Big Dave and Charlotte do Berlin Marathon!

27 September 2016 - By Charlotte Roberts

It’s Charlotte’s 1st Berlin marathon and Big Dave’s 15th!! Getting up early on a Saturday and flying to another country to only return the next day can only mean one thing – it’s a marathon weekend! Big Dave is sustaining an injury but still goes ahead and Charlotte is aiming to getting under 4 hours – the pressure is on! The Sunday weather proves to be beautiful, the crowds are energised and the atmosphere is buzzing. 40,000 runners are ready to start. The Berlin streets are wide and so flat – it’s a runners dream, but it’s busy! Although there are a lot of runners, you never felt like you were being slowed down.

Charlotte is running at a good pace, although at 18 miles realises she’s been looking at her average pace the whole time (whoops – I thought it was extremely consistent!)

Dave’s injury starts causing trouble at around 16 miles but he powers through – the legend that he is – he’s not going to let this long time friend beat him yet – Big Dave walks/runs to the finish line like a trooper and picks up a time of 5.40 – and says a fond farewell to his used and abused running shoes!

Charlotte hits trouble at about mile 22 where the demons in her head take over – with 3 miles to go it’s the first marathon she’s thought ‘I’m not going to finish’ – I don’t know how I carried on as I thought all determination had been used – it was more of a crying yelp to the finish, head and legs weren’t connecting so there was no possibility of slowing down – but finally we were greeted by that Brandenburg gate and the finish line beyond it and finished with a time of 3.51.21. A new PB, it cost all mental and physical strength, but who cares!!

Berlin is a fantastic marathon – I would do it again and again – and I can see why Dave has done 15 of them. I can see why the worlds fastest time was there too – it was almost broken that weekend, 6seconds short! As one of the top marathons in the world – I would recommend it – it’s smashing.