Sun, Mar 22, 2020 - 10K - 01:11:46
10K Grunewald Exclusive Run with Hannah (01:11:46)
Hannah and I have run a 10K+ race every month for 24 straight months (March 2018 - February 2020) and so not even the Corona virus was going to break our streak. Therefore, after our March 15th 10K Birkenwäldchenlauf got canceled, and then our March 22nd 10K Rund um den Müggelturm Lauf got canceled, we decided to create our own race. The trick was, however, to find a 10K route that was free of stop signs, stop lights or waiting for traffic in any way. Last Thursday, I ran home through the Grunewald and scoped out a 5K route between the Grunewald Turm and Heerstraße, which is what we ran today. Gisi and I ran it yesterday on a test run, and found that the only place where we had to cross the road had zebra stripes where cars stop for you, so it was perfect.  
 
Hannah and I got to the starting line around 11:00, a little earlier than Gisi and I did, so there were less bikes, less cars and less people. I parked the car right where I knew the start and finish was, and Hannah and I got out of the car into some very cool air, around 6°C. It had the feel of a real race in a way, that short pause before the hour-plus of running. We reflected on the fact that this was our 25th race month, noted that the time to beat was Gisi's time yesterday of 01:15:09, then we set the stop watch and with a quiet 1-2-3-go, we were off. I ran ahead to show the way and soon realized that Hannah's pace was faster than Gisi's yesterday so we started trucking up and down the sloping hills on our way to Heerstraße.  
 
The running path is asphalt and for the most part free of walkers, and Corona-era etiquette seems to be for walkers to sense that runners are coming and to distance themselves as we ran by. On the road you have constant cars and bikes, but since the you have an uninterrupted path, they don't bother you.  
 
I had two bottles of drinks in my backpack, so at 5K, I ran ahead to Kranzallee and became the water station, handing Hannah a water at which point she ran around the light post and began the 5K journey back, her 5K time right at 32:30, not bad. The second 5K went fast except for the last long hill up to the finish. I ran ahead and stood at the car/finish-line, Hannah broke into her classic sprint and finished with a 01:11:46, not bad for a hilly run, and after not running but two training runs since our last race on February 2nd, being quite busy with school and her MSA, etc.  
 
So that was month #25 and since it seems that the Corona virus will be with us for awhile and our S25 Lauf in May will most probably be canceled or postponed, Hannah and I are looking for other 10K+ non-stop Exclusive Runs routes in and around Berlin which we can run under the current Kontaktverbot currently in place. There are always patches of the Berlin Wall which go uninterrupted for multi-kilometer stretches, and Thorsten told me about the Flaeming-Skate region in the south of Brandenburg near Sachsen-Anhalt which has apparently uninterrupted running/skating circular routes (start and end in same place) that extend between 11K and 94K.