Berlin Marathon Expo & Saturday activities

After arriving Berlin and checking into our hotel ( you can read all of that here ) we went back to Berlin Central station to make our way to the Expo.

I’m part of a few Berlin Marathon training groups on Facebook, and during our train journey I’ve read many horror stories about the Expo. Mainly how disorganised was. Massive queues everywhere, hour-long wait for packet pick up ect.

At Expo was located at the old Tempelhof Airport.

At first I had no idea what to expect from it. How can they hold an expo in an airport? Well the Germans done it, I think it was really well organised.

We’ve arrived around 17.40 and there was no queue at all! The expo was closing at 19.00 on the Friday so we had just less than an hour and half to get around.

When we got into the building it was sectioned by hangar by hangar. At first I had to separate from Luke, because they had to give me my special marathon bracelet. I needed this to be able to go into the packet pick up area, and also it’s needed for the race on Sunday.

As you can see in the above photo there are not many people queuing for packet pick up. Also have to say Germans are really efficient, they didn’t have the bib numbers pre printed, instead they only printed the ones they needed. So when I got there I gave the volunteer my Start card + Passport, she found me in the system and then she printed out my bib number. So there’s no wastage at all. I remember seeing hundreds or even thousands of uncollected bibs at the London expo last year.

After packet pick up we went to collect my pre ordered merchandise. I pre ordered my finishing t-shirt and event jacket. Because many people said they sell out pretty fast. For this we had to go out of the hangars, and they had a table there. Had to show my collected bib to the volunteer and she grabbed my T-shirt and Event jacket.

I think both of them looks and feels really nice. They are a bit tight, but mainly because I have bigger boobs. Which is really strange because they are Adidas, the same make as my London merchandise, and those items are fitting perfectly. Never mind 🙂

Adidas Event Jacket

Adidas Event Jacket

After this we walked around a bit more, but then eventually we left. Didn’t buy anything else.

In the below photo you can see what was in the goodie bag. Did you see the yellow sponge?! Hahahah

Saturday – Breakfast Run

We/ve started our Saturday really early. I was so excited about the 6k breakfast run that I couldn’t really sleep overnight.

We’ve left our hotel around 8am, to get to the start by 9.30am.

Public transport was spot on again.

The start point was at the Shloss Charlottenburg, it’s a Palace. By the time we got there they already had the party started. Music on, balloons in the air and loads of happy runners all over the place.

The run was roughly 6km, but I’ve stopped my watch just after the 5k mark. Because at that point we were queuing to get into the Olympics stadium. So I did not want to record the walking parts. It worth every single minutes of running to finish at the Olympics stadium. It’s awesome. It’s massive. It’s beautiful. OMG. And this run was totally free to attend, what an experience.

At the end of the run we managed to grab a bit of a breakfast. It wasn’t a cooked one, but still tasted good, and don’t forget it was all free.

After the run we’ve decided to go to the Brandenburg gate. I’ve really wanted to take a photo of the Hall of Fame. This wall had all registered runners name on it, New York done the same last year. It took us about 10 mins to find my name, but we did it 🙂

After that we’ve done a bit more sightseeing, and had our normal pasta dinner. Then went to bed early, all ready for the big day ahead.

But more about that in my next post.

Love,