Well I did it – and despite missing all the time goals I set for myself, and that I still didn’t know if I was going to run the day before – hell, even up to the halfway point – I’m pretty pleased.

As I write this I’m struggling to pick out individual vignettes, mainly because I went into a kind of tunnel vision (due to determination or dehydration, I don’t know), and I was so focused on that 8×8 square patch of ground, that I barely looked up to acknowledge any of the sights I was passing.

There were moments of unexpected beauty – like the sound of thousands of runners crunching empty plastic cups underfoot, as if they were autumnal leaves on pavement. There were also things that were ugly and disgusting – like that velcro sound of marathoners all trying to carry momentum, running through sticky discarded gel packets. Honestly, it was as gummed up as the dance floor in Corporation at times. Probably smelled as bad too.

Let me start at the start – no, I’ll start at the expo. I went down with Emma to the registration event, which was at the disused Tempelhof Airport. There was a memorial to the Berlin Airlift here, though we didn’t see it. We exited the tube at the wrong side of Tempelhof park, so got completely lost trying to enter the building. We walked for ages across the disused runways, where oddly there were loads of Segways parked in rows – I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a Segway marathon. Anyway, in the end we hooked up with some other lost-looking people; a Canadian girl and her boyfriend, and a German girl who was doing the roller skate marathon.

Eventually we found our way to the entrance, a grand, high ceilinged lobby that led out into the first of the hangars. There were six, I believe, and you had to walk through all of them in turn in order to get to the registration, which was at the back. They are not daft. Fortunately we went on Thursday not long after it had opened, so there weren’t too many queues. I notice, that most of the items on the sale racks were XL or S, which was a bit shady, in my opinion.

One point of note about the official merchandise: you have to pay extra for a finishers t-shirt. 30 Euros or something. Considering that you already pay a lot for the entry I thought it was a bit much. You could get your finishers medal engraved, but guess what? That’s also going to cost you. Either way, maybe I was being superstitious but I didn’t want to tempt fate.

Friday and Saturday – the idea was to spend as little time as possible on our feet, but it’s a holiday too so that sort of went out the window. We ended up doing a bit of the tourist stuff, Checkpoint Charlie, Holocaust Memorial, plus a couple of museums. Not the ideal preparation, but it did pass the time. We were staying in southern Neukölln, so it took a while to get in and out of town, and the apartment wasn’t really somewhere you would want to spend much time, anyway.

It was fortunate that we slept in really late on Saturday morning, because on the Sunday, I woke up at 4am and couldn’t get back to sleep. All the race stuff was laid out so there was nothing to do but wait for the alarm to go off. We had plenty of time, but managed to lose some by getting off the S-Bahn one stop too early. The other early annoyance was the fact that our bag drops were miles away from each other. The queues for the portaloos were so long that we only had about 5 minutes before the first wave start (we were third wave).

I was glad I was starting next to Emma because the process of getting all three start waves going took some time – We didn’t set off until about 25 minutes or so after the elites – and it would’ve been really boring stood waiting on my own. We put ourselves next to the 4:30 pace balloon, even though it would be too slow for me and too fast for Emma. We had to start in Block H because it was our first marathon. This was a bit of a drag because it meant I had to weave and overtake people pretty much the whole way round.

I had no time for a warm up – terrible preparation I suppose but I wasn’t bothered because I was still concerned about my knee, and didn’t want to ‘waste’ any running time on it that might lead to pain later. That was also the reason I didn’t do the warm up run on Saturday.

Anyway after an interminable buildup we were off. I planned to take the first few miles easy, around 8:45 per mile, to keep the knee from flaring up. The start took us away from the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park down Strasse des 17 Juni, which is really leafy and quite nice. I kept that steady pace across the two bridges crossing the canal and the Spree, which took me up to about 3 miles. The support was really great here, and throughout, but I refused to indulge in any high fiving until I reached the halfway point. At this stage, the stands remained unrushed.

After the third mile there was a long, straight, flat road that took us back towards Mitte. It was this point where I realised I badly needed a ‘comfort break’ – nerves probably. The trouble was, I hadn’t seen any portaloos at all so far, so I had to hold it. At least until I saw a secluded park where I, and a fair number of my fellow runners, took a pit stop.

Well that felt much better. For the next few miles I actually enjoyed myself. Every mile or so they had some sort of musical act to entertain us. They ranged from the sublime – brass bands and jazz trios – to the tedious; one guy goofing on a drumkit, like a soundcheck for a bad covers band. If I have to listen to the main riff from Seven Nation Army one more time though…

By the time we were north of the Spree I had clocked up 10k in 55:08, moving at around 8:30 per mile or just under. I knew I had to move a bit quicker to get under 3:45, but I had planned on increasing pace at 8 miles, and again at 16.

However it was just after here that I felt the first bout of knee discomfort. There wasn’t a lot I could do about it, I decided to just keep an eye on it, and if it became too sore, do the sensible thing and drop out. There were doctors throughout the course on the sidelines, but also on bicycles alongside the runners, which I found rather quaint.

The next few miles ticked along fine, as we passed the TV Tower, turned the corner and headed back south from Friedrichshain towards Kreuzberg, crossing the Spree again, followed by a long stretch down Kottbusser Strasse. I kind of wished I had researched the route a bit more prior to the race, as whole anonymous streets passed for miles and miles. I guess at London it’s not so bad as there’s usually something to point out every few miles, as I’ve been watching it on television for years.

I hit the halfway point, in Schöneberg, in 1:54. I knew I had a bit of work to do. However knowing I’d got that far on a ropy knee did make me a bit more cheerful, and so I put on a bit of a burst. But by the time I made it past the Rathaus Schöneberg, where JFK made his ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner’ speech, it was getting warmer and I was starting to struggle to maintain the pace.

Between miles 15-19 I had a new pain to enjoy. My calves began to get really tight. I made a late call the night before to use my Saucony Virratas instead of the Kinvaras. I had done a 19 mile run in them so I thought I would be okay. But they are zero drop (or thereabouts) so when I got tired, as I did at this point, there wasn’t any heel support to take the strain. Additionally, there were these occasional pulses of pain in my achilles, which were a bit concerning. Also, my left foot started to get a bit numb. Mile 18 was my first 9 minute mile, which wasn’t helping either.

Maybe because of all that I pushed pretty hard in the 20th mile and clocked a 8:33. As the 20th mile passed I definitely felt a huge lift – I knew I was going to finish the race now. However, I paid for it after that as I hit the wall. I don’t remember suddenly slowing down or anything, but I did get a weird new cramp in my left quad that was pretty severe; I think I actually swore at it at one point.

One thing that I was painfully aware of was that as I walked through the water stops, it was taking longer and longer to get going again. I was taking a lot of water as well, drinking a whole cup and then going back for more to throw over my head. I think maybe I didn’t drink enough earlier in the race. The final water stop was a particular low point. By that point I knew I would easily miss 3:45 and would have to work hard to get under 4 hours.

Mile 23 was ugly, truly ugly. And slow too. I was put in a fouler mood, bizarrely, when passing the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was supposed to be a symbol for peace having been hit by a bomb in the Second World War. ‘There’s no fucking bomb damage!’ I said to no one. However the broken spire was only visible from the other side. What an idiot.

The next mile was okay, up Potsdamer Strasse. I actually recognised a few sights, such as the Sony Centre with its distinctive glass roof. It was slow though, my only mile over 10 minutes, and that was because I took a walk break and had to really give myself quite the telling off to start running again. My calves and quads were really painful by this point.

The final two miles were just an exercise in self-delusion. Not even a 5k I had said to myself – But before that it was just a five miler, or just a 10k. I was not really buying it. The last few sharp turns were a particular torture, as I knew that the Brandenburg Gate was just around one of those corners. Finally, the route turned on to Pariser Platz and it was in sight. But I had already been warned, the Gate is not the finish line. At the same time, I knew I was going to have to put my foot down so I put on a bit of a sprint. The pace at the end was around 8:37 per mile; the target pace at the start.

There is a photo spot after the gate and I tried to go for the Alan Shearer, one arm in the air celebration, but I found the photo afterwards and I just looked in pure agony. I remembered to keep going though so bolted from there to the line, finishing in 3:56:29.

I’d like to say that I felt waves of euphoria upon crossing the line, but that didn’t happen. As soon as I finished my muscles seized up; I entered a world of pain, and I could only stagger. Unfortunately the walk back to the bag drop was really long. I must have looked really dazed and in bad shape, because a course doctor looked serious and asked me if I was ‘gut‘ – I said ja, but I was actually a bit dizzy and felt sick. I got one of those plastic cape things to put over my shoulders and made my way slowly to the bag drop. I kept telling myself to ‘remember this pain’ – because I knew I’d probably try and romanticise the experience later.

They had some free beer at the end, but don’t get excited, it was alkoholfrei. It was also pretty disgusting and made me want to throw up. I heard that Dennis Kimetto, who had just won and broken the world record, was given a giant glass of the stuff on the podium. I bet he didn’t finish his either.

I tried to make my way to the bag drop, but it was so far. What I actually did was lie down for about 20 minutes. Eventually I got my bag back, but I was so sore that it took me about 5 minutes to put my trousers on.

As I waited for Emma on the grass in front of the Reichstag I was a bit concerned. I know she skipped a lot of her training through injury; would she make it? I knew she would be gutted if she had to be picked up by the sweeper bus, so I focused all my positive thoughts on her. I needn’t have worried. She rocked up about an hour later looking in better shape than I did. Turned out she had a massage just before the halfway point, which was a pretty sweet move. I pictured cocktails and sun loungers but apparently it was a few minutes to shake the muscles out, then off you go.

As it happened I went to the massage section myself afterwards, where there was a bunch of students from a physiotherapy college giving out free massages. I therefore had two German girls working my legs at the same time – I tried my best to maintain pure thoughts. It did help – a little – but what really sorted them out was (apart from time to rest) The Stick. This is a bit like a foam roller but with handles. Er, and not made of foam. But it’s the closest you can get to a deep tissue massage without a sports physio and by Wednesday evening I was starting to feel almost normal again. Considering I was walking sideways downstairs for three days that is a significant improvement. It’s only today (a week after) that I feel 100% – although I have now picked up a slight cold so can’t run for another week.

It’s taken me a week to establish whether I’m happy with that performance. I think, on balance, under the circumstances, yes. But I know that I want to try again somewhere next spring – I can do much better. I will need a bit more time to pinpoint exactly the lessons learnt, but I know that more consistent training is key. I know that I was both overtrained and undertrained, which is kind of crazy, but then of course, running 26.2 miles in a row is crazy.