Race to the Brandenburg gate: the fastest marathon, in Berlin

Berlin, Germany. September 2018

We ran 42 kilometers through the streets of Berlin, ending up racing to the iconic Brandenburg Gate, and witnessed Eliud Kipchoge stop the timer at 2:01:09, the world record at the time.

TLDR; “Too long, didn’t read”

• I just want to run! Take me to RACE.
• I have 1 minute. Take me to USEFUL INFORMATION.
• Running is my excuse for travelling. Take me to TRIP.
• Running is my excuse for eating. Take me to CARBOLOADING.
• I want to know what to read in the plane. Take me to ONE BOOK.

🌍 The trip 📷

We ran the 2018 Berlin marathon just spending one weekend there. We traveled, ran and came back home. This is an option that many runners opt for, thanks to the many connecting flights between the German capital and multiple European cities.

Saturday, then, was for the “marathon expo”. It was organized in the old Tegel airport: the airlift which brought supplies from the West during the cold war. The area was very “East Berlin”, with its characteristic decadent touch. We saw a lot ot oversized buildings, gray and neglected, with peeling walls, sparse grass in the parking lots and concrete everywhere.

Upon entering, we liked the creative touch, with a workshop in which the children “drew the marathon”. Later, in two large pavilions, there were the typical merchandising stands, but also propeller planes exhibited, and a “beer garden” on the old airstrip. We were in Germany, but the beer was non-alcoholic 🙂 … it was a sporting event, after all.

We collected our technical shirts, our chip, the bib number, a wristband (that I wore for weeks), and a “finisher” shirt that you could pre-pay when you registered.

We had chosen our hotel because it was less than two kilometers away from the Tiergarten, so it would be possible to walk to the starting line; with the added bonus that the German Resistance Memorial was right up front.

Every year, for the marathon weekend, there are many hotels in Berlin that focus on providing a good service to marathon runners. At ours, they set up a full buffet of high carb foods for dinner and breakfast for the days leading up to it.

🍜 Carboloading 🍝

For the pre-race carbo-loading, we searched for Italian restaurants to eat pasta 🍝, ideally close to Alexanderplatz and its iconic communications tower, so we could do some sightseeing. We found one, but it was not easy, because the gastronomic offer of the area is mainly … döner kebabs. Berlin is, in fact, the birthplace of the döner.

We left the Döner kebabs 🍢 for after the race. They are very tasty, but also very high in calories, fat, and sodium. A standard-sized chicken or lamb kebab has up to 800 calories, of which 80g are carbohydrates, 50g are protein and 40g are fat.

Another caloric bomb that will fuel your marathon is Currywurst, a Berlin specialty. Sliced sausage 🌭 served with a spiced ketchup sauce and topped with curry powder.

🏃‍♀️ The marathon🏃‍♂️

We got up at 6am, and took advantage of the breakfast buffet, full of runners and high-carb foods.

The temperature was going to rise to more than 15°C/59°F degrees by mid-morning, but in the morning it was cold, so we covered ourselves with some thermal blankets that we could leave behind at the start point. We dressed in short sleeves / tank top. By the way: in a marathon, you see all kinds of clothes… but in this one I swear I saw an elderly woman in panties! Either that, or her sport shorts had a very “cute” aesthetic.

We arrived at the Tiergarten and as we passed the boxes for the fastest runners, we saw a group of elite runners stretching. With their wiry bodies, they were unmistakable. And there he was, Eliud Kipchoge, who smiled and even allowed himself to be photographed with some of the amateur runners.

At 9:15 we saw the elite runners take off, as it was broadcasted in the big screens. “Chariots of Fire” played and those of us in the slowest boxes inched our way to the starting line.

Then, the speaker gave us instructions (we were in Germany, so the instructions were man-da-to-ry) and suddenly 45.000 souls started the “Viking clap”. It’s just awesome. Even now, as I write these lines, I am moved when I remember it. Although, what I experienced right afterwards was more prosaic: a Spaniard easily gulping down two gels, two American girls streaming live their dances with a lot of makeup on (how can the make up last 4+ hours, I wonder?)… and a German woman choosing to urinate on the grass instead of queuing for the toilets.

First kilometers

The marathon is perfectly organized. In addition to being the fastest in the world, you pass in front of famous monuments and buildings. And the marathon photographers are perfectly positioned to take pictures of you in front of them, as can be seen in the pictures I included: it is simply perfect.

The route takes you around the Victory Column and then past the historical Reichstag. In the streets, there are many people cheering, with children and their typical “tap here for power” signs. Running with us we saw mexicans shouting “¡Viva México!”, a group of Thais, another of Swiss… more from Costa Rica, Namibia, Singapore, Zimbabwe… an American dressed as “Captain America”, a Chinese as a panda bear, and a Catalan with a “caminem i fem historia” t-shirt. One person was running while jumping rope! A group of three were dressed as musketeers, and another of six, as characters from Asterix (the one who was dressed as Obelix even had a fake menhir!)

10 to 30 kilometers

As we progressed, we realized that the course is indeed very flat. A sign on a bridge reminded us that “you are on the fastest route” while in the audience, a spectator advocated that “pain is only the French word for bread”. Onlookers do cheer, although in a more discreet way than in other marathon majors. There are also music bands throughout the race: I remember a soloist singing “a capella” in Turkish who seemed out of tune. We joked about it: “he makes you ran faster, as you want to leave his cooing behind”. On a private balcony, some people played Madness’ “House of fun” at full volume, sparking the enthusiasm of many runners, some of whom did a kind of impromptu “ska” while running …

We kept running through icons in Berlin; we accumulated kilometers while seeing the memorial church of kaiser Wilhelm, bombed during the WWII, or the many museums. And then, at kilometer 41, we made one last turn and saw the Brandenburg Gate! “Let’s race to the gate!” (which is the motto of the marathon)

Last kilometers

In the last kilometers, there were cameras, a non-alcoholic beer offer (really?), lots of entertainment and even the mascot, Frido Flink, “high five-ing” runners. On a personal note, Roger almost caused an incident to go to greet him!

We finished on a high, racing to the gate and super excited, while the loudspeakers announced that this marathon had been the fastest in history! Eliud Kipchoge had set a new world record by more than a minute, something that had not happened in more than 50 years!

Useful information

🏆 Berlín Marathon (42K). First edition: 1974

🌐 Berlin marathon Website: https://www.bmw-berlin-marathon.com/en/

🏃 Number of runners: around 45.000

🗓️ Third week of September in Berlin, Germany, Europe.

👟 Urban: bring shoes for asphalt

✅ One of the fastest marathons worldwide, if not the fastest

✅ Perfect organisation. And one of the Abbott Marathon Majors

Map

One book

📖 “My Century”, by Gunter Grass

For this trip, I read again “My Century” by Gunter Grass, a book I had read about ten years ago, and which consists of 100 chapters, with different stories, one for each year of the 20th century. An amazing book, well documented, harsh and insightful.

I will focus here on chapter 42, because of the 42 kilometers 😏 . In this chapter the following sentence is to be found:

I wanted to go back to the front. There he knew at least what he had to count on. I cried, I literally cried, I assure you, when I saw my Cologne from Deutz. It was still smoking and only the cathedral was still standing.
[…] Some spoke then of Darmstadt and Würzburg, of Nuremberg, Heilbron. And from Berlin, naturally.

Gunter Grass, “My century”

These words describe the Allied bombing raids during that year. And with these words, the image of Kaiser Wilhelm’s church, in front of which we ran, returns to me.

Summary:

A collection of one hundred inter-linked stories celebrating the twentieth century, by Germany’s most eminent contemporary writer. As the sequence of stories unfolds, a lively and rich picture emerges, an historical portrait of our century in all its grandeur and in all its horror.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

To know more…

“Berlin AlexanderPlatz”, by Alfred Dobin

Not an easy book, but interesting as it captures the difficulties of lower class people in Berlin in the 1920s. A time where Germany was struggling after WWI, and that helps understanding what happened a decade later.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐