It's done

Well, I did it. 26 miles around the city of Berlin with 39,999 others on a beautiful sunny day.

A big thanks for all those pre-race good luck e mails and messages received from Switzerland, Tanzania, NZ, Cayman Islands and lots of other places in between. All your faces appeared in the crowd on my way around the course. Although perhaps that was just the delirium.

Here is a list of surprising facts about my Berlin marathon:

• It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would

• I felt very lucky to have put a knee bandage down the back of my pants, when at the 25km mark my gammy knee started to scream loudly. The bandage mostly muffled the screams

• I haven't seen so many people throwing up at one time since my last high school party

• It is actually quite possible to drink water / eat a banana and run without choking. Mostly

• I actually managed to pass a lot of people who looked as if they should have been going a lot faster than they were. Likewise, there were a few 70 year olds that were faster than they really should have been

• I does make you run faster when people shout your name

• Porta-loos at marathons are far worse than regular porta-loos. Way too many nervous people in one place
  

• Europeans have no qualms about outdoor full frontal nudity when changing post-marathon. The most entertaining bit of this is watching all the prudish English speakers very obviously divert their eyes en-masse

• Running with 39,999 other people requires quite some concentration so as not to catch someone's heels and face plant the pavement

• A post-marathon massage is always going to be a good idea, even if it does require you to stand in a queue for half an hour

So there you go. I've ticked that one off. Now it is time for my autumnal challenge to become a skipper.