This Long Iron Road: A Berlin Weekend

Friday: Early

Last week I spent three days in a windowless room near Helsinki Airport, Understanding Leadership with ten silent, but charming, Finns — and my silent, but charming, Swiss colleague.

The ladies fidgetted with their ID badges and worried about their figures — the ones they’d scribbled in the margin of the handout, to be compared with some other set generated in an earlier reverie. The stoical men in their warehouse yellow seemed no less tormented. I do like the Finns but I worry about their anxiety.

I may occasionally moan about my job, but it’s good to be reminded that I never have to worry where the next pallet is coming from; no one beats me over the head with last quarter’s revenues or team absentee stats.

When the trainer, another good Nordic egg, but one that’d rolled in from Oslo, used the expression, “coping with unpredictability”, my mind wandered — to Berlin — and towards a tricky decision that had simmered unheard and unseen for many months. Now, just nine days out from the Berlin Marathon, the pot had been dragged to the front burner and was starting to bubble.

*****

The easy option was to erase all knowledge of the marathon entry, secured 11 months ago, and pretend I’d no plans for the weekend beyond the usual traipse around the produce aisles in Migros and a post-lunch Sunday stroll in the woods to give this autumn concept the once-over.

But what a waste. The entire 40,000 places had been snapped up in the space of an hour or two last October. I was lucky to get one, and greatly relieved at the time. Now I was throwing away the opportunity, along with the 100 euros or so I’d paid for it. Should I not at least go and play the tourist in one of the world’s most celebrated cities? One I’d never visited? With a flight booked and paid for, this seemed like the obvious choice, even if it meant laying out more cash on accommodation.

The third option — to go to Berlin and actually take part in the race — wasn’t realistic, though I confess the fantasy had drifted through my head from time to time. In a casual remark, immediately regretted, I mentioned to an incredulous MLCMM when he was here at the end of July that I was thinking about it. I told him: “OK, so I’ve done no training but there are still eight weeks to the race. If I can somehow work up to…. say…. fifteen miles, I could probably get round with a run-walk.”  To the great man’s credit, he kept a straight face and even managed to make some polite comments, when a stronger instinct must have been to guffaw loudly, slap his thigh and shout: “YA-HAH-HAH! That’s a good one!”

Needless to say, those eight weeks were squandered. I’d manfully avoided alcohol and processed foods right through the affable Aussies’ visit, but my resolve began to splinter shortly afterwards with more visitors, a fish-and-chip weekend in London and the trip to Finland, with its reindeer steaks and creamy pancakes. Still no booze, but too much cheese and chocolate and ice cream to count as a blip and enough to send the  28 pounds lost since mid-June clicking back to 20.

I hadn’t been totally inactive but the summer’s ‘marathon training’ could be richly detailed on a single Post-It note and stuck to the tub of race Vaseline I’d last used on Boston Marathon morning in April 2009 — 4½ years ago.

I’m looking at my exercise spreadsheet right now. I note my four Saturday hikes in July, plus a decent stroll with Mr. and Mrs. MLCMM across the tops from Zurich when they were here in the summer (yes, that does count when there’s bugger-all else); a 65-minute bike ride in mid-August (see previous parenthetical note); a handful of half hour walks in the early morning before work (ibid); a total of just over six hours in the gym spread across three months; and yes, 52 sit-ups.

Real running? Nothing at all. I sort of tried. It seems that four times since June, I pulled on my trainers and walked outside. The longest of these excursions, and most recent, was on Sunday September 8th. I had no choice. That square on my calendar had been shouting at me for nine months: BERLIN – FINAL LONG RUN!

In another existence this outing would have been a steady 20-miler in full race regalia; the final dress rehearsal. The reality was grim: a fragmented run-walk plod along the lakeside path in nasty, heavy, ploppy rain that totalled 13.23 km, or 8.2 miles.

Midway through this half-hearted jaunt I’d stopped to dry out a bit at the café next to the car ferry. Approved running snacks are in short supply here, so I sat with a cup of black tea and a chocolate croissant, leafing through a pre-loved copy of 20 Minuten. (20 Sekunden would be a more appropriate title.) The small puddle at my feet was rain, not sweat.

From my window seat, the lake was grey and choppy, with the far shore  just visible through the drizzle. I stared at the town of Meilen, contemplating another cool and rainy morning, more than 7 years earlier, when I’d run through its pleasant streets, pursued by the sweeper bus in the Zurich Marathon.

Meilen is the exact halfway point of the race, and thirteen miles in I’d still felt strong and determined, despite the ceaseless, scything, icy rain on that unseasonably cold April day. . After the endless trudge along the eastern fringe of the lake, Meilen is the point where the runners u-turn and run the whole damn thing again in the other direction.

As I plodded through the proud and sporting Meilen crowds that day, I had no reason to think I’d ever see the town again. Nor Zurich, nor Switzerland even. But in fact, I’ve seen Meilen almost every day for over three years now. I can see the town clearly from my apartment, and I am seeing it right at this very moment as I glance up from my keyboard. Each time I look through the sitting room window, or step onto the balcony, or sit at my desk, I see Meilen across the lake and I think of that morning when thirteen miles into a marathon I’d still felt strong and determined, despite the ceaseless, scything, icy rain on that unseasonably cold April day.

Do I feel pleased at this memory? Or do I mourn the passing of my marathon days? The dull answer is both, depending on the mood. On that recent Sunday afternoon in the lakeside café, with my black tea and chocolate croissant, and the pool of water that was not sweat but rain, I was sliding towards the darker, melancholic end of the scale. Before the mood deteriorated further I drained my cup and resumed this depressing elderly-man-workout: two panting minutes of jogging, one of walking. Four kilometres later I was home and dry, but it took nearly 40 minutes to get there.

And that was my BERLIN – FINAL LONG RUN! My longest outdoor demi-plod for many months, if not years. Back at home, showered and warm, I was pleased I’d prised myself from the armchair, but just three weeks from Berlin, this was a very long way indeed from where I was supposed to have been.

Over these past five years or so of reduced activity, my main adversary has been the calf, and sometimes just the spectre of the calf. Severe lower-leg pains nearly ruined my chance of getting round Boston in 2009, and has scuppered nearly every attempted run since then. Apart from general sloth, fear of further trouble down below has kept me from trying to push the distances or the intensity. Paralysing cramps and strains in, first my left calf, then later (to add a little pleasing variety), my right, have tormented me like a terrier snapping at a sheep. Or at a calf, perhaps.

But remember Helsinki, and that now-furiously-boiling pot? The need to make a decision for the weekend? Decision made. I’m going to Berlin.

A few weeks ago I found myself at Dachau, west of Munich, where I bought a World War 2 visitors’ guide to Berlin, shrink-wrapped, like pornography. A couple of days ago I tore the cellophane and started reading the history of the Reichstag. It was enough.

Last night I packed a small bag and settled down to watch the Question Time guests gnawing at each other’s foibles. When that got tiresome, I absent-mindedly turned towards the darkened window and found myself staring down at the final ferry of the night. It slides across the Zürisee as if mesmerised: drawn, moth-like, to the distant lights of Meilen.

Friday: Late

The last minute decision meant a dwindling stock of Berlin hotel rooms from which to choose. TripAdvisor eventually threw up an affordable item from where I write this second leg. Inexpensive indeed, but basic to the point of threadbare. Its near-grimness has one benefit: not many guests to clutter the 2-person lift or clatter down the bare wooden staircase outside my third floor room.

It has a weary, worn atmosphere. The raspy cardboard towels and creaky floorboards; the pungent stench of bulk disinfectant; the back window view onto the small courtyard, where extravagant weeds poke through uneven paving; it’s like something out of Le Carré. Ah, of course, I thought earlier, with a twinge of excitement, this was East Berlin. Must have been. How disappointing then, to check my map. No, this was the West, and this is just a cheap, grotty capitalist hotel in the Paddington of Berlin.

I don’t much mind the shabbiness. It’s set dressing; it’s how the director wanted to portray the place — mildly squalid and vital and dark. All so splendidly well done. As a tourist in a new place, you sometimes feel that everyone’s been waiting for you to arrive. You step off the plane and the performance begins. After all those long, painful rehearsals, today it’s the real thing. That’s Berlin.

On the U-Bahn from the airport, a squirming schoolboy next to me moans and tuts over his homework as if he’s writing a letter of apology under duress. Glancing through the patterned windows at the Art Deco-like station tiling gives the elderly lady sitting opposite the chance to examine me through her blue-tinted spectacles. There’s something cannibalistic about her. She munches on a chicken salad baguette that drips beetroot juice, like blood seeping from a leg wound. Perhaps I’m her next victim.

Into the crowded train at Bismarckstrasse comes a thin cheerful hippie with a straggly beard, pushing a sit-up-and-beg bicycle. The standing, sardined passengers groan and shift a bit more to admit him. A few seats behind me, a drunk starts shouting at something — or at nothing, more like. The murderous granny, seeing the airport labels on my bag, furtively mutters one word to me: “Russisch”, as if she’s conveying a secret password. You can see where Le Carré got it from.

*****

Typing with crossed fingers isn’t easy, but over the past few months, the calf muscles have been better behaved. One of the aims of the long, grassy Saturday walks was to get plenty of miles into the legs, but without running’s incessant pounding, and without the deadly aftershocks that bounce back up through the skeleton. I added some stretching and very occasional, judicious treadmill plodding, so who knows where this might lead? As my training records show, the few exterior runs have been tentative to the point of paranoia.

The plan now is to use the Berlin Marathon to give the legs a proper test. I’m sticking with run:walk, and probably with the cautious 3:1 (3 minutes running: 1 minute walking), but will see how it goes on the day. Perhaps uncontrollable excitement will unleash an audacious 4:1.

How far into a race can a fat old man plod on an empty training tank? I don’t know for sure, but my instincts have pushed two thirds of my chips onto the 10 km square, with almost all of the remaining third on 20 km. And for a lottery-ticket-style laugh, a couple of chips on that big 42.2 box at the far end of the table.

My first target is to complete 10 km feeling comfortable, and 20 km in any condition at all, as long as it’s this side of the 72 virgins with their pear-shaped breasts. If the calves are bleating at me by then, or at any earlier point, I will stop. Do you hear me? STOP! It’s OK to limp home an extra kilometre or two, but not an extra 13 or 20 miles. My objectives are optimistic, but they take into account that weird magic: the unexplained tendency for race day to slip another few miles into the back pocket of even the most hopeless of entrants.

Mood barometer reads Moderately Excited. Turning this into survival is a task not easy to implement, but attempting it seems like a better option than paralytic dread. I’m seeking a balanced optimism: confidence without complacency, cautiousness without pessimism. Killing the 42 km monster isn’t on the agenda, though I can’t bring myself to say it’s wholly inconceivable. Getting to the end isn’t a realistic or a sensible hope, but let’s face it, the world is bloody weird, and one needs fantasies just to get through most days. What I know for sure that I will get is enough for me: the opportunity to be there at the start of a big race; to yield once again to that joyous, infantilised atmosphere; and best of all, to gulp a few lungfuls of authentic German liniment.

The decision to start the race has radically altered my plan for the weekend.  The intended sightseeing is now severely curtailed, but there are unexpected compensations. One has been today’s trip to the marathon expo.

Friday: Expo

Wow. Interesting venue: Tempelhof Airport (b. 1927, d. 2008).

Some think it should be bulldozed; others want to preserve it as a fine example of a bygone era, when flying was an exotic activity beyond the needs and pockets of the ordinary man in the Strasse. The current mission of the old runway and surrounding grounds is to provide recreation close to the centre of the city: a vast area for families, stray kids and dogs; for pensive writers peering over their notebooks at the city skyline; students with marijuana-stuffed matchboxes; red-faced teams in training, and a thousand other categories.

Now, the colossal airport hangars are exhibition space while the main terminal building is a quaint reminder of what we thought the future would look like back in the 1930s, when it was last renovated.

Big city marathon expos are presented as the place to drop in at to collect race number, chip and tee-shirt and enjoy a bit of polite banter with emaciated strangers over a bowl of macaroni. In reality, a big race expo is a single-themed department store with hundreds of counters competing for your specialised attention. Running is supposed to be a simple sport but you’d never think it, watching yourself being shoved round an event like this.

It’s not a complaint. I needed this department store. I had no serviceable shoes with me. I wanted new socks. Gels. Yet another running belt wasn’t on the list, but hey, I bought one anyway. I could have gorged on shorts and shirts and jackets too, but I had no room left in my bag. Two tee-shirts came with my race number. The vivid green one, proclaiming “Marathon Finisher”,  is making me nervous. And I must have opted for that extra commemorative technical number when I entered.

I’ve been away from this scene for five years, and was keen to see what had changed. The Boston Marathon bomb attack earlier this year has had repercussions. The traditional habit of selling on, or giving someone else, your race number if you have to pull out, is now impossible unless you’re one of the Jedward twins. Just getting into the expo required a carefully checked photo ID, and the long queues to collect race numbers and chips reflected the scrutiny with which papers are scrutinised. Even the quite legitimate act of collecting a race number on someone else’s behalf is no longer allowed. If you can’t pick up your number in person, you’re out of the race.

What else is different? Not much. The watches have ticked on a few version numbers.  Shoes seem to be the sole difference. They no longer have to be predominantly white with a little splash of subtle toning on seams and soles. It’s now de rigueur to strap garishly garnished objects to your feet, as if you’re an extra on Teletubbies: The Movie, skipping off for lunch at McDonald’s with your hand in Mum’s.

Not wishing to be deemed unfashionable, I invested in a pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS13s, decorated in “deep royal, lime and silver”. My own description, donated to Brooks free of charge, is “blue”.

And GTS? I discover that GTS stands for Go-To Shoe.

Shoes are a punt in the dark. Since the heartless and commercially suicidal withdrawal of New Balance 854s in the mid-noughties, nothing has done the job I need doing. I’ve hired and fired at least half a dozen temps, though one of the less incompetent candidates has been the Brooks Adrenalines.

Brand new shoes and socks for a marathon? I can hear the gasps of outrage, but I like the extra spring of new shoes. This bouncy bonus balances the risk. Despite the worthy advice, I’ve never found that modern trainers need ‘running in’.

The socks made me linger longer. Eventually, I appointed some double-layered Wrights in another fetching shade of blue. Along with blue neoprene calf supports, my colour coordination strategy was shaping up nicely.

Where were my old favourite gels, SIS? Had they oozed out of the market since 2009? Later research said no, but they were not to be found at the expo. Instead, I picked up a couple of High 5 Juicy Oranges and Citrus Blasts.

Another regrettable difference from the last marathon was the dearth of freebies. I picked up so many free cereal bars and sugary snacks at the Boston Marathon expo that I could have survived for months in a jammed hotel elevator. Maybe it’s the recessionary times in which we live, or perhaps Boston is a one-off, but Berlin had virtually nothing to offer the unscrupulous scrounger like me, apart from free water being dished out in rather nice, sturdy, embossed beakers. I went back four times, which explains the tower of new plastic Berlin tumblers in my kitchen.

All shopped out, I lingered outside the hangar for a while, enjoying the festive atmosphere. Watching the kids gleefully racing their remote-control cars round the outdoor track, I heard someone mutter that BMW wasn’t a suitable main sponsor for a marathon. This idea must have been a concern for BMW too, as it was a question on a survey they sent round a few days ago: “Does the link between BMW and the marathon seem incongruous?” I vehemently denied entertaining any such thought, knowing they are unlikely to make room for naysayers in the pot for the prize draw. (In the marketing world, this is a much-loved method of skewing survey results in the direction you want them to go.)

Here on the edge of the old runway in the Berlin gloaming, it was a happy scene. As the bouncy castle squeaked under the weight of flying children, squealing with delicious fear, I followed ancient marathon tradition by gorging on pasta and pesto, and grinning at matchstick-thin people grinning back at a bulbous time-waster like me. Standing there at the pasta bar, people-watching, with my drop-off bag and race number and new shoes, the sun just thinking about setting over the vast airfield, I licked the last traces of pesto from my plastic spoon and, for the first time in 4½ years, allowed myself the mildest frisson of marathon excitement.

*****

The Berlin Marathon

On race morning, I woke at about 6 a.m., yawned, and thought: “Oh dear.”

At least number was already pinned to shirt. Non-race participants will not understand, but this operation is always more complex and time-consuming than it should be. Following tradition, on Saturday evening I laid everything out on a chair and took several hundred photographs of the display, though I will later pretend I took just one quick snap.

Nutrition. I used to fret about whether to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat. This time around, with expectations anchored at somewhere round the depth of the Titanic, and with an unknowable adventure ahead, but one whose final scenes seemed certain to reflect the fate of that over-confident vessel, I gave food barely a thought. On Saturday night, after a long hard day of ceiling staring, I’d slipped out and meandered round the corner to the busy pedestrianised shopping area. Here I bought some cheap end-of-Saturday fruit from a jovial Turk at a market stall. I wondered how many bargain-hunting Berlin thumbs had been pressed into my pears that day.

A more up-market venue was a department store called Karstadt, a name familiar from that distant day in Konstanz. I had bought my favourite work shirt there, so it was clearly the ideal place to buy seedy bread rolls, freshly squeezed orange juice and a big bag of boiled sweets. It struck me as churlish not to top up with a small tub of apricots and a couple of large handfuls of vitamin supplements and cereal bars, not to mention a few arbitrary, must-have items of stationery, some ear plugs, a new fly-swatter and a bright red garlic press.

The idea was to carbo-pick at the bread on race morning, but it looked so good that I wolfed down most of it in bed while watching Match of the Day. Memo to self: crunchy bread is not ideal for late-night bed snacking unless you want dreams that are like early 1960s, low budget British movies — grainy, gritty and seedy.

On race morning, just one hunk of Brot remained, plus two bananas and some clementines, so I popped downstairs to the Frühstücksraum to salvage a few additional items. A group of lycra-clad Belgians had got there first and stolen the low-hanging fruit — but they were good enough to leave some brown sliced bread and Nutella. I needed nothing more, apart from the mug of hot water into which the innards of a manfully crushed lemon would soon be deposited.

After bathroom duties, the ceremonial marathon robing begins: nipple plasters, heart rate monitor chest strap, RunningCommentary vest, lycra undershorts with 20 Euros  stuffed into the tiny inner pocket. Next it’s my voluminous plodding-in-foreign-country-they-don’t-like-it-up-‘em Union Jack shorts. Gel belt with the four High 5s waggling in the loops. In the zipped pocket, 26.2 boiled sweets are stuffed along with a strip of Ibuprofen, iPod and mobile phone. Garmin Forerunner, ready primed. Headphones placed around the neck.

Feet. Out comes the sacred Boston Marathon Vaseline, ’09 vintage, for extensive slathering all over toes and around heels, over which the natty new blue socks are hauled. Dilemma. Do I wear my Thorlos over the natty new blue socks for added cushioning? Or will this spoil my blue theme? Yes, I finally decide. It will spoil my blue theme, but it must be done. Then the neoprene calf supports are stretched so tight around my lower legs that my feet start to go numb. Maybe that will be a good thing.

What else to take? What to leave? I scoop up a bunch of random items, shovel them into my draw-strung drop-off bag, and hurry off down the stairs, at least half an hour later than intended.

Once outside the hotel… Ah. I realise I don’t know the best way to the start of the race. In fact…. where is the start? Somewhere in that middle bit, according to all the maps, but how to get to that middle bit? I’d expected to see hundreds of stick people in bright yellow and green running shoes, draw-strung drop-off bags slung over bony shoulders, thronging the streets around the hotel, urging me to follow. But they are not here.

Struggling under the weight of all these indispensable running aids I lurch down to the corner where I have the choice of subway to the left or S-Bahn (overground) to the right. I wait, like a big-game hunter impatiently stalking his prey. A minute or two later I’m rewarded by the sight of not one, but two beautiful fleeces approaching supported by bare, sinewy legs designed for running, along with the regulation plasticated, black and white race-day bags.

But these solitary beasts are on different sides of the street, and unconnected. No! Confusingly, the red pelt heads for the U while the blue goes for the S-Bahn. Gah! Quick! Make a decision! Attracted by the more brightly decked hooves, I head left and pursue my crimson prey underground.

Navigational difficulties do not end there, but there’s only so much interest to be squeezed from an anecdote about getting lost on the Berlin subway, and I fear this narrative train has already hit the buffers. Let’s say I finally find some crowds to follow, and I follow them.

The journey is spent rummaging through the contents of my draw-string bag, deciding what to take on the race voyage and what to deposit at the bag-drop. One of the day’s easier decisions is not to start the race with a bright red garlic press in my pocket.

Emerging at Potsdamer Platz, I find myself scurrying alongside something…. curious. What is this? A large desolate space, managing to evoke both spiritual emptiness and urban clutter;  a cement pasture, crammed with hundreds of sombre grey rectangular stone blocks of varying sizes. Some nihilistic sculpture? Futuristic cemetery? Despite its austerity and unmistakeable modernity, it reminds me of the impressive chaos of Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, with its thousands of ancient graves crushed into that baking hillside. These lines of thought are moving me in the right direction. A glance at my map says it is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The experience gives me a dismal minute or two which, natürlich, is its entire point. On a morning when my main worry has been what colour socks to wear, here from nowhere comes the bang: the brick in the face. Thank you for that, Berlin. If we can’t hit the Undo button on our history, let’s feel some tiny consolation in the knowledge that 80 years after the events, a piece of public art can ensure we continue to feel the their ghastly, ghostly reverberations. This moment was important, but heading onwards to the baggage drop, the euphoric clamour of a big race day drags me back to the today.

From 40,000 entries, about 36,000 actually start, dispatched in three waves. Fears about not getting to the line on time now seem absurd. I’ve done this before and should have known better. The weather? Perfect. Sunny but cool, and dry.

I’m in the last pen, H Block, along with all the other naughty boys and girls who hadn’t done their running homework. Rediscovering old habits, I bend down to peer through the jungle of exuberant footwear, and the frenzy of nervy toe tapping, heel clicking, explosive on-the-spot trotting, pointless leaping and forefoot stretching. This furious forum of lower-leg chatter has one ambiguous, collective message: get me the hell outta here.

We do get out of there, but it takes a while. The liberation of the plebeians was set for 08:45 but it’s precisely 30 minutes later, at 09:15, thatthe tired, the poor, the huddled masses cross the line and head up the Strasse des 17 Juni in search of a better world and a brighter future.

This cocktail of euphoria and dread is not new. I’d glugged the same dangerous concoction in London, Chicago, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Zurich and Boston, and know the ingredients — both sweet and sour. The list of similarities was longer than the list of differences, but I need to mention a few items on the latter.

Given my previous angry splutterings on the subject, I must now hang my head and confirm that the iPod mentioned earlier isn’t just for the train journey to the start. Do I disown all previous comments on the subject — about the dangers of listening to music during a race? No, I don’t. It’s a stupid and selfish thing to do, but in Berlin my mission was to survive as long as possible on an eternal treadmill of tarmac and concrete. The diet of near-zero training means I need every scrap of help available. I reason that the option of headphones and music might just drag a few extra flakes of endurance from somewhere within. In my defence, M’Lud, notice I call it an “option”. My firm policy is to use this equipment in emergencies only.

The second difference is the run:walk approach, about which I remain somewhat ambivalent. Do real men use run:walk? I’m not sure they do, though I shouldn’t feel too despondent about losing my membership of a club from which I banished myself some decades ago. As with the justification for the iPod, desperate situations demand desperate remedies. If I can make it to my 10 km or 20km targets only with a run:walk, then let’s do it. And anyway, I always like to recall Hal Higdon’s claim that his son ran a 2:18 marathon with some sort of run:walk plan.

A third difference concerns my running style (if I can dignify my fat-bloke-shamble by putting it in a box marked “running style”). Eagle-eared readers may recall hearing me enthusing about Chi-Running a year or so ago. Ah yes, you guffaw. That silly fad didn’t last long!

In fact it did. It has. I’ve never stepped away from the Chi-Running ideal, though its perfect execution will forever be a destination just around that next corner. I’ve simply not done much running — whatever the style — since discovering it. When I was packing for Berlin, I tucked the Chi-Running book into that capacious wheelie-bag I drag behind me wherever I go: the one labelled GOOD INTENTIONS.

And when I set off up that long iron road from the wherever to the whenever via the whatever, I now try to recall the main tenets:

• Stretch upwards; feel erect
• Lean forward to take strain off the legs
• Identify a distant point and aim for it: feel yourself being drawn to it as if a string connected it to your chest
• Land on the mid-sole or even the toes, but NOT the heel
• Keep feet pointing forward, particularly when starting to feel tired
• Take small steps
• Keep the pelvis steady and level
• Pump the arms rhythmically but don’t allow them to cross in front of you
• Know where you’re going: Look towards your destination with a sense of purpose

• Suck loads of sugary sweets.

Yes, I invented that last one but everyone knows it’s the missing piece in the Chi jigsaw.

Boston 2009 left me with many memories, but one in particular is the afternoon I spent in a cramped side-room at the expo, hypnotised by the reflections of five American Boston heroes. I recalled the words of Jack Fultz, the 1976 winner, and now sports psychologist: “The longest distance in the marathon is the 6 inches between our ears. Winning our own mental race is almost always tougher than winning the physical one.”

For a competitive athlete, the marathon algorithm is complex, but at my level it must be kept as simple as possible. My task is to get as far as possible without injury. I have to keep this in mind, and concentrate on a few basics. One of them is this ‘conscious confidence’. I have been this way six times before, and I know what to expect.

The run:walk plan begins well. The worry has been that, through these densely populated early kilometres, the need to stop at frequent intervals might have created a mass tumble on the scale of the 1967 Grand National. But with the leaders now already some miles ahead, the chance of casting myself in the Foinavon role is off the agenda.

In any case, the long opening stretch draws the field down both traffic lanes of a wide road, separated by a cobbled strip. This central reservation features plenty of spectators wearing glad-it’s-not-me expressions. Despite the width of their grins, enough room remains for me to jump on and off when needed, allowing the human torrent to spill onwards without me as I carefully clock my one minute of determined striding.

Despite the absence of training and all that pre-race anxiety, I am able to slip into a slow but comfortable rhythm, and check off the first few kilometre markers without undue difficulty. The headphones remain neckphones. They are an emergency service, not the default.

I try to stay focused on staying focused. This is easy at the start,  with all moving parts freshly oiled. One feels the low steady hum of the human body and the slick tick of its clock — even one that had not been issued with marathon orders until it was too late to refuse and too late to retreat to the basement, to that stockpile of dented cans of cannots, coulda beans and other dried denials.

The exhilaration of self-deception. Not the bit just caricatured, but the precise opposite: the bit that allows us the complacency to create that caricature — to chortle at our weaker selves, when we have only 5 kilometres erased and another 37 of the big, thick, black, bold charcoal bastards left uncrossed on the wall of the cell that we have not yet woken up to recognise as a cell. Where do we think we are? The Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur?

Yes. After being swept through the first 5 kilometres on a tide of endorphins, past proud, hanky-waving relatives concealing the existence of that very central reservation, this is precisely where we think we are headed. What hope they give us. Poking our heads through the carriage windows, we wave back through the breeze at the hordes on the platform: “It will all be over by Christmas! Keep the home fires burning! Look after young Arthur! Nowt to worry about! They’ve told us: ‘Arbeit macht Frei!’ Hurrah!”

If 5 kilometres is the sleight of hand, the street-corner 3-card trick, then 10 kilometres takes us to the next level of deception. It’s the [knock-knock] “Half-price tarmacked drive Madam? Only twelve thousand pound as we work quick like and will be well out of your way by lunchtime, er, cash only please…”

It’s now 13 kilometres, and still I trot smugly onwards, noting I’d now equalled the length of my longest run and gone further than I’ve managed in several years. Encouraging, but this is still less than a third of the way round the Berlin course. A long way to go, yet the first point where I think: I might actually get somewhere near the finish today. Can I really do that? And how long will it take? Unforgivably, I start to do what I’d ordered myself not to do. I begin to think about time and pace and splits. Lunacy.

But the fantasy becomes unstoppable. If I continue at the same rate… I will hit the finish in what… 5 and a half hours? What’s so bad about that for a marathon with no training? Why… if I just speed up a fraction… I will beat my Boston time. And… perhaps if I move to a 4:1 run:walk, who knows? I could even….

Gah! Madness, total madness.

My fellow passengers on this journey are straight from Marathon Central Casting. Several 100 Marathons Club tee-shirts. Wearers tend to be either ghostly, silent, elderly men, heads bowed in a permanent state of struggle and grief; or affable, middle-aged gents with bouncing beer bellies and shorts a size too small, hollering and clapping and directing ribald comments at shrieking ladies in the crowd.

As always, we see the quiet quests and profoundly personal projects. Some are advertised; many are concealed; The marathon can be the culmination of some long expedition towards closure, or it can be just another staging post on some unresolved and unresolvable journey. In the former category perhaps is the glamorous blond lady in front of me with her pink tee-shirt and its hand-scrawled slogan: Zwei Jahren frei Krebs! I now suppress the tasteless urge to think the thing that, a moment ago, I had to suppress the urge to write. As those sexually-transmitted crustaceans scuttle sideways from my head and into yours, I’m consoled by the acquisition of an important new German word. Two years free of… Cancer. Well done, lady, well done. And I’m sorry.

Then there’s the girl in the green Macmillan tee-shirt who haunts my race. Should she read this, I hope she forgives me noting that she isn’t built for marathon running (not that I am). She will struggle and gasp and moan all race to keep going… and keep going she does.

One piece of running theatre that has me guessing comes in the form of an athletic guy who seems to be running in circles. Always just in front or just behind me, even if his agility and build are more suited to a spot near the front of the field. He will suddenly put on a spurt and hare forward, vanishing into the distance. Then a minute later, he’s beside me again — but this time sprinting back through the field, towards the start, urgently, as if he has left something behind. A minute or two later, and here he is again, this time coming up fast behind me on the other side and disappearing up ahead. Several times, I think he has gone for good, but no, he always comes back, pelting past me in the wrong direction.

The kilometres continue to be banked, but the payments are now less frequent, and the work more demanding. At 10 km I ‘d squirted the first gel down my throat. At 15 km, it’s two Ibuprofens and a plastic cup of hot black sweet tea. The extra throttle is welcome but short-lived, and from about 17 km onwards, I can sense that I’m losing it. The strict run:walk discipline is slipping, like an ancient pair of Y-fronts finally giving up the struggle on a long hill walk.

The symbolism of kilometre 20 is wildly exciting, but I now know for sure that the game is up. All hands on deck! Another gel, another two Ibuprofen, a slice of apple and some sports drink — all consumed at one aid station. From here it will be more like a 2:1 run:walk, and perhaps worse.

Come on!

Come on Chi-Running! Come on conscious confidence! Come on sugar and water and carbs and any legal pharmaceuticals on offer! Give me death or gory glory!

A word on Berlin. This is an impressive and fearsome city, filled with architectural shouts of rage and power, intimidation, arrogance, civic pride. Except it’s not frightening any more. That’s the happy message. Those great grey towers and monuments we trot past: just empty volcanoes now. Scattered around these stone monoliths are numerous random manifestations of a more humane creativity: the public art, the churches and libraries, museums and galleries. Like poppies growing round uncollected corpses in no man’s land.

Berlin, like Boston, is an exuberant marathon town, and like Boston, it’s rooted in humanity — the real thing. Frenetic crowds, 90 live bands strewn along the course, children performing and partying. As I slow down to applaud a group of kids playing recorders, one of the proud parents shouts:  “The English! So polite! So bloody polite! We love you!”

My shamelessly provocative shorts are doing their job, encouraging many cries of support in English accents, as well as one or two good natured, but uncomplimentary, remarks in gruff German tones, linking my sporting ability to that of my national football team. Outrageous. The beaming German kid who shouts: “Go Chelsea!” isn’t rewarded with the smile and thumbs-up his well-meaning remark deserves, and I hate myself for that.

Well past the halfway point, and now the faltering campaign croaks its last despairing request: “Bring me headphones”, it seems to be whispering, “And a bubbly stream of forgettable chart hits from the nineteen sixties…”

I’d reasoned that frivolous feel-good froth might be the desperate remedy required, so I’d poured three CDs-worth of 1960s audio bubble-gum into the iPod, along with a few chunkier flakes from that era — the Beatles, the Doors, Mamas & Papas. Oh, and a 67 minute version of Pachalbel’s Canon to anaesthetise me, and to erase a few kilometres from my consciousness: all that cambered tarmac and the constant crack of those plastic percussive things that gritted- marathon spectators bang together for hours… all would be erased.

67 is my favourite number, and 67 minutes of Pachalbel did its work well. Like the junkie, falling gently backwards with closed eyes and a distant smile, syringe still waggling from his forearm: the relief is instantaneous, and I will remember little about the next stretch. Nothing Berlin-external, anyhow. It’s a musical general anaesthetic, and as it oozes through my veins, its sombre, spiritual character drags the corpse of my sister into my thoughts.

A week ago was the first anniversary of Susan’s death. She had many addictions, but two in particular: vodka and The Beatles. When we cleared out her house, along with the empty Smirnoff bottles and unopened mail order tracksuits and painkillers, we came across a copy of Jackie Magazine from 1966. Flicking forlornly through its innocent pages, I wondered if the double-page spread of the Fab Four was why she had kept it.

When the narcotic Pachalbel finally fizzles out, the iPod shuffles me a… what else? Penny Lane. Would this be the best or worst moment of the day? I don’t know. But it means I plod past the 31 kilometre mark with tears drizzling down my cheeks. I am sobbing, people, and I don’t care. Sobbing for my big sister and a life thrown away.

And then there were ten. Just 10 kilometres left. I began the day wanting to run at least 10 km, and hoping somehow to reach 20, but here I am on 32 km — and no calf pains. But by now I’m walking quite a lot, and slowing down even further. There’s an encouraging clap on my back. “Come on Team GB! We can do it!”

It’s the girl in the green Macmillan tee-shirt. We’ve overtaken each other a hundred times in this race, as you do, but this was the first time we’ve exchanged words. I thank her, and move on past again. As I do so, I see the amazing circular man — the one running forwards and backwards and forwards again — slow down and chat with her, and realise they are never far apart. At last, I get it. This is a running partnership. He is coach and mentor; she the struggling tryer. He could have raced ahead and been finished long before now, but that’s not his role today.

With about 8 kilometres remaining, and fed up with being overtaken, I devise a simple mind game — keep count of how many people overtake me, and how many I overtake. The diversion works well for at least 4 painful kilometres, after which my score is 188: 42 in my favour. I can’t recall who recommended that game to me, but it’s keeps you motivated and helps you wind down the distance.

Along with the mind games, the sixties music helps to drag me along. Much of it is anonymous, risible rubbish, which was a deliberate choice. At this end of the task, I want to fill my head with upbeat, forgettable nonsense. It worked. Along with the anonymous stuff, plenty of long-unheard pleasures make themselves known: Telstar, those Manfred Mann hits, Peter & Gordon, Cilla Black, The Swingin’ Blue Jeans. Happy music, designed to conceal the real world from the listener — precisely the intention.

But one or two emerge from nowhere to sting me too. As the last couple of kilometres loom, I’m ambushed by a familiar few seconds of 12-string guitar, and feel myself gulping. Gulp. It’s been a while. Gulp. A good long while. One of my desert island discs, and a song forever linked to those first few miserable weeks at Manchester University in 1979, and that appalling bar in the shopping precinct below the flats I’d been billeted in, where the cider was low and cheap, where the jukebox had just one song I could bear to listen to, and so, for the second All the leaves are brown time that day, I’m tasting salt and now I’m not lamenting poor dead Susan And the sky is grey nor even my lost days as a student which I knew I went for a walk when I had them I would not much miss On a winter’s day this time my tears are for the 40k sign when for the first time today I think fuck it I’ll finish the berlin marathon never my hope intention fantasy believe me people anything like that watch says what it says I miss boston time who cares will miss 5:30 who cares nearly that now and still fifteen fourteen thirteen bastard hundreds to shamble through the crowds grow thick once more freddie and the dreamers fuck off  this warm noise its why kids love this race to scream for hours bang bang plod long plod more cheers thanks peeps nice peeps and turn turn turn more cheers short plod and turn turn turn and oh forlorn forlorn whats this the Brandenburg Gate people, the Brandenburg Tor my god and what a sight this is people the Gate the Gate is Great towards the Tor this thing this album cover thing.

And so, disoriented, blind with tears but dry inside, I stop or slow right down as there it is — THE END. Done in, defeated, empty. Head wild and caring nothing anymore for this or any other thing right now and never will I care again.

And then. The announcer; an announcer; the one whose shift it was just then, who sees me winding down towards the line and sees my shorts; he interrupts his jovial Deutscherapspiel and bellows out across Berlin: “Come on England! Run! Enger-lund! Enger-lund! Show some leadership!”

Do I grin and wave? I don’t know. One hopes one did. One hopes one is. One feels one should. It’s what bloody polite English people do. I do know that after this amplified chain of imperatives, Run! Enger-lund! Run! Show some leadership!, was broadcast across the huge heart of this battered city, one we should all love and thank, I do, I think, reach one last time, those bootstraps and I tug, I hoist, I’m on this tiny private running gallows, built for someone’s else’s entertainment. And as the clicking knitting needles get louder and quicker, it’s those last three words: Show some leadership! that sweep me over the line with a final smile and take me back 9 days, 9 years, 9 lifetimes, to three windowless days in a room near Helsinki Airport with ten silent charming Finns and my silent charming Swiss colleague and a pot that was just starting to bubble.

Other pictures: CLICK