Berlin marathon
Hitting the wall
(24.9.2006)

Training season

My exercise during summer 2006 went as planned. My weekly long run varied between 22-32 km (most important weeks being 26-32 km) taking 2:00-2:50, with average heart rate ranging 141-148, and running pace 4.48 min/km. Only once I needed one week complete break from exercising in mid-July because of over-stressed knee after the Kuhasalo King competition, but after that I was able to recover full exercising immediately.

My weekly exercising during a seven week period was 70, 75, 70, 84, 65, 93, 68 km, following by 2 weeks tapering period with 52 and 30 km. In these, I have counted weekly football as 15 km (1:30), Ultimate as 10 km (1:00) and floorball as 8 km (0:50). Typically only two running sessions per week - the weekly long run plus interval (V02 max training).

I also participated a couple of competitions: Matin kymppi at Lieksa (10 km, 39:58), Kloppen 9.4 km in Uusikaupunki (38:38) and Vuokatti half marathon (1:33:56) in a hilly course. They went all well except the half marathon, after which I had several days recovery problems with my stomach.

Although the above times did not support a sub 3 hours goal in the marathon, I was rather confident and it has become my only goal now. Anything more than 3h would be a disappointing result. Before Joensuu marathon, I had trained about 2-3 times per week, except the key training weeks in which I had increased the weekly amount to 60-75 km. Since then, I have had regularly 4-5 weekly training days, summing up to over 70 km per week.

Berlin pre-race

I had visited Berlin in 1997 and liked the city then during the extremely fast re-constructing era after the Berlin wall teared down. But for some reason, Berlin marathon itself did not inspire me that much. My main reasons to run in Berlin was because it belongs to one of the big five, and it was easy to fit in my plans. In addition, it is also known from being a fast course - a good place for record breaking.

I arrived Berlin Wednesday evening and spent Thursday and Friday in the ECML conference, and then in saturday started to focus on the marathon. I lived somewhere far away in East Berlin in a Vietnamese hotel near Karlhorst station. Basically S-bahn connection to main railway station with one change. Traveling time took about 40 minutes.


I woke up early at 6:00 reserving 1 hour for travel, and 1 hour to find the starting line. First delay happened by cancellation of early morning trains between Karshorst-Ostbahnhof because of last night concert of Pearl Jam somewhere in between. Replacing bus took people to another station nearby and it took 10 minute addition to my plan, still leaving 10 minutes extra. During the train trip, it was funny to see how the passengers looked like typical "rock festival participant" in the early part, and changed gradually to a typical "running event participant". Kind of cultural change within one train trip.

From railway station I headed to the marathon place having about 1 hour 10 minutes time, and therefore did not hurry. I took time to relax, stretch a little, and starting to focus myself to the marathon mood. Then when I thought it was time to move on, I put additional stuff to a storage truck, inside the marathon venue, headed to the nearest toilet line, which took much longer than expected - about 20 minutes. After that, I did not have to think anymore how to spend the waiting time: I just needed to find the starting line as soon as possible with only about 10 minutes to spare, being in a large park with 35.000 other people apparently trying to do the same.

After good 5 minutes intensive warm-up sprint, I found starting box D (runners with record between 3:00-3:15) just about 5 minutes before the start. Only one meter high iron fence separated me from the course. I decided to wait outside until to the gun fire, and then sneaked inside and gradually get moving.

Race story

Next problem was to find out the 3 hours pace maker, which was hopeless. My Polar heart rate measure had also went to "I refuse any co-operation" mode, and I did not know how to reset it. So I had no pace maker in sight, no working heart rate measure, nor any clock either. My race strategy was simply to follow the 3 hours pace maker from beginning to the end. What a way to start the marathon.

I then started to enquire fellow runners about their target times. One runner told me that "I was in a good here for 3 hours" but he also knew somebody who was going to run sub 3 hours, and pointed me the guy, although saying that he was infamous of starting too fast. I anyway decided to follow this sub-3 runner, just in case, although he seemed to go a bit too fast than my natural pace would have been, and I had to slightly push me every now and then to keep him in sight.

Now it is easy to speculate that slower starting pace would probably have provided a better result. On the other hand, it was clear that my stomach had not approved my carbo loading strategy, and using Addera energy addition drinks prior the race. This was a new experience to me recommended by our local marathon instructor Juri. They probably should have been consumed two days earlier instead of the last night, or they simply were not my kind of stuff. Anyway, at this stage the only sign of forth-coming problems was that my legs felt like collecting lactate acid, which should be avoided in marathon. Without working hear rate measure it was difficult to estimate whether I was running too fast or not, as the running otherwise felt easy enough.


First intermediate time I noticed only after 15 km (1:05), which was about the correct pace. Half marathon time (1:30) was also promising, but at that time, I felt that energy load had been spent already and my legs were not feeling like recovering from the lactate. Otherwise running was not problematic at all (see reality in video). I remember somebody saying that if you feel tired already at 21 km mark, then the last 10 km were going to be very difficult. And that indeed was going to be the case.

Soon after the half way, I started to notice people starting to pass me more and more, and started to believe that I am not going to make it in 3 hours, and it became worse and worse very rapidly. After 25 km, I already had only one goal anymore: to reach the finish line and get rid of this race with minimum damage.

I felt like I had just hit the Belin wall!

From there on, I just tried to run my own race, which was more like crawling towards with the speed of a snail. A slow snail. I had no motivation for any target time anymore whatsoever. I have faint memory of 3:05 pace maker passing me, but others than that I did not have a clue about my time and did not care. I just knew that people were passing me from left and right in a constant flow. Mass marathons are good in that you do not need to run alone, which I noticed in a nasty way. I just wanted to be an invisible snail at that moment.


Do you know how tar tastes? I now know it. It tastes the very same as the last 10 km of my race.

Strange or not, even though the last 3 km was very difficult, just after I passed Brandeburg Gate for the final 400 m, I became a miler, found out another gear and pulled together a respectable final sprint. It still amazes me how I can do this, no matter how tired, when I can see the finish line in my eyes (physically or mentally), I can change the tempo so radically. Maybe different muscles are used, adrenaline, something, but it is funny how slow I looked when others passing me but then the final 400 m how slow the others looked in my eye when I passed those whoever happened to be there. Or at least I think I did (see reality in video).

My finish time was 3:24, a huge disappointment considering my 1:30 half time result. No excuses about weather and course. All elements for making a good result were there, I simply failed.

Post race analysis

Overall, the race was different from all others. The feeling during the last part was that I should stop at making any ambitious goals, and just run for fun. A feeling that keeps repeating year after year in my later marathons though, but I guess I am hopeless. I did not remember any scenery, or support of the growd. Music around me did not inspire me at all. In the beginning it was because I was all the time focusing whether I was running too fast or too slow - should I speed-up or slow down. And at the end because of my energy reserves had failed, which made me losing conciousness about the surrounding.

I cannot say which would have been better option: to reach the sub 3 hours goal, and then make a new one even more challenging. Or to fail in this, and then need to try again. After the marathon it seemed fail-fail situation. Damn.

Despite of those bitter feelings during the race, my feelings after the marathon were positive after all: I had completed Berlin marathon with honourable time (3:24) that was still my second best marathon ever. Clearly worse what I could have achieved with more conservative initial pace. I believe making new record (better than 3:15) should not have been a problem with a more proper pace, though this all is speculation without having the heart rate measurements.

I can only guess whether the reasons for failing were due too fast initial pace, or failing of energy loading. Probably both. Heart rates would have given an indication. The pace did not feel physically too demanding: the legs just become exhausted despite the pace feeling rather good.

Anyway, marathon completed. Done. Finished. Considering the amount of training in Summer, it felt a wasted chance to get the sub 3 result, which I was aiming at. Next chance would be probably in the Spring 2007. I had already registered to Singapore Marathon (again), but it is going to be too hot for any record breaking attempt. Let's see.
[Edit: I did make a new personal best in Singapore by improving from 3.14.59 to 3.14.55]