Sun, Aug 26, 2018 - 10K - 03:00:00
10K Steglitz SportsScheck Run with Gisi and Hannah
For Hannah's August run, we were originally going to do the Kreuberger 10K which was also on August 26, and looks like a fun, urban run with a long tradition, north of Tempelhofer Feld, but while looking for it, I happened to see that the SportScheck 10K (actually a quarter-marathon, 10.5 kilometers) was on the same day, and it being a neighborhood run, and since you got a cool t-shirt, we decided to do this one instead. On the day I picked up the tickets, Gisi decided to run with us, so I signed her up as well, and the three of us did another family trio run like the Campus Run at the beginning of July. 
 
As our standard running procedure has it, Hannah and I started off together at her very constant pace just under 7 minutes per kilometer, and Gisi eventually passed us around 4K on Rheinbabenallee, although we didn't see her run by in the crowd. In any case, she finished ahead of us at 01:08:01 (10K = 01:04:46), Hannah and I running in at 01:11:43 (10K = 01:08:18). Four of five of Hannah's last five 10Ks were 01:08 and 01:09 without any pacing watch, and Gisi ran within 12 seconds of her 10K SportScheck run in 2012, so both of them proved again to be very consistent runners, and since their pace is basically my marathon pace, we are a happy running trio. 
 
The race was a bit different them most, as if some American marketing and events-promotion company got ahold of it, with lots of frills, e.g. smoke going off at the start, cheering zones set up, motivational auto-suggestion statements being played during the starting count-down, and something called the "Strava Meile", which we never figured out what it was exactly, the race event page says this about it, "Über die Tracking-App Strava erfolgt auf einem ausgewiesenen Streckenabschnitt eine Sonderwertung. Es winken tolle Überraschungspreise!" We saw a sign at about 5K that said "Strava Meile START" and then one about 6K "Strava Meile END" but we noticed no Überraschungen nor Preise. And the 5€ (!) fee to hand in your bag for them to keep while you run, and the one, single (!) tent set up to take the bags, was a painful hassle for everybody and made many runners behind us late for the race. I saw at least two runners with their bags flapping on their back during the run, at a savings of 10€. 
 
I would say if you want a down-to-earth, get-out-there-and-just-run kind of home-town race in August, do the traditional Kreuzberg run which is held around the same time. We'll probably do that next year. 
 
But we did get a very cool shirt, black with orange and white lettering which proudly displays "RUN BLN" which I will definitely be wearing during my runs around Berlin. Next to my Athens, Bremen and Warsaw marathon shirts, it's one of my favorites.  
 
So next up on Hannah's and my 10K-race-per-month schedule is the Prague night run, next Saturday: in one week, from local race down the street, to a weekend trip to a another country, a very fun project.