We were finally about to run our third Super Half, the halfway point for this series. My three most recent ‘proper’ half marathons have seen steady improvements on the road back to my pre-pandemic times. Each of those races are ones where I’ve resisted the temptation to push too hard too soon, but have still had to walk at some point towards the end of each race. In fact, I’ve not ran an entire race since Llanelli Half Marathon a couple of years ago and that was only because I was pacing at a much slower pace than I’d normally run at.

I really wanted this race to be another step in the right direction, so I went back to coming up with a series of goals:

• Bronze: Run at least 11 miles without walking, and achieve a time of sub-1:32:49,
• Silver: sub-1:30,
• Gold: sub-1:29.

The Bronze goal was basically aimed at beating what I’d done in Leicester towards the end of the year. If I could do that then maybe my change in training leading up to my next marathon was making a difference. The Silver goal felt fairly unreasonably, but with the knowledge of this being a fast course, I didn’t want to completely discount that possibility that maybe things could go really well. The Gold goal, felt like it would be nearly impossible, but was there as a reminder of my long-term goals. For my training runs so far, I’ve hit most of my targets, but not quite all of them. I felt good about my chances.

We were staying not that far from the race start, but unfortunately the only entrance to the race village was on the opposite side of Tiergarten, near the Reichstag. Our only real option was to take the U-Bahn to get there, which would be free for participants until 19:00 today.

Carmen’s friend met us in the hotel lobby once again for me to navigate us on our journey to the race start. At Wittenbergplatz I had some doubt over my planned route. I felt as long as I got us to the station by the zoo we could then take a train to Friedrichstraße which I felt would mean the least amount of walking for us. I think most people were taking the route to Bundestag instead, and to do this I suggested going in the opposite direction to Postdamer Platz and changing there - a couple of runners took that advice, even after I’d hesitated and had gone back to my original plan. They were on the train and off.

The three of us instead went across to the other platform and took the U-Bahn to Zoologischer Garten, and then found our way to the S-Bahn for the last part of the journey. It seemed a lot of runners were going this way as well. Whilst on the train I looked at the map and noticed t hat Berlin Hbf, a station I’d used for travelling to Dresden previously, looked to be the same distance from the start as Friedrichstraße, so suggested that. Someone else on the train recommended we get off there too. This was the stop the majority of runners got off, for the walk across the bridge to Republic Square.

The sun was out, but it wasn’t warm, and I started to get cold in the thirty minutes I was queuing for the facilities. Fortunately I’d given myself an hour before the race start, so I still had time for the bag drop, and to make my way to the start. Carmen couldn’t use the bag drop as she’d opted for the poncho at the finish instead, which meant any layers she didn’t want to run in would need leaving in my drop bag. I felt sorry for her as with the cold wind it wasn’t pleasant even with a long sleeve layer. After ten minutes we decided to go to the bag drop and then walk to the start. When shaded from the wind it didn’t seem so bad.

It’s a fair walk from the square to the race pens, longer than I’d remembered. After me and Carmen had to go in different directions I then had to jog briefly to reach my start pen in time. I needn’t have bothered though as it then took almost ten minutes to cross the start line.

The start runs along Bundesstraße, and around the Siegessäule, all the way to the Charlottenburg Palace. Early on there was a moment approaching the Siegessäule where there were six or seven women, all wearing the same shirts, were running shoulder to shoulder which made them near impossible to pass. It wasn’t the only congestion on the route either, as it was a struggle to find space for the entirety of the first 5K and for points beyond that too whenever the course narrowed, or if a corner was particularly tight.

In the first couple of miles I passed one of the 1hr45 pacers, and gradually overtook them. I then caught up with a second around the Charlottenburg Palace, and this took a little longer to overtake as it was so busy, so found myself running with them for a time. I glanced at my watch, hoping I wasn’t going too slow for too long, but realised the 1hr45 pacer was doing around 7:05/mi so was about what I wanted for getting close to 1hr30 anyway. I wondered if they were making up for some lost time closer to the start.

Shortly after turning onto Schloßstraße a pedestrian suddenly appear within the dense pack of runners and collided with a runner to my right. Normally I would have wanted to see if everyone was okay, but we were all packed so closely together it felt like if I stopped I’d have caused further problems. There was then the first aid station at about the five kilometre mark, and I grabbed some water and took a sip. It certainly wasn’t just water and seemed to have some sort of sugar mixed in, which if I’d looked at the cup first I’d have realised from the cloudiness of it. Some time shortly after that there was a short section of cobblestones, and I did not enjoy that either. This would be why that section of the map was marked as ‘attention’.

There are aid stations at every five kilometres in the race, and the only other one I used (and actually got some water at) was at ten kilometres which was around the location of our hotel near Wittenbergplatz. As we got closer to that one I could see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, and knew what it’d be like along Kurfürstendamm as we’d walked along there a few times already.

The route was getting quite close to the location of the hotel from my 2009 trip, and I could see smoke blowing across the road ahead, somewhere near Bülowstraße station. As I got closer I could see it was a smoke machine from where a DJ was set-up. I didn’t know if breathing in that smoke would be bad, so kept on the far side of the road until rounding the corner away from it.

I knew at some point soon I’d be able to see the TV Tower, and that would be around the point of the final turnaround point. First though, I spotted a giraffe made from LEGO, and made a mental note of roughly where it was in case Carmen wanted to see it properly later. I could soon tell this was the Mall of Berlin, so if we were near Potsdamer Platz we’d definitely find our way back. I was about 9 miles in, so just another 2 miles of running to hit my target,

Another turn, and along Markgrafenstraße I came across a large square I didn’t remember having seen before. This one had two churches and a concert hall, and I figured I must be close to Unter den Linden, and wondered if I could get back here after I’d finished to get some photograph of the area before Carmen finished. I then passed the Friedrichstraße church, but wasn’t completely sure I’d remember the route between the two.

When crossing onto Museum Island I could see across to the Berlin Palace (aka the Humboldt Forum). It felt more exciting now, I could see the TV tower, and the finish felt like it was in touching distance. I’d gone from hoping I could run at least 11 miles of the route, to now thinking that perhaps I could try and run it all - I was still feeling pretty good at this point.

There’s a few turns, and you can see people ahead of you on the other side of the road until you reach a turnaround point at Strausberger Platz. Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ was blasting out along this dual carriageway, and that changed to music from the Spice Girls around the time I turned around. It’d felt like the last section from Alexanderplatz had mostly been uphill, so I was now concentrating on the course as I could picture it: down the hill to Alexanderplatz, cross onto Museum Island, and then run along Unter den Linden the the finish. Seemed straightforward.

I made a conscious effort to keep my speed steady on my way to Alexanderplatz, I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get too tired too early. On the next corner I could see ‘Kraft’ printed on the ground and I wondered if it was in reference to the US company that bought the formerly British brand, Cadbury. I figured maybe it was a different company, but the distraction stopped me for a while from spotting I’d now passed the 11 mile mark. That was one goal ticked off. I wondered if I could actually meet my time goal as well, but felt with how some of the early miles had gone it was unlikely. Maybe I could just run the remaining miles now without walking to ‘make up for it’. I just wanted to keep moving, even if I had to slow down. I stopped looking at my watch now though.

As soon as I reached Unter den Linden I knew the Brandenburg Gate was further away than it seemed, but I could see it, and the Siegessäule beyond it too. I let myself speed up anyway, and was deciding when would be best to sprint. I thought perhaps once I reached the gate itself, that would be the time. It seemed to take forever to get there though, and didn’t seem like such a long road when we’d walked it the day before. I knew at this point I was actually going to run the entire thing without walking, but didn’t really know if I was going to hit my time target.

When I reached the gate I wanted to speed up, but had to weave a little to get through the crowd that was approaching the finish line. I sped up some more and realised I wasn’t actually sprinting, so started to push harder, and never actually reached top speed when I crossed the finish line.

I finished in position 3,289 with a time of 1:32:43, beating my most recent half marathon time by a few seconds. I’d managed to beat by bronze goal at least, and had done better than I thought I would. I’d somehow managed to advance 600 places throughout the race.

At the finish they give you your medal, and then a little further along there are cups of water, and then half a banana. I walked from there to the bag drop to collect by bag, and put some warmer layers on. I considered going looking for the square I’d seen, but decided I might not have enough time. Instead, I got my medal engraved, and then found my way back to the Brandenburg Gate and waited for a gap to appear so I could then look out for Carmen.

Time passed, and I felt Carmen could appear at any minute, and this spot would have been perfect for photographing her. I wished I’d got tracking for her, and started to wonder if I could find this information. Before I could look though, I saw an email from British Airways saying “Important information about your upcoming flight”. I quickly opened the email to make sure there wasn’t an issue, such as a cancellation, but it was just to say that it would be a full flight. I looked up, and there was Carmen! I’d missed the chance to photograph her, but cheered her on anyway.

I then walked back to the Bundestag U-Bahn entrance and waited. Carmen appeared shortly after and was super-pleased with her new personal best. We took a few photographs there, and then headed over to the tent to get her medal engraved. They almost forgot to charge her, so she reminded them of this.

The queue was fast moving, so didn’t take long, and afterwards we headed back to the Berlin Hbf to get back to Wittenbergplatz. We paused there to get a currywurst and fries from one of the kiosks.

We’d taken our time after the race and now didn’t have much time left before our booking for the Humboldt Forum terrace. It’d only cost us €3 per person, but we still didn’t want to miss it, so got changed, and headed back out, taking the U-Bahn to Hausvogteiplatz and walking from there. It was surprisingly familiar going this way, we recognised places from the half marathon.

We used the front entrance to the Humboldt Forum, but the side entrance is actually closer to where you need to be for accessing the terrace. You show your ticket at the lift, and that takes you up to the roof. It was cold up there, and a little windy which made us work quick at looking around and taking photographs of the views.

Back on the ground, I started to lead us to Checkpoint Charlie as somewhere I knew there were quite a few restaurants around we could eat at whilst also ticking off another of the sights for her. On our way there we passed the square I’d seen on the race, and now knew it was the Konzerthaus, a French Cathedral, and the New Church. We took our time there before carrying on the rest of the way to the checkpoint.

In terms of restaurants, Carmen thought an Asian one might be okay, but on second glance, changed her mind. We then found Maximilians, a Bavarian style pub where the serving staff wore lederhosen. It looked a little expensive, but it was our chance to eat some more German food. It was a bit of a queue but eventually we got a table ‘outside’. We both went for roast pork with a bread dumpling, a potato dumpling, and coleslaw. The coleslaw actually seemed to be just cabbage with a touch of vinegar so wasn’t too bad. The service was incredibly slow, and the tables outside seemed to get neglected a little, so the server seemed surprised when we still included a tip. For the food and a soft drink each, it came to €52 with the tip - the most expensive meal of the trip. It was nice though. Unfortunately it was around this time that Carmen realised she’d lost her Totoro necklace. It could have been anywhere between when we’d got on the train at Wittenbergplatz, and now; there was no hope of finding it. I hoped instead she’d find it back at the hotel, but she never did.

We weren’t far from Potsdamer Platz, so whilst passing through I hoped to photograph the DDR watch tower, but it seemed it was either gone, or the construction work that was taking place was hiding it. Further along this road was the LEGO giraffe we’d seen, so got a photograph of that before it was time to head back.

I checked the trains, and everything seemed to be running fine, and wouldn’t take us too long. We eventually found our way into the station, and was about to buy tickets, as the free travel for runners had now expired, but found that the trains had now been cancelled, and we’d need to find an alternative way back to the hotel. Carmen once again opened up Citymapper and led us for about fifteen minutes to a bust stop by the ruins of the Anhalter Bahnhof, where we could take the M29 bus again.

It’d been a long day, with a lot of time on our feet, but we made it back to the ibis okay.