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Berlin marathon 2011
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4 stars (good)TFBubendorfer wrote: »That's a savage improvement, congratulations!
Can't believe Neil's eclipsed my 20 min improvement from Dublin last year - I blame the 3:30 pacers we had at Dublin
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Managed it in 3:22:59. Absolutely thrilled. Last 10k very tough, slowed quite a bit, heat was a killer. Anyone hear what the temp was. Big PB though, 28mins+ quicker than DCM last year. Full report later in the week. Big session tonight me thinks!!!
Well Done Neil thats a fantastic improvement...hope the party is going well.
Well done to everyone else.0 -
PaulieYifter wrote: »Can't believe Neil's eclipsed my 20 min improvement from Dublin last year - I blame the 3:30 pacers we had at Dublin
Damn pacers running spot on time, eh? :rolleyes:0 -
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sorryto hear that niall i hope i have a better day at the races in liverpool,sure its all downto the day i suppose 3.30 i know im good for but on the daybthe rest will tell )shels4ever wrote: »Oh yes, your better then that, recover and then a nice spring marathon
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3 stars (average)Firstly congratulations to everyone, some truly amazing results on here.
And thanks for all the help and advice over the past few months.
Berlin was my sixth marathon and I was shocked at just how nervous I was, my husband and I travelled over on the early flight on Saturday and by the time we got to the airport I'm sure he was ready to kill me. Thankfully he is very understanding and has also started running so we made it to Berlin without initiating divorce proceedings. On the flight over my pre-race thoughts ranged from thinking I would be pulling out after a mile to thinking I would somehow turn into a superwoman and race alongside Paula.
When we landed I began to calm down and the weather was perfect. Checked into our hotel, Hilton, which was super and then headed out for lunch. We had pasta al fresco and I was starting to feel like this was a holiday.
Got the train to the expo, I loved the building it was in. It was, of course, VERY busy but we enjoyed it and didn't stay too long. My husband was hoping to buy a Germin and they were sold out, how ridiculous is that? If ever there was a time to overstock Garmin supplies you would imagine it would be at an expo for runners!
We headed back to the hotel and had a quick dip in the pool then headed out to check out the finish/start area. The pre-race atmosphere in the city was super, reminded me a lot of Boston.
I was glad I had read the posts about Unter den Linden seeming to go on forever until the Brandenburg gate, I walked up it very slowly imagining how it would feel the next day after 41K. We had a lovely dinner and headed back for an early night. My husband spent ages working out exactly where he would spot me en route and he was doing so all I could think was "I hope I sustain the pace I'm supposed to so it all comes together".
Sunday morning I woke at 5.30 after a good solid six hours sleep, the early flight the day before helped I think. Breakfast, then headed up to the start at about 7.30. This was the first time my husband had come to a start with me and he really enjoyed the atmosphere. We said our goodbyes and I headed off to get into my start corral F. I had read on here that it would be fairly chaotic and it was indeed mayhem! At 9 am I was still waiting to get into the corral, it was full and behind me were hundreds more people; crazy. The start is one of my favourite parts of the marathon so I relaxed and starting chatting to poeple around me. I crossed the start line about 11 minutes after the gun went off so it wasn't too bad.
I spent the first 5K dodging and overtaking but I tried not to get too worried that my pace was slow. I saw my husband at 1K, 5K, 22K, 35k and just before the finish; his spectator plan was perfect. I think he was more tired than me after the race, he literally ran from place to place. He had ballons tied to a stick and I was able to spot him every time. In terms of helping the time go by it REALLY helped to break up the race. I crossed the half way line and the race clock was showing 2.01.XX and all I could think was "Haile and his competitors will be finishing any minute now" he was back in his hotel room at that stage! But a world record was only minutes away.
I met my husband just after the half and he told me I was looking strong, I told him the race wouldn't really be starting till 30K and to keep praying for me. I maintained a fairly consistent pace throughout but the sheer number of runners and the water stations really slowed me down and by about 30K I knew 3.39 might not happen for me but I decided to stay as strong as I could. My husband met me at 35K with my small bottle of flat Coke which was all I needed to get me to the finish line, he ran alongside me for a bit and I told him there would be no PB for me; stay strong and dig deep was his answer.... That really helped and I did indeed stay relatively strong and I had to dig very deep for the last 7K. It REALLY helped having read on here that the last 1K was a long drag. With the finish line in sight I was looking way past it trying to stay strong but I also wanted to soak up the atmosphere, as I looked to my left into the stand I noticed three red balloons and my husband screaming at the top of his lungs, what a perfect way to finish.:) As I crossed the line I was in tears and my Garmin showed 3.41.39, not a PB but only 16 seconds short of one and it puts me in the top 10% of female finishers. I was over the moon and couldn't stop shouting. On the finish line the Mysports video I can be clearly heard screaming Woo Hoo and Yes!, it's fair to say I was a little delirious:D
There was a queue for medals and then the finish area was quite easy to get around, I had a quick massage, collected my beer, dropped back my chip and headed out to meet my husband.
We headed back to the hotel had a dip in the pool and had a delicous dinner. I had thought I would be too tired to go to the pub but I was feeling great and we headed up to the Oscar Wilde where it was really super to meet up with and put faces to lots of you on here. As my husband has signed up for Dublin he was thrilled to get lots of advice from Meno and Brian and Neil and TRR (who was unbelievably modest about his amazing achievement!)The plan was to have one or two pints.... We had a lot more than that, not exactly good recovery strategy but it was great craic and it would have been a shame to leave early. Highlight of the night was when "We are the Champions" was played... all the hard work over the last few months was well worth it. We got back to the hotel about 2am, ate all of the chocolate we had bought to bring home as presents (it's just lucky we didn't pass a kebab shop on the way home).
And up bright and early for the flight home yesterday. I was shattered last night but had a great swim at the 40foot this morning so next stop Dublin....
see you all there.0 -
4 stars (good)Marthastew wrote: »Firstly congratulations to everyone, some truly amazing results on here.
.....
And up bright and early for the flight home yesterday. I was shattered last night but had a great swim at the 40foot this morning so next stop Dublin....
see you all there.
Nice report and well done.
Was I sitting behind you on the flight home?
I'm the chap who said getting off that I had a 14 minute PB and that I won't be running Dublin because my wife is due our 2nd baby that weekend.0 -
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4 stars (good)Berlin Marathon 2011.
3:22:59
History
When I first entered this one after Dublin last year I gave myself the very ambitious target of 3:20:30 with a view to qualifying for Boston now that I’d be moving into the M40 category. I’d just gone from 4:50:14 in DCM ’09 to 3:49:39 in DCM ’10 so on a high after the race thought what’s another 30 minutes and entered. When the BAA changed qualifying times for Boston I thought another 6 minutes was just a step too far and revised the goal back to a much more sensible target of 3:30.
I decided to go with P&D this time around as well after hearing great things about them here. I couldn’t put down the book when it arrived and had it finished in a couple of days. Having used Hal Higdon previously I’d knew nothing of VO2 max or threshold runs but as long as I could do the program and stay injury free I was fairly confident I could hit 3:30. I don’t think the training plan itself could have gone any better. I pretty much hit all the targets along the way and as the plan progressed the confidence grew.
Two weeks out from Berlin the plan called for a 10k tune up race so I decided to do the lakes 10k after all the rave reviews here. In tough enough conditions on the day and a bit of a killer hill I managed to come away with a PB of 43:12 and a new time to punch into McMillan to see where I was at. He reckoned I could hit 3:22:44. With that in mind and a lot of head wrecking I decided to change the goal again and printed out a 3:20 pace band.
Race Weekend
Garmin Link
We traveled over on the Saturday morning and made our way to the Expo straight away. Didn’t delay there at all, done what was needed to be done and were on our way. After checking in at the hotel we went and sussed out the start/finish area. The atmosphere up there was amazing what with the kids races and the skaters. After dinner of a massive potato omelet (apparently a farmers breakfast) and a pint of German beer we were ready to hit the hay by 10pm. As Marthastew said earlier the early flight had its advantages because I slept straight away and didn’t hear one of the many good luck texts that came in over the next couple of hours.
The race itself was great; have to say I loved it. I know now I made the schoolboy error of going out too fast. It just didn’t feel like it at the time. At around the 5k mark one poor chap beside me took a spill, luckily enough he got straight up and continued running. When I looked back around I couldn’t believe what I saw, the 3:15 pacers. I wasn’t sure if I caught them or they caught me because I hadn’t been keeping an eye out for them at all. It was here I kinda changed the goal again. I didn’t actually decide to stay with them more like see how long I could continue to keep them in my eye line. Not the wisest of thing to do I know but I was really feeling great at the time.
I raced the Dungarvan 10 miler in January as hard as I could and did it in 76:32. Sunday I passed through the 10 mile mark on the garmin in 73:xx with what felt like very little effort. At this stage of the race it actually felt like jogging rather than running.
My water and gel strategy was working out great too. Before the race I taped a straw to each of my six gels. All I had to do was pop the gel, rip the straw off the wrapper, drink and dispose everything, no worrying about minding a straw.
I’m not too sure in the end when I lost sight of the 3:15 pacers but it must have been around 17 to 18 miles because this is when things started to slow down a bit. It wasn’t a major bonk by any means just a gradual slowing. At 35k I was actually still slightly ahead of pace for 3:20 but knew it wouldn’t be for much longer. The last few miles were tough but for the first time in a marathon I had the mental strength not to adopt the run/walk strategy.
Once I knew 3:20 was gone I decided to just bring it home and soak up the atmosphere, which was amazing the whole way around. I heard the shouts of my wife at 42k but because there was so many people about never managed to make eye contact.
Overall the Berlin race experience for us was fantastic. Everything went like clockwork and was organized to a tee. Had some nice grub and lovely cold beers afterwards in the family area before heading back to the hotel to clean up. Later on in the evening after dinner it was nice to meetup with marthastew & Joe, Meno, Brianderunner, the ledgend that’s the roadrunner and plenty of others too.
Next up for me is DCM. Not sure how to run it yet, it seems to change by the hour but if I’m racing I’d need to decide soon because P&D says 5m recovery tomorrow. I’m a slave to the plan 0 -
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4 stars (good)2.55.10 for Opus, well done. Great running, wasn't your pb 2.59?
Just about, I barely managed to get in under three hours back in April.
Been catching up on the great performances and reports in this thread and the logs this morning. The day itself went ok for me thankfully which I was very happy with after missing out on my goal here last year.
Started close to the back right of pen C which wasn't great due to crowding, seems the left hand side is the place to be as you zip up the outside much quicker. In the end took me ~1.5 mins to cross the start line.
The sub-3 pacers were right at the front of the pen starting off so I figured a reasonable plan would be to try and catch up with them first and then take it from there. Easier said than done as they split into two groups, I passed the first bunch at around the 3k mark but it took 'til 12k to reel in the second lot due to the sheer number of people between the two groups.
After that nothing really dramatic happened, pace stayed roughly the same although did slow down a bit after the 37k mark. I had five of the High5 isogels during the race roughly every 7k or so, ignored the first water station as it looked too much like a scrum but grabbed a cup at every one after that bar the very last one.
For the last km, I kept repeating the catchy slogan from Tony's Trials on the MarathonTalk podcast to myself, in case you didn't hear it, it goes like "F*ck your legs, f*ck em" repeated, seemed to help anyway
That evening I called into the Oscar Wilde where I met Meno, Brian, Neilc & the legendary tRR! Didn't have the energy left to visit the other Irish bar across town.
Sorry no Garmin link as on a week's holiday in Germany.
The 70m P&D plan worked pretty well for me so guess I'll use it again for London next April.
To finish up, I'd highly recommend the Berlin Segway tour that we did on Sat afternoon, it was just great crack zipping around on those yokes for four hours! We even got to see some of the inline skating marathon & the kid's race which looked like it had 1000's of runners.0 -
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Krusty_Clown wrote: »TRR is the 3:00 pacer. The 3:15 pacers are Village Runner, Lecheile, and yours truly.
Thanks for that info. Hopefully see you on the day & Im able for the 3:15 pace 0
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