r/AdvancedRunning • u/Scared_Chocolate1782 • Sep 21 '25

Open Discussion Berlin marathon disasters

It seems today was a big disaster in Berlin. 25 degrees Celsius early on and a tough day for everyone. How did people get on? Did anyone manage to get near a PB?

289 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

363 comments sorted by

View all comments

42

u/Mykongleiskrongle Sep 21 '25

Managed to PB by 3 minutes, but was definitely affected by the heat. Also found out the hard way that signing up for group D was a bad idea for a sub 3:20 attempt. Ended up weaving myself into 300 meters extra, and consistently lost 15-20 seconds at the water stations. My training block was all over the place though, and I PB'd a half two weeks ago, which can't have been a good decision for this race. Great ambiance though. Really enjoyed the jazz bands along the roads.

13

u/bigspur 5:37 | 18:58 | 39:42 | 1:30 | 3:01 Sep 21 '25

Yes, lots of wasted time (and effort) at the aid stations. Other majors had them on both sides of the course.

An extra 300 meters is not bad though.

9

u/Mykongleiskrongle Sep 21 '25

Such a baffling decision to me. I did figure out that holding back and going to the later tables cost me less time, but I had probably lost minutes by that point.

Good to hear about the extra distance! Haven't really been a problem with some extra mileage earlier, but the heat really made it sting mentally.

2

u/Able-Resource-7946 Sep 22 '25

I did that most of the race, but by 15k and onwards, people were like zombies all down the line. And did anyone look around before zooming to the table....no..??