Eliud Kipchoge Berlin Marathon Special Post

Most distance runners would be aware of Eliud Kipchoge smashing his own world record for the marathon yesterday. I watched it all on youtube before coverage was cut off in the final minutes, then scrambled to see it on a different site. It was another amazing run. I've only been to Berlin twice, one day in 1986 and three days in 1990 and checked to see if I had run anywhere near the course except driving past the Brandenburg gate in a BMW hire car (sadly not). I've kept a diary for most of my running life and boosted my memories with some photos. 1990 was most memorable as the Berlin Wall was still mostly in tact. I remember taxis driving in no man's land in between the walls and people stealing electric components from the wire fence. I also got booted out of the camp ground I was staying in right on the wall as a Contiki group was moving in that evening. I simply moved my tent into the forest on the East German side, my friend and I slept next to a bomb crater with a bottle of Reisling and just below a guard tower high on a hill. Several people and dogs looked into the tent as they walked to the guard tower on their evening walk. For the running record training in 1990 was: 30th June Berlin 21km, 1st July Berlin towards Postdam 18km, 2nd July 17km before heading to Poland for an orienteering event (multi day). I rarely missed a day in my three month journey over Europe and North America, average around 140km/week which for me has been the level where I catch a virus if at that volume for too long. Run today was a 55 minute beach run in soft sand (slow going).