October, 2014 - AnnaTheApple

October 6, 2014

Pre Marathon in Berlin

It’s hard going on holiday to run a marathon. The days before you’re so nervous that it’s difficult to fully enjoy yourself. Or eat and drink whatever you want, or walk lots and lots. You’re always thinking “will this help for the race?” and that’s not particularly how you want to be on holiday.

But saying that, there is something truly amazing about running a marathon in a foreign country. Ben and me caught a mid-morning flight to Berlin so we left the house at 6.30am. Though an early wake-up call it meant we could have a nice breakfast at the airport. Sadly not Jamie’s Italian, but Giraffe (which is also very, very good).

I had an omelette with lots of roasted vegetables and an avocado salsa (ooh err!) with sourdough toast. Thankfully this was quite filling as we missed lunch entirely because we wanted to get to the marathon expo ASAP when we got to Berlin. When we landed, we got a taxi to the hotel and then headed straight to the old disused airport from there where the expo was happening.

It was huge inside with so many running-related stalls selling clothes, trainers, gels, nutrition…basically everything running-related. It wasn’t like anything was cheaper than normal so Ben and me just by-passed it all and headed straight to the bib collection.

One of the big rooms of running stalls

FYI it’s the furthest possible point – just to ensure you do indeed walk past every flipping stall possible. Not particularly fun for poor Ben who couldn’t actually run at the moment. Almost like a big “F*** you” from the Berlin marathon 🙁 especially when he wasn’t allowed to come with me to collect his bib: “runners only”. I’d have probably burst into tears at this point if I was him but Ben was a true trooper and just waited patiently for me.

There was no queue to speak of which was a relief as I’d heard horror stories of hour-long waits. Friday late afternoon is the way forward!

There was a huge crowd of people all trying to get a photo like the one above and we patiently waited until it was my turn. Embarrassingly as it got to my turn and I stood there ready for my photo a woman pointed at me and said “your bib’s the wrong way up”. Nailed it, Anna.

Ben and me proceeded to then walk ~~a million miles~~ ages to find food. We headed in the direction of our hotel (which was a 45 minute walk away) and hoped to find somewhere en route, or worst case just eat in the hotel. We hadn’t eaten since 7.30am (except for an apple or two for me and an airplane snack for Ben) and it was now coming up to 6pm…Things were tense.

Hilariously we walked up the red light district without realising it. The first lady I saw I was about to say to Ben “oh those boots and skirt combo are a bit risqué, aren’t they?” when I saw her shake her wears at a passerby. Yikes! Ben and me just kept our eyes down and power walked on. It was rather funny though. Finally (away from the red light area!) we found a lovely little restaurant.

We both had beef Carpaccio to start (delicious!) and I, erm…had Caesar salad. It’s embarrassing to admit I know. I just love it! It was just alright: no bacon and no anchovies but good pieces of parmesan shavings and nice chicken. I went for a brownie and ice cream for pudding. It wasn’t dense enough a brownie for a true wow factor but it hit the spot.

And Ben began as he meant to go on…sampling the local wheat beer. I had a few sips and must say I quite enjoyed it. Very light.

We stayed at the Hotel Berlin, which I highly recommend. We had a lovely spacious room with a 70s theme. It even had a mini balcony.

The bathroom was lovely. It had one of those monsoon walk in shower things and a normal shower head for proper hair wash action.

Basically, lovely rooms, great breakfast (buffet – hello!), brilliant service, a gym (which I did not step into) and about 15 minute walk from the Tiergarten and a 30 minute walk from the Brandenburg Gate.

The next morning I got up at 8am and went for an easy 3 mile run around Tiergarten.

My best “I’m a dork” face

Beautiful scenery to run around in a capital city!

My dad had arrived the night before at a nearby hotel and so joined us for breakfast after we’d showered. He paid for breakfast while we had ours included.

I’d be lying if I said this was all I had. Honestly, this was the best hotel breakfast ever. Roasted vegetables with pine nuts and sundried tomatoes – heavenly! Little meatball things – so good! Eggs – delicious! Crispy bacon! All so good. And I had a pretzel style roll as well to go with this. Then followed it by a bowl of fresh fruit salad. The choice was amazing. From sweet pastries, donuts, muffins, to normal bread, German bread, fruit bread, pretzel bread, smoked salmon, all kind of egg, beans, cheeses, meats, cereals…honestly there was so much to choose from. So I ate everything. Joking. Though I did make a fair dent 😉

Then we headed out to see some sights. We walked past the Tiergarten and up to the Victory Column (the Siegessäule: the gold gold statue thing below) and then headed down the long road to the Brandenburg Gate. The roads had been closed off and ready for the marathon (and the skating marathon that would be happening later that day – yes, people skated on rollerblades the marathon).

After walking for an hour or so Ben and my dad demanded a refreshment stop…the beer marathon was to begin 😉

I got a sparkling water and popped a High5 Zero tablet in it to make sure I stayed hydrated – it fizzed up quite dramatically! My dad and Ben got strange pink beers which made for a humorous photo 😉

It was strange to see so many marathon signs and road blockages and made me very nervous!

We walked to Checkpoint Charlie and saw the remains of the Berlin wall (which separated the East and West of Berlin and only came down in 1989!) at the Topography of Terrors.

It was very interesting but also quite depressing. What a scary time to have lived.

Then we headed to Postdamer Platz which is very urban and modern.

After sight seeing for a bit we got fairly hungry and started to look out for a nice place for lunch that wasn’t outrageous in price, which meant walking a fair bit from the main tourist bits.

We seemed to eat a lot of Italian-style meals over the holiday! Ben and me had a sort of platter of dried meats, Carpaccio and roasted vegetables and then I had a feta and olive salad. There was so much feta! I was defeated. This has never happened before with a salad, it was just too salty to eat so much.

I had a major panic when I realised I didn’t actually bring any safety pins with me from home and at the expo I didn’t pick any up (if they even had any there). What a numpty!! I didn’t know what to do. We looked in a few supermarkets but found nothing. Suddenly we were surrounded by hundreds of children who had just finished the mini-marathon and all brandishing their medals…and they were all wearing bibs with safety pins. It was a cruel mocking of my idiocy. I tried to ask one lady for if she had any spares or if I could have her son’s now unneeded safety pins but she looked blankly at me and talked to me in rapid German. I was started to fret when I spotted a boy who was just taking his bib off. I leapt over to him and asked for his safety pins. He was German but could speak English and was more than happy for me to have his pins. Thank you!!! Panic over. And I could resign my position from being weird English girl trying to steal safety pins from unsuspecting children…

Then we walked back. We were almost at our hotel when we saw the skaters fly by! They were amazing. So fast. Though some of them were holding on to each other, creating a long train. I guess they were in teams?

We then killed some time just chilling in the hotel lobby (Ben and my dad now on their 6th or 7th beers?!) We had walked quite a long way! Not a brilliant plant the day before a marathon…

My dad, bless him, started falling asleep while reading a magazine.

Then later on we headed for another Italian meal in a nearby restaurant. We got there fairly early but within an hour or so it became packed with marathon runners wanting their carbolific meal.

Like I said in my marathon post, I had a large pizza and a massive bottle of sparkling water (I love European sparkling water, it just tastes amazing). Then Ben stayed with my dad in the lobby of hotel for more beers while I went to bed. In the end Ben and my dad had 12 beers each!!

Despite maybe too much walking (33,700 steps: over 16 miles!) it was a lovely day to just take my mind off things and enjoy the scenery and sights. It was so nice having my dad there as well as Ben had a partner in crime 😉

Have you ever been to Berlin before?

Do you do lots of walking on holiday?

How do you prepare for a big race?

October 1, 2014October 28, 2016

Berlin Marathon 2014

Thank god that’s over. What a weight off my mind! This will probably be quite a long post, so here’s a quick spoiler: I survived, I absolutely loved it and I got a PB.

I’ll do a recap of the Berlin visit and the expo another time, but today I just want to recap the marathon. Cliff notes of the days leading up: Ben and me arrived on Friday (we got the expo done and dusted that afternoon – best time to do it, no queues whatsoever) and my dad arrived late Friday night. On Saturday I did a 3 mile easy run. I wanted to do this run to reassure my brain that everything felt OK. The run went fine and was lovely through the Tiergarten, a huge beautiful park in Berlin. Everything felt perfect and I saw the elite runner Tsegaye Kebede running with his coach – we exchanged “good mornings”!

For dinner I ate a huge tuna and onion pizza and drank a 750ml bottle of sparkling water. I felt good to go.

Just before going to bed I had an Anna Panic. I noticed by bib for the first time had my wave letter on it.

It was ‘H’. I thought I was ‘E’ or ‘F’. ‘H’ was the last wave (4.15 hours plus runners) and I realised I was put here because at the time of applying I didn’t have a marathon time to prove I was able to be in a faster wave. No disrespect to anyone who was in the ‘H’ wave or is a 4.15+ marathoner, but I realised I wouldn’t be around people who were running similar paces to me and also there would be a lot more people in this wave than the other segregated waves. Though I wasn’t aiming for a super fast time, I didn’t want to be held up by (relatively) slower runners. I wanted to run the pace I’d planned, which was faster than a 4.15 hour finish.

Aside from that panic, I was actually able to get to sleep relatively early. My dad was in a different hotel and breakfast wasn’t included in his, but Ben and me had breakfast included in ours. So we decided that my dad would have my hotel breakfast with Ben downstairs while I got ready and ate the breakfast that I’d brought from home in the hotel room. This way Ben and my dad would have had a good meal and I could do my stressing alone 😉

Annoyingly our coffee machine turned out to not work but luckily we still had a kettle so I could make my porridge and have a cup of tea. Unfortunately there was no milk and what I thought was creamer was actually a cappuccino powder thing (hence why my tea in the photo looks disgusting). I still drank it; I needed the caffeine. I had my porridge and a Beet It bar. This was absolutely perfect. Got my go-go beetroot power and my traditional oats!

Then we headed out to walk to the start. It was quite chilly but not too cold and we were only about 15-20 minute walk away. My dad had given me an old jumper that I could toss before the start so I was fine.

So nervous

Then I had to say goodbye to Ben and my dad and go to my allocated wave. I reluctantly headed off to ‘H’. I had about 30 minutes before the start so I found a portable loo and then decided to see if I could change waves. There were marshals standing guard on the wave entrances and checking people’s bibs before they could go through. I headed to ‘F’ and showed the German lady marshal my bib and she shook her head and pointed down the road. I got my phone and desperately showed her my Paris marathon time and said that I should be in this wave. I literally begged her and she sort of wryly looked at me and then quickly pushed me through with a “don’t let anyone know” look. Thank you German lady! You are amazing!

Unfortunately I realised the error I’d made when there were no loos within the pen and I still had 25 minutes to wait. I knew I’d need the loo one more time but to go to the loo meant leaving the pen and then having to get back in again. What a nightmare. I sat down and resided to the fact that I’d have to find a loo when I had started running.

Five minutes before we started the pen got very busy and people were stripping off layers. Suddenly it was very chaotic and the loo queue I could see on the other side of the barriers had gone and a few people were leaping over the barriers for one last wee and then jumping back in, bypassing the marshals completely. Ah ha! I followed suite quickly – hidden by the crowds. I ran to the nearest loo. Dear lord. I wish I could unsee what I saw. I’m not exaggerating when I say there was an actual lump of poo on the seat. A LUMP OF POO. I had to go and just didn’t have time to swap loos. I did my very best hovering technique and thankfully avoided any poo contamination – could you imagine running 26.2 miles with someone else’s poo on you?! That would be pretty horrific.

I jumped back in the ‘F’ wave and was ready to go. I was very pleased (though traumatised) to have successfully mastered that problem.

Miles 0-10

My plan had been to stick to 8.30min/miles for the first 10 miles with no music or podcasts. I felt brilliant, all was going well (as I guess it should so early on). The temperature was perfect. I was running faster than I had planned but I felt good. Ben and my dad would be waiting at 7km so I had that to look forward to and it was fun just to look around and ‘runner watch’ (people watch, but people who are runners). What were people wearing? Running styles? Nationalities? All very interesting. Lots of people were wearing leggings and jackets which I thought was a bit much – it really wasn’t cold at all.

There were quite a lot of spectators (more than Paris, but that’s not saying much) which was great. There were some very busy sections and people had cowbells, shakers and flags. Pretty much from mile 3 I started looking out for Ben and my dad. This kept me entertained. When I saw them it was for literally a few seconds and I was over the moon (see above picture). It really spurred me on and made me so happy.

I really can’t remember much about the course other than it was exceptionally flat. There were a few occasions you’d go over a bridge and it would incline ever so slightly but that was it. I remember seeing the S-bahn (the German metro) go across a bridge above us and people were waving which was a cool experience. Lots of young children wanting high fives as well. I tried to do as many as I could without veering too much around the road. I tried to stick to the blue line as much as possible but it was quite tricky, especially going round corners as everyone made a bee line for the line. It was a crowded course but it didn’t feel packed because the roads were so wide.

The first water station was a nightmare. I didn’t need water so I ran straight through the middle. But the water was in plastic cups. I mean seriously?! Firstly they are the worst things to drink out of when running and secondly when people dropped them it because a minefield of slippery plastic. Each water station was just chaos. I had my first gel at mile 8.

Miles 11-20

When I got to mile 10 I popped on a podcast. I didn’t think I especially needed it but I knew I had to keep my mind occupied. My plan had been to go to 8.20min/miles for these miles but I still felt good and wanted to have a little bit of buffer time as I knew I was running longer than the course. There were no mile markers to be certain but from the km markers I could work it out. At each 5k we ran over a mat and this, I knew, would send my times to the app to anyone who was following. This helped keep me focused. I also had in my mind that Ben and my dad were racing from the 7km spot to the halfway spot.

Just after halfway I saw them and it was once again a nice boost. After seeing them I had my second gel. I continued to feel very good and was chuffed to hit 14 miles – the furthest I’ve run since Paris in April. Unlike Paris I found the miles 14-20 fly by. I even looked at my watch at on point thinking I’d see 15 miles but saw 16. It was crazy. I felt so good.

It started to get very warm as we were running and the sun was right in my eyes for a lot of the first half. Each water station I would dash into and managed to get two or three sips of water before it flew everywhere out of the cup. Luckily there were stations every 5km as I got thirsty very quickly.

Ben rang me and we had a quick conversation. We’d agreed beforehand that he could ring me if he fancied as I had a microphone on my headphones. We thought it would be cool. I wasn’t out of breath so I was able to talk – I was running at a very comfortable pace. But instead of lifting me I found talking to Ben very hard psychologically. I wanted to be with him and my dad, not on my own with so many miles still ahead. It really didn’t boost me at all and I told Ben I couldn’t talk anymore as it was too hard. He understood, bless him. He did tell me though that he’d see me at mile 20-something and to be prepared for a slight incline just before. I took my last gel at mile 18.

Miles 21-to the end

At mile 20 and put my music on. I felt ready to let myself go a bit. Daft Punk ‘Hard Better Faster’ came on and was amazing. I remember looking at the actual time and seeing it was just after 11.30 and realising I would be finished before 12.30ish. This was a good feeling. I just needed to hang on.

My mind was foggy and confused and I couldn’t remember where Ben and said he’d be so I was looking out all the time for him, worried I’d miss them. Then at 23 miles (I think!) I came to a slight incline and suddenly I knew they’d be there! It felt brilliant again to see them and I knew I’d see them again soon. My quads started hurting – not in an injured way, but in a “Jesus I’ve been running for over 3 hours” kind of way. I tried to keep the pace up but it was unbelievably tough.

I may be smiling but I’m in a world of pain

The last ‘real’ mile was the hardest, as you can imagine. I just couldn’t seem to maintain the pace. The finish felt so far away – I knew I still had the 0.2 miles to go and I knew it wouldn’t be just 0.2 miles at all because of all the veering around the course I’d done.

Then Spotify just randomly stopped! Just when I needed its support, it just stopped. I fiddled about with it and finally got it working again which kind of ruined my flow but I needed that music to really push me.

I got through the Brandenburg Gate and saw the finish line about 200m ahead. It was all pain here. But I made it. My official time: 3:36:26.

I can’t tell you how over the moon I am. 5 minutes-ish better than Paris. Having Ben and my dad support me during the race hugely helped. I would be looking forward to seeing them and then boosted when I did see them. It was amazing.

Finished!

What was not so amazing was wandering around like a lost sheep straight after. I was desperately thirsty and just couldn’t see water anywhere. I got a poncho and kept asking everyone where the water was and then finally finding it a fair walk away from the finish. I received my goodie bag (disappointing for a marathon major) and just stumbled along having no idea how to get out or where I was. The only directions I could see were where to pick your bag up but I didn’t need this, I just needed to get out!

Finally Ben and me were able to speak on the phone (signal was terrible as you can imagine) and we agreed to meet outside the Reichstag building where there were letters for meeting points. I was so confused and tired I had no idea where I was and said I’d meet them by ‘S’. I put my poncho on the floor and sat down and just stared into space exhausted.

Dazed and confused on my poncho picnic spot

About half an hour later I saw Ben and my dad who were exasperated with me as I was sat under ‘V’ not ‘S’ (despite me thinking because I could see ‘S’ that was the same thing…). It was so crowded.

Ben and my dad were exhausted too as they’d had to walk over 13 miles to get around the course – and fairly quickly to make sure they saw me! So we were all dragging our feet trying to find a way out. All the roads were blocked so we ended up walking round in circles before eventually finding a way out. We were very tempted to get a taxi but we resolved to walk the 20 or so minutes back. The most painful walk in the world!

My heros

So there we have it. Done and dusted. A worry off my mind. It was bittersweet as I would have loved Ben to have run it too but sadly he wasn’t able. He said he enjoyed watching, especially as he saw a world record happen and a world marathon major is quite a race to see. But I can’t thank him enough for his support and the amount of effort he put in to get around the course. Truly an amazing husband. And I’m very thankful for my dad being there as well, keeping Ben company and walking miles to get to the different spots. It really helped.

Like I said, the goodie bag was disappointing. There was a Powerbar snack bar, a gel, some leaflets, a rubber wrist band and, the best thing by far, an apple. Actually there was a leaflet explaining the different apple varieties which I thought was cool – obviously knew I would be running the marathon 😉 The medal is quite small – almost like a 10k medal and on the back is a picture of Wilson Kipsang “the world record holder”…which he no longer is. But I won’t complain, I’m just happy to have completed it and done so well despite my poor training. Thank you for bearing with me and supporting me!

*Huge sigh of relief*