Berlin Diaries - 6 October 2008

I counted them all out and I counted them all in again
(Part 1)

As my plane taxied on the runway in London, destination Berlin, my thoughts turned to how Dougie Barder must have felt when he made many similar journeys with his chums to do battle some 60 years earlier.  I was more nervous for this marathon because it’s all well and good deciding to undertake such madness yourself but ‘encouraging’ others is a different story.  I also made a mental note; hide the running leg in case they tried to confiscate it from me!

Well I am delighted to report that in the words of the British reporter Brian Hanrahan during the early contests in the Fallklands/Malvinas conflict: “I counted them all out and I counted them all back in again.”  And in my next report I will detail how brilliantly the Team did and how chuffed to bits I am with each and every one of the silly buggers.

However, for now, I shall give you my story and seasoned recipients will not be too surprised to hear that the ‘when not if’ question was answered around 27kms/16mls when literally in the space of two strides, both hamstrings went twang.  Prior to leaving PP, my training had been near perfect, but a pulled hamstring after my last big run back in London never really cleared and despite soaking myself more then a witch in medieval times and applying all sorts of remedies upon arrival in Berlin, I turned up at the start as reasonably confident of breaking 5 hours as I would allow myself to be in the circumstances.

The Team flew in over the course of the days prior to the off and many of us managed to have dinner on the Friday night in a restaurant a short hop from Checkpoint Charlie.  I was immediately struck by how fit and lean some of the chaps were looking and it was abundantly clear, that they had all gone to great lengths to get into shape. 

I nipped over to Berlin in March to do a quick reccy and decided upon the south-west corner of the Holocaust memorial for us all to meet up.  The walk to the start line is always a nervy experience and it’s not really something that you want to do on your own and it’s a lot better to have someone to talk too.  This time, I set off first to the room of Kev and Pykey, two friends of old and then downstairs we met Chris Fensom and we headed to the RV point.  

Early morning stroll to the marathon (Kev, Me, Pykey and Chris)

RV point an hour before the off

Slowly but surely by 8am on a cool Berlin morning, there before me the Team assembled.  Some with more battle scared features of previous marathons, others without such experiences to call upon looked wide eyed, bushy tailed and with the boyish optimism of youth shinning through.  To say I felt emotional, proud and a little overwhelmed would be an understatement and I was doing as much as I could to hold back a tear.  We all set off and together and we were supported by a small army of family and friends a.k.a. the WAGs that had come out to cheer. 

Now, at this point I feel that I should ventilate a view expressed by more then just the members of Team Runny Honney, about how disorganized things seemed to be.  To say this is un-Germanic is itself an understatement but of the four that I have now done, save for the fact that I ran with 14 very good friends, this was the least enjoyable.  We all got broken up into smaller groups and so I went to the start with David Evans, a man whose performance on the day was harshly overshadowed by Haile Gabresallace hogging the limelight.

The race having started at 9am, finally saw Dave and I set off nearer to 9.30am, by which stage, Haile was a good 10kms/6miles down the road towards finishing, which is a scary thought.

Once off, it all felt good.  But then a few kilometers in, the course narrows to the point that you get everyone piling into the back of each other. It opens out again and before you know it, brakes on again as more collisions abound.  Then comes the first water stop and stop is the word as it could only be described as utter chaos and with everyone in the vortex of hydration frenzy, you have to ensure that you don’t start running backwards because as far as I could make out, everyone was facing directions other then forward.

I had set off with a time of 5 hours in mind, as this was the speed I had been training at prior to twangy hamstrings on my last big run in early September.  On a beautiful day for running, all was going smoothly.  In fact, I got to the half-way point a few minutes shy of 2 hours 30 minutes and that included having my first ‘pit-stop’ of the day for leg change at 15kms.

Now these stops can be a nightmare, but I was no sooner in, leg off, dried off, leg on again and out the door hollering “Danke schon auf wierdersehen” to my efficient pit crew to the extent that having crossed half way I had a couple of minutes in the bank so I walked a bit.

At 22 kms/14mls the contingent of WAGs from Heaton Moor was there, loudly cheering us on.  I was going really well, running sensibly within my race-plan and with no feelings of pain or discomfort.  At 25kms/15½mls I came upon Jon Purr whose marathon experience was the polar opposite of mine and so the mobile hospital pack that I carry in case I am called upon to perform minor procedures en route was deployed and a liberal dose of deep heat was applied to his knees.

Looking chipper at just over half way

I walked with him a bit giving a range of motivational talks that couldbest be described as threatening, but in a constructive way and set off with no real discernable loss to my own time.  And then at 27kms, we got the twangs!

Thankfully it was not enough to stop me from moving, but there was no way now that sub-5 hours run was on and I then went into the tried and trusted Plan B, namely; ‘When Plan A fails, hang in there for dear life’.

To my surprise, despite not being able to move freely as before, I was still able to move relatively effectively and chewed the ground up at a reasonable rate of knots considering.  I also wanted to end the run as quickly as possibly because as genuine and gratefully received as the crowd support always is in these things, it seemed that half of Copenhagen were in town and the Danes singing ‘Oh lay, oh lay, oh lay’ was not helping much after mile 1!  Equally, in the land where David Hasselhoff can fill stadiums with his music, you can imagine some of what was being played out there and if you can’t, then Kev’s experience with a few hundred meters to go was for the organizers to have playing Status Quo’s ‘Your in the Army now’ as motivation for Kenton’s finest!

But it’s often the little moments you remember.  All these races have commentary points and at about 33kms/21mls the announcer taps a runner’s number in to the computer and their details come up and low and behold there is this fella shouting out “Vell done John Honney der Englander, keep going”   Cue big cheers from Das crowd and lots of waving from Der Johnny.

Apart from Jon and Pykey, I didn’t know where the rest of the chaps were and then at around 35kms/22mls, Chris ‘Nano’ Podmore runs up along side me and in quite industrial anglo-saxon language he mentioned something that I now understand was about it being a tad more difficult to his normal Sunday afternoon activities.  We ran for a bit and as I have my name on my shirt, a bit like Haile actually, the crowd were all urging me on and yet poor Nano, not a bratwurst of recognition.  Feeling tired and unloved, he eased off into the distance and muttered something about getting prepared for trading some blows with me when I eventually crossed the finish line.

Well by now things were on track for a 5hours, 15minutes finish which I was more then happy to settle for.  Then a few kilometers on, who do I spot? Bloody Jon Purr walking ahead of me!  Now when I left him a few hours earlier, he looked awful and I indeed felt a little guilty at leaving him, so how he got to past me, Lord knows and my first thought was that he had taken the U-Bahn! But he had not, and he insisted that he had been running after my mobile medical treatment, but he did confide that I had just missed the delights of seeing him puke up a few minutes earlier.  A few yards on from him was David Rowe.

Now David had been having a few problems when Pykey ambled up beside him to such an extent, that the latter felt the need to stay with him for a good 10kms to see if he was ok.  When I got to him, he looked like the last time I had seen him.  Mind you, that was leaving a bar in Singapore at 5.30am, so that will tell you.

Having got these boys into this position, I decided that I was going to get them home and through a process of cajoling and mental manipulation, i.e. let’s run to that sign and then adding a bit more when we got there, we crunched down the last few kilometers together.  At one stage, a member of the local Constabulary ran alongside us and whilst we know he was trying to help and bless him for his efforts, two blokes in QPR shirts, one in a Hull City shirt being chased by local plod was not the type of image Team Runny Honney’s sponsors want to cultivate 

As we ran down the final road, all our supporters had congregated and with them were the crowds cheering and it was great to finally see the finish line. Only to find that it was not the actual finish line, but we had to run on to the Brandenberg Gate.

Approcahing first finish line! (Dave over right shoulder, JP over the left)

Well as the three of us neared the big Gate, there was a series of expletives ventilated by us because guess what, that wasn’t the bloody finish line either and we had another few hundred meters to go. 

So we gathered ourselves and ambled on towards the third and final finishing line of the day and duly basked in what was by this stage in the day, rather full grandstands.  And despite nursing myself through the last 15kms/9miles I had the pleasure of crossing the line with David and Jon in a time of 5hours, 16 minutes and 8 seconds. 

We got lost after the finish line and I lay on the grass park area in front of the Reichstag for a good while stretching and chatting to a lad from Bristol  and then I met up with the Heaton Moor crew as we all waited for Podders and Dietmar to come in home.  The former’s knee blew up and remained in a melon state for a few days after the race and the latter had similar problems. 

But when they finally came through around 3.30pm to where we were waiting for them, all were accounted for, all had got home and all had done the Berlin marathon 2008.

All accounted for, and our first beer!

JH ignored as he suggests, NYC in 2009 anyone?

Cheers

JH

My web donation page will stay open for a bit longer and you can drop a few shekels in on www.justgiving.com/jhberlin and as ever, thank you.

The Team, Berlin 2008