My only previous experience of Germany amounts to a brief, and patchy, recollection of a hundred soldiers pointing guns in my direction, on the other side of a rainy aeroplane window. I was out of my head on a cocktail of severe food poisoning, homesickness and amphetamine psychosis, and this wasn’t what I needed.
An hour or so earlier, the pilot of the Afghan Air plane transporting me from Delhi to London had made a dramatic announcement over the public address system. He was crying. Russian soldiers had recently marched into his village and destroyed it, he said. He didn’t know what had happened to his family. He didn’t want to go back and find out, he told us.
We listened to this rambling, tearful speech with some nervousness. Was he going to end it all, taking us with him?
I rather hoped not. Perhaps severe food poisoning, homesickness and amphetamine psychosis wasn’t that bad after all, eh?
Phew. His plan was only to defect to the west. This was 1982, and we still talked about “the west” as that place where all the nice people lived. The Soviet Union was still that behemoth of nastiness, the bad strain of socialism, living behind its iron curtain with those innocent prisoners – Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia…, surviving on cabbage soup and an absence of electric guitars. A world with no bananas. We didn’t like to imagine it. Well, we did really. It was a compelling vision.
So a defecting pilot wasn’t totally unexpected. In fact, nothing was unexpected when flying Afghan Air, but I’ll save my Kabul airport anecdotes for another time. The long and short of it is that we bowled up at Frankfurt Airport without an invite, and half the West German army came to greet us.
It remained my sole experience of the place, and let’s face it, it wasn’t a lot to go on. I like tabula rasa trips.
And yet… and yet it hasn’t quite turned out that way. I’ve been struck by how much Germany I have under my skin. I’ve been surprised by the resonances I feel about a place that I’ve never visited before. And I’m ashamed to say that much of it is faintly negative. But comic too.
Yes, Germany is seriously comical. Take yesterday.
I arrived at the marathon expo, in the Messehallen, Hamburg’s major conference centre, without the letter confirming my entry. I’d presumed it wouldn’t be any big deal. I approached the Information Desk and explained. The response was alarming. Much shaking of heads. “Zis could be a pwoblem. A seee-wious pwoblem…”
Crikey. Don’t say that to me. Sometimes you don’t need a heart-rate monitor to know what’s happening in your chest.
I was directed to the quaintly-named Trouble Desk, where I joined a long queue of other people facing seee-wious pwoblems of their own. It took me an hour to get to the front, by which time I’d accepted that Hamburg wasn’t going to happen for me. But I’d run anyway, I decided. I’d run without a number, even though it meant I’d get no medal, and would risk getting hoiked off the course by some indignant official.
But I waited anyway to be told the news officially. It was during this long wait that I began to examine my prejudices about Germany. I hope they’re not shameful prejudices. In fact, I’m hoping they aren’t really prejudices at all. I’d like to think they are light-hearted. More than that – I’d like to think they’re parodies of prejudice. But there was something almost scary about queuing up like this to face officialdom. Scary? Or funny? It was both. I was genuinely anxious that I’d be forbidden from entering the race. But I was also amused by the way this situation had slipped so comfortably into a template of national stereotyping; a template I didn’t even realise I’d brought with me.
“Show me your papers”. It was the crowning glory of the experience, as I was asked for my passport and driving licence. Would she notice they were fake? Would my trembling hand give me away? My last chance of freedom. I mustn’t blow it now. Ah, those childhood memories of Colditz (the TV drama series, that is) have a lot to answer for. The Great Escape. I hate myself for thinking these things, though I hope that coming clean about it may partly absolve me.
Of course, there turned out to be no big problem at all. The very pleasant lady was as helpful as I could have hoped, and after looking me up on the database and checking my ID, wrote me a note of authorisation to take to the next helpful lady in the chain – the one giving out race packets and plastic baggage sacks. It looks good. The number (16636) was in a sealed window envelope containing a thick wodge of instructions and maps. In the bag was a good quality towel and a jar of vaseline. Along with the free pair of disposable gloves and the plastic cape, there was something undeniably… kinky about this apparatus.
A teeshirt and chip finalised the haul, and we made good our escape. This is a big expo. Bigger than London and much bigger than Copenhagen. Probably on a par with Chicago, though I can’t be sure. I can’t remember much about that one.
We took the underground back to the hotel, the Kronprinz, situated conveniently right outside the main station, and after a brief snooze, I went for a run.
It was just a nerve-settling, casual 2½ miler, but it didn’t do the job. It made me more nervous, not less.
I didn’t feel good. I felt my left calf like I’ve not felt it recently, and I felt my right thigh like I’ve not felt it recently. Not the hamstring but that inner-thigh muscle. It felt tight enough to be able to play the opening bars of Led Zeppelin’s Heartbreaker. And what an appropriate title.
Perhaps it was my tiredness that made this such a rotten run. I didn’t feel like it at all. Perhaps I should have run more in midweek instead. I’ve been out only Monday and now Friday.
The other big anxiety is my shoes. I agonised over what to bring with me. Should I take the brand new pair with only 20 miles on them, but that haven’t had a long run in them? Or should I take my tried-and-tested 200 milers even though they’ve lost their bounce?
After taking soundings from the Runners World forum, I went for the latter, but I wonder how wise this decision was. Running in them last night, particularly after the last week or two of short runs in the new ones, brought home how tired these shoes seem to be. They really did seem flat and lifeless. I need them to support and drive me for 26 miles tomorrow. I don’t want to do, or use, anything that’s going to make that job harder. But it’s too late to do anything about it now. They’re the only running shoes I have with me.
I tried to put these questions out of my mind for the rest of the evening. We went out to carbo-load at the local pizzeria, and got to bed by about 10:30.
Today’s been less frenetic. The highlight was a bus trip around the marathon course. I could say a lot about the course, and the city, but I’ll wait till the race report. I bought the trip as an optional extra when I registered, and am glad I did. It helps to visualise the task. But it’s a bloody long way, boys. I keep thinking: if it took the bus 2 hours to get round, how long will it take me?
I’ll find out tomorrow…..
