Munich in 2022

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I) Sightseeing before the marathon

We had a few days in Munich before the marathon, so did some sightseeing. We visited the Glyptothek:

The city museum:

The famous clock at Marienplatz:

We had a wonderful time in the city.

II) Marathon Day

I had my breakfast early in the morning. The breakfast room was much more crowded than usual, most were runners getting ready for the big event.

When I got back to the room Rose was getting ready, she had decided to have breakfast and go with me to the stadium. I returned to the breakfast place with her.

We left shortly after 8:30 am and headed for the Olympic stadium. There were a lot of people going there.

We took some pictures of the people in group A, they were ready to go.

Me, just before entering the stadium:

When I tried to enter the area reserved for athletes, I couldn't, they said I could only enter later. We watched the departure of groups A and B and then I was able to enter the track. We said goodbye and I went down the stairs to the central area of ​​the stadium.

My group was smaller than the others, there weren't that many people. The 4:45 pacer was in that group.

We started our race at the appointed time, 9:15 am. The first kilometer was slower, there was a large group at the 4h45 pacer, it was impossible to pass. I stayed behind them, did the first mile in just over six minutes.

But after the second kilometer I was able to develop a good rhythm, I was doing each kilometer around 5'25''.

At km 6 I had to stop to go to the bathroom, I had a little wardrobe malfunction with my shorts, the bow tied a knot, I couldn't undo it. I wasted almost a minute on this. Oh well...

The next few kilometers went by well, I was feeling strong, I was confident that I would have a good time. Of course, I had to wait to see what would happen in kilometers 30 to 35, that's when the marathon is decided...

A view of one of the great avenues we pass:

Here it must have been around km 5, the 4:30 pacer had just passed.

We pass by some not so nice places, even by a farm:

I heard several languages ​​during the race. German, of course, was the most prevalent, but there was also English, French, Spanish, Italian and even Swedish. As we entered the English Garden I caught up with a group of three Swedes. I stayed behind them for a while, just to hear the language, it's really beautiful.

I reached the 4h15 pacer at km 17 or 18, left it behind and went to try to find the 4h guy. I never managed to reach him, unfortunately.

From km 30 onwards I kept doing the math to see if I was going to get a sub-4 or not. It looked like it was. Until km 35/36 there was still hope, but I knew it was going to be tight.

When I passed km 42 I looked at the clock, it read exactly 4h00m00s, but I still had two hundred meters to run, I ended up crossing the finish line in 4h00m54s (later I saw that my official time was 4h00m50s). So close...

It wouldn't be a full marathon without me having to talk to one of the medical service people; as soon as I received my medal I was approached by a young lady from the medical team, she asked if I was ok. I lied that I was, but a little later she came to confirm with me, as I clearly wasn't...

I entered the athletes' reception area in the middle of the lawn, grabbed an apple and a glass of water and went to sit in a corner. The guy next to me saw my Ottawa t-shirt and asked if I was from there; when I said I was from Montreal, he said he lived in Ottawa. What a coincidence!

Here I am with the medal:

I went to get a beer, I sat in another corner. My wife was going to zipline the stadium (which is called Flying Fox there) at 1:30 pm. At 1:37 pm I saw someone crossing the skies of the stadium, it looked like her, but I didn't think I would have given her time to do all the preparation in seven minutes and be flying.

I left there and went to the area at the end of Flying Fox, I was filming the group that was flying at that time, I imagined that my wife would be among them. When the last one came and it wasn't her, I walked slowly back to the hotel.

Arriving in the room, she was already there, we talked a little about the race, she was amazed with my good result.

I took a shower and we had champagne to celebrate.

Delicious!