Peckham's sub-3 odyssey - Round 3: Berlin

It's a long one, apologies, but I just started typing and couldn't stop!

The weekend got off to an unsettling start with a delayed flight on Friday night meaning I didn’t arrive at my hotel until 1:30am, and it was well after 2am before I got to sleep. As that is the key night for getting good sleep before the race, and I wanted to get to the Expo reasonably early the next day to beat the massive crowds, I was slightly worried about any knock-on effect. Even though I slept until 10am (so much for getting to the Expo early!) I felt quite tired fmost of Saturday.

Got to the Expo just before midday and the plan was to get in and out of there as quickly as possible. Unfortunately when I got there the Expo was really busy and it was a bit of a hike to get to the number pick-up point. I ended up having to queue for 45 minutes to get my number, and then queue again to get my chip. Thought the Expo could have been better laid-out, and lacking the German efficiency I was expecting! Lots of bottlenecks and crowds of people. Generally unpleasant and claustrophic. Not ideal, but I made up for it by relaxing in the outside area with a non-alcoholic Erdinger. Definitely worth flying over on Friday morning to get the Expo out of the way when it’s less busy that day.

Then it was back to the hotel for a bit of a snooze, before heading out around 4pm for a gentle 4 mile leg loosener and to catch some of the inline skating marathon action. Ran through Tiergarten to see the start of that race, and was very surprised by the numbers taking part in the race. A bizarre sport that I never knew existed – who would have thought there were so many people wanting to rollerblade for 26 miles!

Out for dinner on Saturday night with Village Runner and some of his friends before heading to bed at 9:30, and the advantage of the poor night sleep on Friday night meant I had no problems sleeping on Saturday night and got 7 hours, which was probably a record for me the night before the race.

Woke at 6am on raceday fully recovered from the headcold, but mildly concerned about the torrential rain that was hammering off my window. Headed down to the restaurant under the hotel was kind enough to be opening very early to cater for marathon runners. Had a good feed of two of the Flahavans instant porridge cartons with honey and raisins, plus two ham rolls, coffee and juice. Was feeling nice and relaxed, and was raring to go.

With the rain being so heavy, I decided to hang back in the hotel for a while rather than get drenched at the start area. It being only a 10 minute walk to the start, I headed off about 8am. Got changed into the race gear, dropped the bag off and headed to the start area. Was in starting area B, which was meant for sub-2:50 runners (as that was the original plan for Berlin, but the missed sub-3 in London meant I was going to be more conservative in order to bag the magical sub-3). Hung to the back of that start area as I didn’t want to get caught up in a pace that was going to prove painful. Saw Krusty towards the front of the area looking very relaxed and was oddly wearing a pair of shades despite visibility being so poor!

Rain was still falling pretty steadily so everyone was keen to get moving. After an impressive rendition of “This is the Moment”, by some singer on the starting podium the atmosphere started to build and the gun went slightly after 9am.

I had a 2:59 pace band that gave me split times for every odd kilometre, and the trusty Garmin with autolap turned off. Being the pace-obsessed runner that I am, I manually hit the Garmin every even-numbered km, and checked the pace band on the odd-numbered kms. Total overkill I’ll admit, but it kept me focussed and meant there was always something to think about!

The first 10k flew past, without anything particularly interesting happening (except being overtaken at around 6km by a Japanese man dressed as Snow White). Hit my race pace pretty quickly, and was bang on target at each km marker. With the rain still falling pretty steadily, I was soaked very early on in the race. Things feeling good so far. This was my first marathon marked in km, and it seems easier than with mile markers, as you seem to notch up the distance much quicker!

I had four Lucozade gels with me, but had forgotten to plan when exactly to take the gels, so I decided to take one at each of the 15/25/35 km points. Was a bit worried that water was being given out in cups rather than bottles, as I like to take the gels slowly with lots of water, but it isn’t easy to juggle a gel and a plastic cup. So, decided to shove all the gel into my mouth coming towards the water station, and then grab a cup and rinse it all down. Worked very well, except for the final gel, as I didn’t notice the water station coming up, and found myself on the wrong side of the road checking my pace band. Quick movement to the other side of the road, grabbed a cup, shoved the gel into my mouth and then realised I had spilled all of the water. Pretty unpleasant having to swallow a gel with no water at that point in the race.

The second quarter of the race gave me my first worry. I was ticking along nicely and noticed there weren’t many runners around. Then at around 15km I heard the commentator at the side of the road saying something about the sub-3 pacer, and then some guy with balloons went past me pretty quickly and I was swallowed into a massive group of those pacing off him. This worried me as they would have started behind me, and were now overtaking me at speed. I then started to doubt myself and was concerned that my pace band was wrong. However, the benefit was that I was now in a big group. After a while this pacer started to slow down, so I think he realised he was going too quick.

The pacers in Dublin would put those in Berlin to shame. They were not wearing matching gear, and had two poxy small balloons with 3:00 written on them in felt marker. Poor display from one of the top marathons in the world – pacing is all about image, and Dublin wins hands down!

Halfway came and went at 89:25, and all I could think about was how I started to fade at this point in London, and how much fresher I was feeling in Berlin. I knew then that I just needed to keep my wits about me and the legs had the energy to take me to a sub-3 finish. The third quarter of the race was uneventful, except for being overtaken by a barefoot runner just after halfway.

Road was starting to get really wet at this point, and was going through lots of sizeable puddles, and bits where there were practically streams running across the road. Shoes were totally soaked through, but I still felt strong and was motoring along.

I thought about pushing on with 10km to go, but the priority was to go sub-3. Trying to make a push for sub-2:55 might have been risky, so kept it conservative.

The final 8km is when the pain really started to hit and I just kept my mind on chasing the balloons of one of the sub-3 pacers who was about 10 metres ahead of me. The group following him had really thinned out, and I wonder had he burned some off with an early fast pace. Motivation at this stage was counting down the minutes – “just 30 minutes of hard running left”, “just 25 minutes left”, “in an hour I’ll be back on the beer, now make the sacrifice worthwhile”.

Pain was roaring through my quads and calves, and as always at this point the worry was there that something was going to pop. Just kept the pace steady, and even though it felt like I was running 6:15 pace, my watch said 6:40.

Counting down the final few kms. Was so wet, my number came off my singlet and was hanging on by the bottom two pins. Was worried it was going to fall in a soggy mess on the ground and I’d be disqualified or pulled out of the race in the final stretch, so pulled it off and carried it.

All of a sudden the 40km point was upon me. At this stage I felt I had it in the bag, and all that was going to stop me was some muscle in the legs going “pop”. A few turns and then there was the Brandenberg Gate in front of me. I knew the finish line was only a 200 metres from there so I really started to push on. As I came under the Gate I could make out the clock on the finish line and it was ticking past 2:59. I was going to do it, finally I was going to make sub-3. Just pushed on towards the line...about 10 metres out I went ballistic punching the air and shouting pretty loudly (the video of me finishing will be pretty embarrassing!).

Shuffled along after crossing the line, grabbing any item of food that I passed. The nicest thing in the finish area was the hot sports drink they were handing out.

After getting my photo taken I saw Krusty shuffling along ahead of me. Shouted out to him and we headed to the Erdinger stand for a celebratory non-alcoholic beer. Quick shower and change, and then it was over to the big screen to celebrate properly with real beer. Great to meet up with Kiwi Runner, T-Runner, Opus, Emer911 etc. Everyone in great form with some fantastic PBs.

Back to the hotel for a snooze before meeting up with some of the others again, for far too many beers last night. Woke up this morning incredibly hungover, but still smiling.

Job done.

That’s it for me racing marathons. No more, I’m done, and going out on that high. Will run some more, but not as intensively as am fed up with the training. Priorities will also be changing for me early next year with the arrival of Peckham Jnr. Will notch up some XC over the winter, and might try and have a shot at a sub-60 10 mile (current PB is 66 mins).

For the record: 2:58:59 (slowest 5km split was 21:24, fastest was 20:59)
Garmin says I ran 26.59miles, avg pace 6:44/mile.

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

By the way, I enjoyed your fist pumping video finish. I had to play around with the url to get it to work, as it doesn't like your apostrophe too much, but it's up there

Yep, I figured out earlier that the apostrophe was causing the issue. I can't believe the numbers finishing around me - I don't remember it being that busy.