Große Schwester
2018 Berlin Marathon
During my early childhood my family had au pairs from all over the world who helped raise me and my brothers. They were big sisters to us, they were part of our family. One of these au pairs me and my family had fond memories of was Heike Robinson from Berlin, Germany. Through the years she kept in touch with us and in late 2016 when my brother Doug and I were living in New York City, she came to visit us with her husband Neil and two sons. It was nice to reminisce and catch up after all of these years apart from each other. Because their visit to the city was brief, we all felt we needed to spend more time with each other. “Whenever you come to Berlin,” Heike said to me, “You always have a place to stay.”
Because I wanted an exciting excuse to see Heike and her family, I applied for the Berlin Marathon lottery in 2017. I wasn't sure I’d get in, but I really hoped I would. In November I received an email congratulating me to being accepted. I immediately notified Heike! She was delighted and we started making plans for me to visit in September 2018.
Big sister Heike’s throwback Christmas card.
I hit a snag though in November 2017. Well, more I got hit by a snag in the form of a car, while I was riding a bicycle. The initial injury wasn’t so bad, but it later caused some muscle imbalances and the IT band on my right knee became inflamed. I went to multiple doctors to try to fix this injury, but it wasn’t until I went to physical therapy that I felt any kind of relief. After weeks of physical therapy, the tension in the knee was still slightly there though, which made me worried. Not only was I training for the Berlin Marathon, but I was training for my first Ironman too. From April to August, I pushed through the knee pain. It was bearable, but I didn’t ever feel like it was getting any better.
I had invested so much time and money trying to get myself better that I didn’t want to cancel these races. I went forth and in August I raced Ironman Mont Tremblant. The swim and bike felt fine, the running portion however was rough. My original goal was to finish the Ironman in under 12 hours, but I felt it was best to run a conservative pace and not worry about finishing at a particular time. I was able to finish with a time 12 hours and 30 minutes without making the knee pain any worse.
A month later I was off to Berlin. Still my right knee wasn’t painless, but it wasn’t painful either. I came to Berlin a few days before, and Heike and her family welcomed me with big open arms. The days prior to the race, the Robinson family treated me like royalty. They took me all over Berlin to all the amazing sites like the Berlin Olympic Stadium, Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Marathon Expo, and the Sanssouci Palace just outside of the city. Being active people themselves, they also took me on running and cycling trips around their neighborhood. And on the day before the race, we went kayaking on the peaceful Spree River. I even picked up a little German from Heike’s sons when we played the German version of the “Game of Life” together. It was a lot of fun. For the entire time I was with the Robinson family, I pretty much didn’t have to think for myself and that was wonderful for someone who had been worrying how the knee would hold up in the marathon.
The day I had been planning for over a year now had arrived. I surprisingly slept well the night before and I was ready to go at 4AM. Thank goodness I recovered from my jet lag right before the marathon because every day I was falling asleep at 5PM and waking up at 2AM. I always thought jet lag was a myth until I experienced it first hand. Heading into Berlin with Heike and Neil was very easy and quiet. It wasn’t until we got to the subway station by the Reichstag that there were thousands of people in running gear with their family and friends. Heike and Neil did such a great job in helping me getting to Reichstag stress free.
Neil, Heike, and I all smiles before starting the Berlin Marathon.
Race day was about 65°F and sunny with no wind, just beautiful. You couldn’t ask for better race conditions for a marathon. Even though this was my first big marathon with 40,000 runners, I was excited by how large the race size was. My goal for the race was run a 3 hour and 30 min marathon with 8:00/mile pace. I started out with a fast 7:30/mile pace and was able to keep this pace for 6 miles. Then I took it back and went 7:50/mile to the half marathon mark. That was when I started to slow down and my IT band was getting tighter. Fighting through the IT band pain, I was able to keep an under 8:30/mile pace. At around mile 18 there was the largest hill of the race with a total elevation of… 30 feet. The hill was laughable, but still lots of runners slowed down to pretty much a walk. This log jam caused me to slow me down to a walk too, difficult to get around anyone. After the hill, I was back to my old pace again.
Uh oh! Feeling the beet juice, the right knee, and bad training now. Keep running!
Unfortunately I bonked with four miles left at Potsdamer Platz and started running above an 8:30/mile pace. It might’ve been because I wasn’t used to the energy drink on the course, which was some artificial beet juice that didn’t sit well in my stomach. Most likely though, the reason for bonking was I hadn’t done any long run besides the Ironman that summer. Running a marathon in an Ironman is much different than a marathon by itself. At least for me, going into the running portion of an Ironman you know you can’t go so fast since you’ve already cycled 112 miles and swam 2.4 miles. Going into a marathon, there’s the strong tendency to go faster than what you’ve trained for because you have nothing that humbles you before. It takes a high level of maturity to run a marathon smart, and I was definitely learning it in the Berlin Marathon.
Nevertheless, with the crowd cheering all around me I was able to continue running through the “bonk” and the knee pain. When I saw Neil and Heike at the 39km mark, I was so happy. They saw me again go through the Brandenburg Gate, the best finish of any marathon course I’ve ever been on. When I ran through the gate, everything I learned about the city and what Heike told me about her experience growing up in East Germany flooded back into my mind. Before 1990, people never thought the Berlin Wall would come down. The Brandenburg Gate itself was in the Demilitarized Zone. To cross through the demilitarized zone was a death sentence. I remember Heike telling me the story of when she first crossed into West Germany after the Berlin Wall fell to see her aunt. Heike’s aunt was in complete shock, thinking Heike was on the run from the Communists. Crossing through the gate is a true honor that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
See if you can find me.
Even though I finished the marathon a couple of minutes over my goal at 3:33:14, I still had a “wundebar” experience of a marathon! Keep in mind just four weeks before, I ran a 4:55:00 marathon for my Ironman, so that was over an hour of improvement. I met up with Heike and Neil soon afterwards. I was really glad they could share this experience of the Berlin marathon with me. They not only saw the world record time for the marathon broken by Eliud Kipchoge with a time of 2:01:39, but we later learned from their friends that they were on German TV!
Marathons can sometimes be a lonely sport, but anytime you have the opportunity to share it with someone you really care about, whether it’s doing a workout together or inviting them to see the marathon, please do it. At the end of the day, running is a sport of love. It’s meant to be shared. You and your loved ones will never forget these experiences. I certainly won’t ever forget sharing this marathon with big sister Heike and her family.
Neil and Heike on TV, on the iPad!
