Sat, Feb 20, 2021 - 26K - 03:20:00
26K Dreilinden-to-Steglitz run with Hannah
Continuing our burgeoning Berlin Marathon 2022 training, Hannah and I bumped this month's training run up from last month's run of 20 kilometers up to 26 kilometers this month. 
 
Combining three runs I had been on in Southern Berlin, I mapped out a run from Dreilinden, through the south of Teltow all the way to the Teltow train station (not the S-Bahn station) then up to the crossing over to Lichterfelder Ost between the S-Bahn and regional train tracks.  
 
We took a DriveNow car from Steglitz to Dreilinden (a little car-sharing-zone island in Brandenburg), parked it, left it, got out, and started running. Before we left the Dreilinden business park onto our 3-hour trek, we stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom, but saw a sign that told us that the bathroom was out of order. What good is a McDonalds if you can't shit and piss in it? Disappointed at their incompetence, we stopped in at the neighboring gas station and used the functioning bathroom there, then took off on our mega-run home. 
 
The run through south Teltow was fun, forever bordering on the vast expanses of Brandenburg. We met a man walking his dog right at the right point, he helped us navigate past a fenced-off factory area which I thought (based on Google Earth) that we could run through, pointing us to some trails back to the residential area and on toward the Teltow train station.  
 
At about 15K while crossing over into Lichterfelde Ost, my left knee started to lock up, its usually behavior at 19K. Hannah was powering on fine and passed me at a point, so I forced myself to speed up. This was the first time I realized that perhaps when running our first marathon together, I will actually not be able to keep up with Hannah after 30K or so. It was a humbling thought. 
 
I gradually realized that while Hannah has been working out every other day, I have basically been doing nothing while resting my sprained ankle and waiting out the sub-zero temperatures here in Berlin.  
 
At 22K I heard her behind me that she got a call on her phone, "Ja, klar, vielleicht später. Ich laufe grad' einen Halbmarathon mit meinem Vater."  
 
We finished strong as we could, it was a long run. Three days later while my legs were still recovering, she ran her morning 7K route with a 43:35, a 6:14 pace, not bad. 
 
That completes a three year streak for Hannah and me of running a 10K or more per month.