The poor woman's mid-life crisis? Endurance sports!

Eight months ago, I couldn't run for a bus.

Two days ago, I ran a 30km (18.5mile) training run in preparation for the 2014 Berlin Marathon, which takes place on 28th September in less than 5 weeks.

Along the way I've ....

• Stopped smoking 
• Cut back dramatically on the wine
• And the cake
• Lost 20lbs
• Fixed my post baby body
• Repaired an old back injury (tipsy topple down the stairs of a double decker bus)
• Made new friends
• Built self-esteem and a greater sense of possibility and accomplishment
• Gained the strength and energy to be an active and involved 43 year old mum to a very active and energetic 2 year old

I'm still 20lbs overweight and my running pace is slow slow slow. I don't look pretty when I run, but I sure look happy and I get to the finish line in my own good time. 

One of the reasons I've got this far, I am sure, is that I have always included walk breaks in my runs. From the beginning, I used the couch to 5km iphone app to get me going. At the start, running for 30 seconds felt like climbing a mountain.

When the app pushed forward to running all the way, I stopped using it. Put simply, I needed those walk breaks and I quickly settled in to running 8 minutes and walking 2 minutes. It felt comfortable and I was convinced that it would only be a matter of time before I could ditch my walk breaks altogether.

Then I discovered Jeff Galloway's book "Marathon: You Can Do It". Based on my pace, Jeff was telling me that I should be running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute - what a result. He was also telling me that it was a perfectly fine strategy for completing a marathon. Being a bit of a geek, I ran the numbers on a spreadsheet and sure enough, those 1 minute walk breaks would make very little difference to my overall time.

What a result!

And that's what I've been doing ever since. All the way to 30km. Whoop whoop!!

So much of this running stuff really is in your head, it turns out, and Jeff lays out strategies for that too. Of course, something else may work better for you. We are all so different physiologically and mentally. But my point is, that if a really overweight and really quite sad person like me as I was can do it, then it has to be achievable for so many other folks too.

The one thing that has supported me all along the way (apart from family and friends of course) has been an underlying belief that I could do this. One of the foundations for that belief was laid by supporting other people at endurance events. Seeing the participants of all ages, shapes an sizes finishing events that sometimes lasted 15 hours, really gave me the sense that with committed training I could complete a marathon. 

Once I had decided that I was going to run the Berlin Marathon in 2014, I had to act. I gave up smoking just like that after 30 years. It turns out, that I had just needed to find something that I wanted to do more than smoke. And something that I wanted to do more than drink buckets of wine. And something that I wanted to do more than eat cake for breakfast. And at the beginning, taking control of those things felt really easy compared with the prospect of running 26.2 miles. 

Squeezing in the training has been tricky at times. I'm a single mum and self-employed full time in the headhunting sector, so there's not a lot of free time in my days. But it has so been worth it and I hope that one day I'll be running races with my son. Hopefully, I'll be a little bit quicker by then, but I actually think I'll get more of a buzz out of running further. Every time I run further than I've run before, it just blows my mind and my recent half marathon at Kimbolton Castle was one of the best days of my life so far.

Or maybe I'll swim the channel.

As someone said to me recently ... "ah yes endurance sports ... the poor man's mid-life crisis".

That may well be so, but I feel better, stronger and more alive than I've felt for 30 years, and I'm planning on feeling even better next year. 

Perfect day before a long run in training for 2014 Berlin Marathon

For what feels like the first time in my training, I have a perfectly free day the day before a scheduled long run.

Hurray!

William is off with his Dad, there are no family parties to attend, no friends visiting, no errands to run.

Bliss!

Tomorrow I'm going to run walk run a la Jeff Galloway 17 miles at a very very slow pace. So today, I've given myself permission to relax. Well, physically at least.

My half marathon race fuelling experiment seemed to work out last week, so I'm just going to tweak that for a longer distance. I'm also going to try out the PowerBar gels because those are the ones that will be available on the route in Berlin.

That doesn't really leave a lot to do today except read, write, listen, eat, drink and nap.

Although I actually lived in Munich in Southern Germany as a child from 1976 to 1980, I know remarkably little about the country's history. The little I do know was learned studying for a history 'O' Level that was completed before the Berlin wall came down! In any case, our syllabus covered from Bismarck until the conclusion of World War II ... so basically, I know a little bit about 80 years out of thousands of years. I'm hoping that if I know a bit more, some of the landmarks, road names, buildings, squares and monuments, will mean something when I spot them and add some much-needed color and life along the 42km route.

This morning, I've had a little look at the 300 years or so up until Bismarck. And it really is a little look! I'm no historian, but it's given me a bit of context. While I'm writing this, I'm listening to the audio of Anna Funder's book Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, which tells the first hand stories of East Germans living behind the wall at the mercy of the Stasi. There's a good summary and review in The Guardian.

While I'm indulging this new interest in all things Berlin historical, I'm stocking up on plenty of water and doing a few yoga poses to stretch out my legs, back, and whatever else I can. I'm eating a small comlex carb based snack every 90 mins or so and am looking forward to an uninterrupted afternoon nap at 2pm.

What a fabulous day!

Oh, and I haven't even changed out of my pyjamas!!

Berlin ... a very quick history from the rise of Brandenburg to Otto von Bismarck

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the state of Brandenburg was a rising star among the loose federation of German states. Brandenburg was ruled by the house of Hohenzollern, which from 1657 also ruled Prussia. When Friedrich III, the head of the house of Hohenzollern, crowned himself King of Prussia as Friedrich I in 1701, all of the lands under his control became known as Prussia.

During the 18th century, Prussia became the greatest rival to the Habsburg Austria empire, which had been the major force among the disunited German states. In 1740, Friedrich II, also known as Frederick the Great,was crowned King of Prussia. Under his rule, Berlin became a major European city.

Throughout the 1700s there was deep rivalry between the two, until the rise of Napoleon finally pushed them onto the same side, but not until Napoleon had defeated Prussia and entered Berlin in 1806. The Seventh Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom was the final stage of the Napoleonic wars and culminated in Napoleon's ultimate defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The wars of liberation against Napoleon had led to a growth of nationalism and democratic awareness, as well as a desire for unification. The March Revolution broke out in 1848 in protest against the traditional, autocratic political structure of Germany's independent states. The urban middle class wanted more liberal policies and the working classes sought radical improvements to their working and living conditions.

The people of Berlin made their demands for democracy, unity and freedom of the press to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. He agreed hastily to quell the unrest that had led to battles between demonstrators, police and the Prussian army.

A Constituent National Assembly was elected in May 1848 and gathered as the all-German National Assembly in Frankfurt. The majority of the assembly were academics and liberals. Their mission was to find ways to unite the various German states into a single nation and to write a constitution, but they struggled to make any real decisions.

Although an elected Prussian National Assembly was established in May 1848, it was dissolved 6 months later when the King unilaterally imposed a monarchist Constitution as a way to undercut the democratic forces. Otto von Bismarck was elected to the very first Landtag under the new monarchical constitution.

Otto von Bismarck was a conservative Prussian statesman and in 1862 was appointed by King Wilhelm I as Minister President of Prussia. He was a dominant political force across Germany and Europe until 1890, skillfully engineering a series of wars against Denmark, Austria and France that united the German states into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership in 1871.

During this period, known as the Second Reich, industry boomed and the economy flourished,  leading to a rise of workers' movements inspired by Karl Marx. In response, Bismarck established the world's first ever welfare state in an attempt to undermine the growing popularity of the socialist parties. He was committed to preserving peace in Europe and cementing unification. He remained as Chancellor until he was removed by the new King Wilhelm II in 1890.

The Story of Berlin Reading List

I've been to Berlin once before in 2012. I'll be going again in a few weeks and this time I'll be better informed!

I've written about my plan for picking out interesting landmarks or points of historical relevance along the 2014 Berlin Marathon route here. And I'd like to put those markers into  proper context, so I've set myself a bit of a reading list. This is definitely not a definitive list. If I have time, I'll add to it.

For now, this is what I'm planning on reading:

• Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin by Alexandra Richie
• The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape by Brian Ladd
• Berlin: The Downfall 1945 by Antony Beevor
• Stasiland by Anna Funder
• Berlin at War by Roger Moorhouse
• Hitler's Children by Jillian Becker
• The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor
• Berlin: Imagine a City by Rory MacLean

That looks almost as ambitious as me running a marathon!

2014 Berlin Marathon Route Sights

When I told a serious runner recently that I planned to do a bit of research on the sights and history associated with the 2014 Berlin Marathon route, they thought I was nuts ... "you're not going to have any time for smelling roses and admiring architecture".

To be honest, given the pace I'm planning on run / walking at, I'll have plenty of time for sight-seeing. Whether I'll have the inclination or the ability to recall non-essential information is another matter though. I can't help thinking that being able to drag up something interesting about whichever part of the route I'm on will help pull me through. Moving from monument to building to street to square and not just from kilometer to kilometer.

In the coming weeks, I'll be reading up on the history of Berlin and trying to find interesting things to know or to spot along all 42km of the route including:

• Großer Tiergarten
• Straße des 17. Juni
• Berlin Victory Column
• Ernst Reuter
• Landwehr Canal
• Spree
• Moabit
• Reichstag Building
• Platz der Republik
• Reinhardstraße Bunker
• Torstraße
• Rosenthaler Platz
• Mollstraße
• OttoBraun Straße
• Karl Marx Allee
• Michaelbruecke
• Koepenicker Straße
• Heinrich Heine Straße
• Moritzplatz
• Oranienstraße
• Oranienplatz
• Kottbusser Tor
• Kottbusser Damm
• Hasenheide
• Suedstern
• Gneisenaustraße
• Yorckstraße
• Heinrich von Kleist Park
• Grunewaldstraße
• Martin Luther Straße
• Rudolph Wilde Park
• Rathaus Schoeneberg
• Hauptstraße Schoeneberg
• Rheinstraße
• Friedrich Wilhelm Platz
• Wiesbadener Straße
• Suedwestkorso
• Breitenbackplatz
• Hohenzollerndamm
• Fehrbelliner Platz
• Kurfuerstendamm
• Breitsheidplatz
• Tauentzienstraße
• Wittenbergplatz
• Nollendorfplatz
• Buelowstraße
• Potsdamer Straße
• Potsdamer Platz
• Leipziger Platz
• Leipziger Straße
• Jerusalemer Straße
• Hausvogteiplatz
• Behrenstraße
• Friedrichstraße
• Unter den Linden
• Brandenburg Gate

Suddenly, those 42kms look very long!

Bird's eye video of the 2014 Berlin Marathon course

If you're running the 2014 Berlin Marathon, you might be interested in this bird's eye video of the 2014 Berlin Marathon course.

I've used the official course map to put it together with the help of Mapmyrun. Select the "view 3d video" from the menu on the right hand side and take visual tour around the course in a matter of minutes. What a contrast that will be to the day itself!!

Here's the official course map: