Running overseas events is easier than you think, as Paul Freary discovered when he ran last month's BMW Berlin Marathon

With Eliud Kipchoge setting a marathon world record in the Berlin Marathon and the subsequent London event drawing more attention to the distance, many will be thinking of taking part in the World Marathon Majors series of events.

While the process of simply gaining an entry to the London Marathon is literally a lottery, running in an overseas event is much more straight forward.

Marathon Tours and Travel have guaranteed entries to many of the world’s most exciting events and can arrange anything from just an entry to a full itinerary of activities.

For the recent Berlin Marathon the entry via Marathon Tours and Travel was the same as any other and your recent performances qualify you for your starting zone just like any other event. Having chosen an entry and hotel package I was left to select flights that best suited my itinerary.

Once in Berlin, marathon runners get up to four days of free travel on the train and bus network within the city but this expires after the race finish on Sunday, so you’ll need a ticket back to the airport at just €3.

Berlin of course has a proven record of fast times thanks to the flat course, long straights and usually perfect weather conditions with little rain and wind at that time of year. It’s also a great city in which to spend a long weekend with lots of tourist sights to take in such as Checkpoint Charlie and the remains of the Berlin Wall plus of course the Brandenburg Gate which sits at the 26-mile point on the race route itself.

For me the race couldn’t have gone better. Standing at the start line the race director appeared on the large screens to welcome the 45,000 runners and somehow seemed to know that this year’s race was going to be special. He pointed out the perfect weather conditions and introduced the great field of assembled athletes before we were on our way.

My pre-race plan was to set off at six-minute per mile pace and simply hold that pace for as long as I could. The large field quickly found space on the straight wide road that stretched out into the distance for two miles before making the first turn.

The miles ticked by and I was running just under target pace, gaining around 30 seconds by the 10-mile mark. Going through halfway in 78:54 I still felt relaxed and was running in plenty of space, with the field having thinned out considerably by now.

It's the second half of the race that the mind typically starts to play games and between 13 and 20 miles I gave myself a plan of simply reaching 20 before then working on the closing strategy.

I’d held the 30-second time advantage at 20 miles and now told myself to simply try to maintain pace for five miles before a final last effort for the line. I counted each mile down and, with mile 21 being a pretty swift 5:51, I knew this wouldn’t last indefinitely and from 23 I was beginning to feel the strain a little but holding things together.

READ MORE: Kipchoge smashes world record in Berlin

Slowing in the final two miles to 6:25 and 6:31 respectively, leaving a finishing straight under the Brandenburg Gate to summon a last effort and pass one or two runners that were slowing that little bit more than myself, I crossed the line, delighted in 2:39:31.

The only question now is which will be my next Marathon Major?

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