Berlin at least

Our long-awaited vacation finally started, and I am fulfilling my promise to my wife to keep the blog about it. This will have to sum up the first three days which went by in a flash.

Friday was a blur. We arrived to Berlin around 5 pm and were too jetlagged to notice anything. I vaguely remember a dinner by the river consisting of oversized Wiener schnizel and equally oversized bill.

Saturday was a bit more sane - since the first thing in the order of business was the Berlin marathon, I had to visit the expo - a huge fair with all things marathon-related - to get my number and timing chip. It was held in the old US army airport, which was the main supply route during the air-bridge times of cold war, when all around Berlin was DDR (Russian-controlled Eastern Germany) and the only way to get the goods in town was by air.

BMW, the main sponsor for the marathon, erected an air balloon in front of the expo hall. Unlike in any other race I ran so far, there were tents with sausages and beer, although mostly non-alcoholic variety.

Then came Sunday, the day of the race. Again, this is the first big marathon I ran that had the start and finish at the same place, meaning it's a circular course. With our hotel being a 5 min walk from the start, all was a hassle-free experience. We woke up at 6 am, which was a luxury, considering the start was at 9.

In all my previous marathons I had to get up at least 5 hours earlier. Accordingly, the wait at the athlete's village was shorter, and there was less anxiety.

Very precisely, as one would expect from the Germans, the race started at 9:00 am sharp. It never seize to amaze and move me that mass of people - just short of 41,000 runners - moving forward like separate cells of a single living organism.

I would lie if I said sightseeing was possible during the race. It isn't. All I could think about is my pace, how to avoid getting tripped by so many runners around me, when to get water and refreshments, and how to keep on going.

On a few occasions when I remembered where I am, I snapped a few pictures, but after 34 kms mark I was almost brain-dead. I was so tired by then that all my brain could muster is just to maintain the main bodily functions and keep the legs moving. From that point on, all I remember is passing under the Brandenburg Gate and seeing Meg filming me, then, blessedly, the finish gate.

The weather was much warmer than expected, the race ended on 20 C, which is not so cool (pun intended) for running. Still, as pictures show, I was fairly happy with the race. Mostly, I was happy that I survived and finished. My time: 3h 17m 32s, placement: 3087 overall (way within top 10%), and should I choose to run Boston again, this was a Boston qualifying time.

In the evening the organizers held a party, which turned out to be an odd gathering of runners - some of them in shirts reeking of sweat - in a disco environment. There was a bar with pricey drinks, a food buffet too, but no place to sit. Strange choice, considering the party is meant for people who just ran a marathon, and are probably tired to the bone.

Stranger even was the fact that soon, some were dancing. I could not decide whether those were people who didn't run, didn't finish, or their brains are still too numb to register the pain and fatigue. In any case, there was dancing, but the atmosphere was too odd, and we decided to leave it to find something to eat - which we did in a fantastic Norwegian restaurant albeit quite a distance away - and finally get some rest, so our real tourism can start tomorrow.