I don’t remember when I did register to this race, but one friend called Mel was mentionning to me that each year thus event since the construction of the new airport in Berlin. So each year, a race will be organized on the tarmac of the not yet used airport.

The day of the race

It took place on a Saturday and hopefully not a Saturday morning. The night before my agenda was pretty full of people and beers, so this morning I’m pretty hangover.

The race was scheduled for 7pm and is described as a night run. We are still in April and the sunset arrives relatively early, meaning at the end of the race it will be dark.

The race

7pm it’s definitely darkish. The half-marathon group starts now and the 10km group one hour later. The feeling you have for this run is pretty cool. The new airport BER is there but empty and you are running on the landing area and tarmac.

Two loops to do of 11km something and 10km. The first line is toward the East, the sun is going down, there is nothing miles around you, just some clouds, look to the North and you can see the top of the tv tower and you keep running.

Passing he sign 7km is nice, a third of the run is down! The group is now stretched, I’m running alone, my time after 5km is in my range (below 25min), but sadly I’m not fast enough to keep the same speed of the few jogging babes… my first attempt to drink water without stopping is a big failure as I only manage to spread water in my face.

8pm first loop done, meaning for me 11km something in less than an hour, I’m in my time window. As we reach 8:00pm the second group of runners is launched and soon two speed groups are mixing.

It’s a bit like in zombies movie when a crowd of zombies are all running in the same direction. If you have seen War Z and remember the scene with airplanes chased then it’s the same, except there are no planes as the airport is still not open.

8:55pm I’m crossing the arrival line. I’m relieved, less than two hours as I was planning/hoping to do! The temperature is freaking cold, near 4 degrees Celsius only, so fast changing clothes and I leave.

After the race

A time of 1h56min. I manage to be below 2hours which was my goal. I think I was pretty happy with this first half-marathon experience. So happy it was not happening early in the morning as the result will have been different.

Part of my training for a first marathon in Septembre, I hope I can hold the same speed for twice the distance.

Map of the race

Using folium I managed to overlay the gps run traces on the top of a map, and you can interactively zoom in and out.