Marathon Blog Post

It's a "marathon blog post" not because it's long, but because it's about the Berlin Marathon! Two weekends ago we got up early and went to watch the race. We're very lucky, in that our house is very close to the starting point of the marathon. Because of this all of the racers are still closely bunched together and it's easy to watch the entire marathon - wheelchairs, hand bikes, runners, and walkers (as well as police, camera crews, and cyclists) pass by.

We based ourselves at a fantastic spot at the foot of this church:


where the street that the marathon runs along has a bend which allowed us to see for a huge distance in both directions:


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We were standing right by the "A" on the map. When the first runners came we were standing on the end of the meridian where the divided street combines into an undivided street. Before the race started came plenty of police motorcycles driving extremely fast:


The first racers to pass us by were the wheelchairs, they start half an hour before the runners because they're so unbelievably fast:


The two wheelchair racers below are steering around the curve with both hands. The really fast racers above used only one!


Then, fifteen minutes before the runners come the "hand bikes" (these racers crank a bicycle style pedal with their hand rather than turn the wheelchair wheel). They're actually a little slower than the wheelchairs, but still amazingly fast.


I was a little worried about getting Clara out early to see the wheelchairs because I thought she might get bored. Was I ever wrong! Clara LOVED it! I think the wheelchairs were actually her favorite part of the whole event!


Finally came the runners! This video is of the leading pack:



Because Berlin is so flat it's one of the fastest marathons in the world. The record marathon time was set in Berlin in 2008 (42km in 2:04), and the world record holder (who was in the pack above) won again this year. Did you notice that after the elite runners passed you couldn't see anyone behind them? It was really amazing, we were standing 4.5km from the start of the race, and these guys were already way way ahead! After a bit of time some more clumps of racers came, and after several minutes the street began to fill in:


Remember that I said that we were on the meridian? If you look close you can tell in the photo above. The Berlin Marathon is a HUGE event, though, so we vacated the meridian just in time for runners to start coming up the other side of the street:


First a trickle, and then a flood!


One thing that made the marathons fun to watch was the non-competitive runners that dress up in funny costumes, runners related to spectators on the sidewalk ("That's my son!"), and runners who carry signs. The runner below is acting as a pacer. He's already run the Berlin marathon several times, and this year he carried a balloon and ran it in exactly three hours. This lets other runners easily see where they are. (I don't actually know how useful this is - marathoner readers are encouraged to comment!)


The four hour pacer was even more ambitious in his choice of balloon:



When the marathon reached peak density at our location some of the runners were even running up on the sidewalk in order to try to pass as many people as possible! Eventually the marathon slowed down and reduced back to one lane. Clara was less excited then, and passed some time practicing balancing with Oma:


Eventually there was enough room on the street for the most exciting event of the day: the Alt-Moabit Toddler Marathon!


There were still lots of spectators, and Clara was really buoyed by the huge cheers she got from the crowd!

All in all it was a huge amount of fun, so please come to visit and watch with us next year! (Or even better, Monica, to run it!)

On Saturday we fly to Alberta for two weeks! It's going to be a busy trip (Tanja has a conference, I have a birthday, and Canada has a Thanksgiving), and I'm sure we'll be taking a lot of pictures!