Now, once back home and recovered of the effort done during the race , I ´d like to share with all of your the greatest experience that means run one of the majors marathons . Berlin , exciting city , inhabitted of friendly people ready to help you in any circunstancies , is a wonderful city which in addition organize one of the majors.
I left home last friday in the morning , 48 hours before the marathon I wanted to have time to enjoy the atmosphere , feel the city , the marathon , I got direct fly to Berlin and 20 minutes past 14:00 pm I was in Tegel airport where my sister-in-law ´s mother called Barbara who live in Berlin was waiting for me to take me to the guest house where I will stay those three days, thanks again Barbara for your kindness !! . Bus number 128 took no longer 20 minutes to reach Franz Newmann Platz , guest house was just around the corner , Pankower Alle 7-9 "Restaurant und Pension kutschertube " very recomendable if what you are looking for is a calm place , to rest and eat good meal . People there was so frienly with me , many thanks guys !!.
Friday afternoon , short walk around a nice lake called Schafersee , 2 minutes away from the guest house to strech the legs., after shower I head to Berlin city center to enjoy the Oktober fest party in Alexarder Platz , from guest house just 15 minutes U8 line (8 stops ) .
Alexander Platz was full of people getting fun , stalls , live music , people and draft beer made you feel party was served . After have a look into I moved to the Brandenburger tor to see how the preparation of saturday roller skating race were going on .
Saturday morning , after confortable restful night I woke up 9:00 am , had breakfast and move to the Berlin Vital marathon exhibition, located at the former Airport of Berlin Tempelhof to pick up my bib number and enjoy this good exhibition where the exhibitors show the latest of almost everything linked with running and skating. Lunch in the guest house so exotic sanwich called "Hawaian toast " salad , fresh fruits and cofee, after that a move to city center ,quite passing through emblematics neighborhoods of Berlin, Mitte , Friedrichshain, Schöneberg, Zehlendorf , dinner in Maredo , unter den linden street and back to guest house for resting .
Sunday, early in the morning I got up and get all my stuff ready for the race , have breakfast and left the hotel direction to the marathon restricted area with enough time to stretching , warm up , feel the atmosphere and be ready for the race . I took the U8 head to Alexander platz then change to S band direction to Friedrichtrabe where thousands of runners provided of the big BMW Marathon ran to the restricted area to start , I feeling thousand of different feelings , excited , tired , nervous , cool, I remember my relatives , my sons Víctor & Marc my wife Sara his son Jordi my father ..... restricted area was already full of runners and off course , volunteers those fantastic people who help you worldwide , many thanks to all of them for they kidness and goodness , what would be a marathon without volunteer, almost nothing , they were all around , speaking different leguages , helping lost people like me , direct others to the right place to leave the big bag with our belongings , Berlin Marathon have a great team of volunteers , thank again to all of them !!!!!.
Once identified the box where I should drop out my big bag, I finished the bottle of energy drink ate banana and I went to the starting line box , G was allocated box base on the time scored in recent race that´s meant I had more than 15.000 runners ahead and more than 25.000 behind , atmosphere was incredible you could heard people speking different lenguages , to be honest amazing , unbelievable. Music , medical advices , recomendation and off course the countdown makes you keep the tension before the race .
Marathon was wonderful , same route as former editions , weather was ideal to run a marathon and people , people on the streets of Berlin cheering and shouting the name of your country , in that ocasion my t-shirt there wasn´t so much signs in it exept a little reference of Barcelona in the back and a Bandana with the colours of Independent catalonia flag which I waved in the wind 200 meters before the end Line after cross under the Brandenburger tor.
First 15 k was normal , nothing more than enjoy the race , people and marathon at least the target , anyhow when I cross the arc BMW at k 25 I become feeling some pain in my left knee what obliged me reducing the path it wasn´t so powerful pain but remind me not the most confortable way to run a marathon but I am quite used to live and run with that . from 27k to 32k I tried to maintain steady pace apart of pain but when you run a marathon you know that mind is sometimes can play you a trick but I tried to have my mind with a lot of things an keep myself in good spirit, after three km and with the sign of k 35 I started to thing that I could reach my target apart of the pain in my left knee , people on the main streets of Berlin filling the routes encouraging the people now a little bit more tired than in the begining the race , off course .
I was in the 41 k I could feel the sensation of crossing the Brandenburger tor again apart of the pain , target wasn´t achieved I was 1o minutes over my target but I felt good I was close to cross the finish line again second year consecutive , people cheering , shouting and encouraging runners to finish , to be honest the people is driving you to the finish line in races like Berlin Marathon , I took my little flag in my righ hand and I waved it during the last 195 mts. before finish line and cross the end line with a time of 4:07 long away from my best and target but Marathon are marathon and you must enjoyed and be concious about possibilities an never force more than you can , the main thing is finish.
Berlin Marathon is over and I am so exiting to apply for next 2013 bib nunmber .
Congratulation to the Berlin Marathon 2012 organization !!!! see you guys next year .
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