Running in the Hamburg Half Marathon: At the end, the Franzbrötchen tempts you

I have no idea why the guy is running in front of me again with his posture like a flying bow. His belly button crossed the finish line before the rest of his body, but it was still almost 15 kilometers away when I overtook him for the third time, at least. Okay, so I trot past him again and again and again and at some point I think of the rabbit and the hedgehog and then it goes slightly downhill, the Elbe comes into view, we leave the Hamburg fish market on the right and run towards the Landungsbrücken, Speicherstadt, the main train station, around the Alster and to the television tower over a blue carpet to the finish.

A half marathon. I'm running the 21.1 kilometers this Sunday an hour and 8 minutes slower than the winner Selly Simatinyang from Kenya. And two minutes faster than my nephew. He ran past me at the start and disappeared into the crowd bobbing up and down.

When my nephew, my girlfriend from my very first shared apartment and I set off at around 10.45 a.m., there were already a good 12,000 runners on the route, the cheerleader let us know and shouted “have fun!” and so on into the microphone. At breakfast we first discussed the curse and blessing of AI and then about the choice of clothing: long-sleeved shirt? Windbraker? Rain jacket? Winter coat? Umbrella? But just a T-shirt?

Walking through the city together is becoming more and more common in Hamburg. Coming soon, for example, in Klövensteen, a forest area where a wolf was recently spotted. Run to tree is the name of the race and means: first run and then buy a Christmas tree. And next summer the half marathon will take place in Hamburg exclusively for women.

ChatGPT had suggested shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, such an AI doesn't know how cold a cold wind is. And we asked ourselves whether we could start running together. There are actually starting blocks, A to G, staggered by time, depending on how fast you want to be. When we arrive at the Reeperbahn after a short walk across the Heiligengeistfeld past the Millerntorstadion, we immediately blend into the crowd, which feels like the beginning of a demo, and just let ourselves be carried along.

Almost 20,800 people registered, a new record for the 32nd edition of this race, making it the second largest pure half marathon in Germany, as the organizer later announced. There’s always a need for some kind of superlative. The registration numbers definitely make it clear that running together is very popular at the moment. Many running events are reporting record registration numbers. This Sunday in Hamburg, 15,534 people actually started.

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The race should actually have taken place at the end of June. It was canceled due to the threat of record heat. Many people along the route had clearly already painted their cardboard cheering signs in the summer, as often as there were puns on them with "hot", "hot", "hotties" or something like that.

Shortly before the repeat date, the German Weather Service warned again, now of rain and squalls. In June I had quickly bought a cap to protect myself from the sun, but now I ran out to get a rain jacket because my colleague asked me: “You live in Hamburg and don’t have a rain jacket?” I'm not running in the rain, I replied. The rain jacket and the cap are now lying unused in the closet; the sun was shining on Sunday morning.

At the last drink station about two kilometers from the finish I see my nephew again, I nudge him from behind as I run past him, he looks at me in surprise over the edge of his paper cup, passes me one last time, but ends up losing out.

We all meet again in the huge exhibition hall at the Franzbrötchen stand with a medal around our necks. The smell of sweat hangs in the air, people lie stretching on the ground, a runner asks us where the beer stand is. “You have blue lips, go home quickly,” says my friend, whom I meet at the Franzbrötchen, and while the last people trickle across the finish line, we move away. I give my nephew a pepper for dinner, and my friend later writes: “My legs are fence posts.” This won't be the last time.