Haile and me

I am back from Berlin, where Haile Gebrselassie broke his own world record, Irina Mikitenko won the women's race becoming the first German woman under 2:20 and I... well, I finished. But I am very happy and proud of myself, even if it was not a personal best. My training didn't go well for a long time, my shins hurt and motivation was low. Running all the way through (apart from the stops to drink water, which was handed out in cups not bottles; can't drink out of those running; liquid ends up everywhere, but in my mouth) was an achievement, even if towards the end I turned into a human snail:

Splits
5 k - 00:30:04
10 k - 00:59:41
15 k - 01:29:59
20 k - 02:02:00
Half - 02:09:03
25 k - 02:35:10
30 k - 03:09:03
35 k - 03:43:22
40 k - 04:19:52
42.195 k - 04:35:25

After the marathon is before the marathon - I have a place in the London marathon next April.

Cat fight

My training schedule for today said "20k". I left a tidy (Saturday is cleaning day) and peaceful home and was gone for just over 2 hours. When I came back, the entrance to the living room looked like this:


Apparently, the boys had a bit of an argument while I was out. There is more brown fur on the floor than black, so it must be Filou, who fights like a girl. Whatever it was about, it had been sorted by the time I got home. This picture was taken a couple of days earlier, but the scenery was identical today:


Can you hear the Beatles singing "I wanna hold your hand..."?

Two more weeks...

... until the Berlin marathon. Haile Gebrselassie has announced that he wants to improve his own world record. I just want to finish. My travel documents arrived yesterday and I was slightly disappointed that my travel agent does not seem to have an information meeting for all runners. Apparently, they just do that for marathons abroad. But it would have been nice to meet other runners.

Today I went on a longer run (22.57 k in 2:28:32). It was a beautiful route, with a rather challenging altitude difference of 139m over a relatively short section. But the view from up the hill down into the valley is worth it. I will drag everybody who asks me why I do not move into the city up there to see. Next time I will take my camera.