Third week 18-24.9.2006

On Tuesday there was a AIESEC culture evening with a presentation of German and Sorbian cultures. The German presentation didn’t give so much new information to me but the Sorbian presentation was very interesting as I had never heard of Sorbian culture beforehand. FOr the ones who don't know: Sorbian are a minority that is living in Eastern part of Germany. They are part of Germany but they have own traditions, own language (which is closer to Polish than German) and education in own language till the high school. More info can be found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Lusatia

Next to the AIESEC culture presentation I was trying to prepare mentally for Sunday when I was going to run the Berlin Marathon 2006. Berlin marathon was already my third marathon so I knew quite much what to expect but still I was quite nervous during the week.

During the last month of Berlin I had definately ran too little and drunken too much beer:) During the summer I had played football, floorball and volleyball but I hadn’t either runned too much. Therefore I set as my goal for the marathon to run it in four hours. That wasn’t a very high goal as my finishing time in the Stockholm marathon 2006 in July was around 3 hours 50 minutes.

At the Berlin Vital 2006

Before the marathon:
On Friday I went with Katariina to visit the Berlin vital 2006 -fair in Berlin Messe Hall. Turned out that the Vital-fair was, as I expected, just a lot of different sport equipment manufactures presenting their products. However quite nice to see what new they had invented. In the end I bought for myself a runningshirt, running socks and Berlin marathon-mug. The mug was definately a MUST:) Katariina also found the shoes she was looking so all were happy in the end:)


In the evening after the marathon in front of the Bradenburger Tor

The preparation on the race morning:
And finally the Sunday came. During the last night I somehow didn't catch too much sleep, maybe because I was nervous. I don't know. So my marathon day started on 06.00 with a good breakfast consisting of müsli with a banana, a couple of slices of bread with ham and milk. No magic:) I also drinked a liter of water soon in the morning. At 07.00 I started to head to the starting area and I was there around 08.00. The last hour I changed clothes, and was doing some warming up and stretching. The next time I will go even earlier. The are huge queues to toilets and everywhere on the racemorning...

The race itself:
The first 20 kilometers went very well. I thought that I could run a good time, maybe 3:45 or so. But as they say, marathon starts not before 30 kilometers and so did my one too this time. After 30 kilometers first I thought that I'm not going to run a good time. Then after 35 kilometers I thought that I am very happy if I can run till the end:) Oh, I can say that the last five kilometers were pure pain. I had some kind of weird astmatic thing: I couldn't really get breath. Wasn't very funny when trying to run... But finally I managed to run to the goal with a finishing time: 4:09:52. I was totally dead. I just walked to nearest grass and collapsed. What a great feeling!