we have been it’s always been a better experience.
We normally buy our running shoes from Sportlink in Norwich , for two reasons firstly they are just good guys to deal with who know there business and secondly because I don’t want the internet to win. It’s got it’s place , but not at the expense of good local shops run and operated by good people.
However there was an exception on this occasion as the main sponsor Adidas brought two new colours to the event which couldn’t be bought anywhere else and one of them was lemon which sealed the deal. Apparently!
Addidas Adizero Pro 4
The Berlin was for fun low key , a great experience running along the the city centre mile . You could help but be aware of the history of the location, Berlin tells it’s own story and reflects it’s past with openness and candour , but today was about running and few things unify people quicker. Families , extended families , communities groups and shapes and sizes of all types were in attendance , it was simply marvellous.
Helen was straight in with the new lemon shoes while I decided to go with the trusted Asics Superblasts , a shoe that cannot be spoken about highly enough to my mind. I was glad this event was available to us , normally we would have looked for a park run but all four in the city ere cancelled this weekend , for fear of being overwhelmed I guess. While we run a lot of park running and volunteering , we are in fact both Run Directors at our local parkrun , but we have yet to experience a park-run in Europe.
Having binged on Italian from a fantastic little Italian restaurant , great food and great service we slept well and it was soon time to eat breakfast and head to the start.
You could feel the excitement in the air as you approached the race village and you know at this point what a huge event this is and a privilege to be taking part.
Entry to the viallge was controlled and accessible iny on product of a bib and a wrist band we accuired at the Expo. I sensed relief as we got in , one does fear an issue at this late stage , eitehr loss of the wrist band or bib or both.
Bit alas no issues , which could not be said for the toilets , there wasn;t enough and most runners in the end gave up and went au nautral in the bushes . Hey Ho the life of a distance runner.
Setting off in waves of the now usual misplaced masses , as always meant for a lot of weaving but once the first couple of fews were done things settled down on what was a fast course through a well supported through the city.
A briliant day all told , and fast times for us to boot.
We’ll certainy try and come back for the full marathon at some stage in the future.
