Cool Runnings Takes On Berlin Halfmarathon

Yesterday, while you were still fast asleep, basking in the Sunday-morning ruhezeit, or maybe crawling back from the club with döner in hand, 40,000 Berliners and internationals were tying back their hair, lacing up their sneakers and shooting out of Tiergarten in blaze of polychromatic jerseys and neon sneakers. The Generali Berlin Halbmarathon emerged after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, a marriage of East’s Berliner Friedenslauf and the West’s SCC Half Marathon. Every year since then, competitive and recreational runners, as well as a small group of rollerbladers, band together to complete the distance course around the parks, lakes, and landmarks of Berlin. Sweaty and tired but somehow smiling for spectator’s photographs, the runners charted a path that loops from the west exit of Tiergarten, out to Kaiserdamm, back along a southern route and finishing at Brandenburg gate. 

Some ten runners of the tens of thousands of participants had joined together in the former weeks under sponsorship from PUMA, training side by side throughout Berlin on the streets, in yoga workshops, and on a two-day retreat away from the city. Cool Runnings is a collective that came together under the resolution to spend more time with the people they love. Weekly runs began last August, ramping up in intensity as the date for the half marathon came ever closer. Every Wednesday the group “moves as a unit” through the heart of Berlin, outfitted in coordinated Puma outfits and fuelled by a range of vitality-boosting supplements provided by wellness brand Daluma. Our very own publisher Christian Bracht joined Cool Running musicians, film producers, and entrepreneurs like Joseph Gbaya, Natalja Neumeister, Yannic Akinyosoye, and Tithey Schulz in the community building training program. Showing up for themselves and for each other every week also inspired the group to show support for others by raising funds for the charity group HelpAge Deutschland. 

Alongside months of outdoor training, Cool Runnings interspersed strength training sessions at John Reed for increased speed, stability and muscle balance. The club also coordinated interval training sets and yoga workshops to help improve the runners’ anaerobic threshold, prevent injuries, and increase speed and endurance. Two weeks before the marathon, Cool Runnings hosted a training camp and retreat at Nook Society a hoteal and spa just outside Berlin. The first day started off with a 14k run, followed by breath work and deep stretch yoga session with Wim Hof breathwork coach Sukkhadas Ingo Auer, making time for recovery at the Bad Saarow Therme sauna and spa. An early morning yoga session and immune boosting Daluma ginger shots left the Cool Runnings group ready for the weekend’s most daring challenge: a cold plunge in the still-icy lake at Bad Saarow, guided by yoga instructor Sukkhadas. They’ll be back soon, training for next years marathon. 

Credits: 

Photography by Jannis Brandt.