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The Marathon Week is rung in with the measuring of the course

and the “Cult Run“ on the original marathon course from 1974.

2003-09-22

Not quite 286 participants – as in 1974 – stood at the old starting line of the First Berlin Peoples Marathon at 9 a.m. on Sunday, September 21, at Waldschulallee 80. Race Director Horst Milde, with the assistance of Bernd Hübner, sent the group of 221 runners down Kronprinzessinnenweg in the Grunewald Forest on the original course from 1974, parallel to the Avus highway, for a final “Super Oxygen-Tanking Run“. Horst-Dieter Bellack led the group at a moderate pace on the remembrance run along the course to the turning point on Havelchaussee. After about 2 hours, on a sunny day with a light breeze and 18° C, a table set up with coffee, tea, cake, apple juice...and gummy bears awaited them, getting all in the mood for the 30th real,- BERLIN MARATHON next Sunday.

The measuring of the course has successfully been concluded

Before the “Cult Run“ even began, the official and final measuring of the new course of the anniversary race had begun at 7 a.m. Hugh Jones, AIMS/IAAF surveyor and AIMS General Secretary from London, oversaw the “state affair“ which was secured by the police, thankfully, as it ran in part against traffic. Siegfried Menzel, the Berlin surveyor, could proudly announce: “The measurement stands. The course length is now official and “correct down to the millimetre“. The start is on the Straße des 17. Juni, lantern number 665 in front of the Victory Column – and the finish is behind the Brandenburg Gate on the Straße des 17. Juni, Soviet Monument, Tank 300, left tank chain.

Hugh Jones is already on his way back to London. John Kunkeler, the course scout of the new course: “Now everything is settled with the new course – the runners will now have the word on Sunday – and will naturally have to prove the speed of the course with their legs!“