BMW BERLIN-MARATHON 2023: The Finisher Magazine

My plan from the beginning
was to run under 2:05
hours in Berlin. But would it
work out? You never know
in a marathon. Something
unexpected always happens.
This time was no exception.
At kilometre 25 my legs felt
very tight. But thanks to the
incredible atmosphere in Berlin,
I didn‘t pay any attention
to that. It was my first start in
Berlin. I have never experienced
anything like it. It was so
loud on the last kilometre, it
was crazy. The music and the
people were screaming at me
like crazy. I just had to go all
out. Now I‘m happy to have
done it. And it was a great experience
to be in a race with
Eliud Kipchoge.
For four months before the
Berlin Marathon, I lived and
trained in a village near Iten
in Kenya. Eliud‘s home near
Eldoret is only about 20 kilometres
away. Two or three
times a week Eliud trains with
his group where we also ran,
so you see each other. That
is very motivating, and I learned
a lot of new things about
running during my long time
in Kenya—namely patience,
stamina, discipline and not to
complain when hard training
is on the agenda.
Train, eat, sleep, rest
The hardest thing for me to
learn was definitely discipline.
It‘s a big challenge for me
to go without a lot of things I
really like for such a long time
before an important race. I like
to eat cake and burgers more
often, meet friends and celebrate.
But if you want to be a
world-class marathon runner,
that‘s not possible. That was
also one reason why I spent
so much time in Kenya. The
only things you can do there
are what you need to do for
performance development. In
the village where I was, there
were no distractions. You can
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