Berlin ‘take my breath away’ - Hasenheide parkrun #323 - 03/10/25

With old and new friends. Photo credit Josephine Ocaka.

The beauty of travelling to a country's special event is that it opens up the potential for more than one parkrun in the week which for me is like Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Eid and Easter all bundled together 🙂

Yesterday at Mauerweg parkrun, I walked with my daughter, soaking up the spectacle and emotions. Today, my wife was on buggy duties, so I decided to run. 

We entered the 124-acre Hasenheide Park, named after its use as a rabbit warren dating back to 1678. We walked past the Sri Ganesha Hindu temple, one of the park's many attractions and then up the hill past the fairytale playground to the Cafe Hasenschanke and nature theater where the event starts and finishes. 

The park has a sporting heritage; it is the original site of the German Gymnastics movement, founded by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in 1811. Friedrich felt people’s pride could be developed through the practice of gymnastics. In 1936, the park was designed to host the Olympic Games, where Jesse Owens famously won four gold medals. Its first parkrun took place in January 2018. 

Although slightly overcast and chilly we were warmed to see so many fellow parkrunners. The nature theater, provided a real sense of occasion for the hundreds of parkrunners gathering, many of whom were overseas tourists, many who had come to do two parkruns in two days. Amongst our numbers were the popular parkrun Youtuber the Essex Plodder. 

The nature theater gives the event a real sense of theatre and provides a dry place to leave coats and bags.  

Hassenheide parkrun had not put an event on Unity Day however many of their volunteers had helped at their ‘sister event’ Mauerweg parkrun yesterday. A graph produced by Kazuko shows that over half the Mauerwag parkrun participants had come to Hasenheide parkrun today. All of which contributed to the reunion vibe in the air, with people still buzzing from being part of the national attendance record-breaking parkrun event yesterday.

Kazuko produced a graph to show where today's participants had come from. Photo credit Hasenheide parkrun.

Hasenheide Park has wide paths ready to welcome the 704 participants. With the briefings done, we made our way to the start. The experienced volunteer team included pacers for today. This helped people position themselves according to their expected finish times. Photos were taken, the lead runner was ready, we were counted down, and BANG, we were off. 

Parkrunners at the ready! Photo credit Hasenheide parkrun.

The course is two clockwise laps with a cheeky ‘extra’ loop on the second lap, all on concrete paths. With adrenaline racing through me, I followed the speedy runners out. The course takes a right after 300m with a lovely downhill tree-lined section before joining the main park path, which passes the mini zoo. With lots of marshals offering greetings, I enthusiastically shouted 'Danke' whilst trying to find a sustainable rhythm with fellow runners, keeping me honest and working hard. On the second lap the course has the extra loop which is an abrupt climb. It’s only 200m but the impact is dramatic, it’s like hitting a wall/schuttberg 🙂I gritted my teeth, felt my lungs explode, my thighs start to burn, and powered through, dropping the group I was running with, joining the course on the circular path for the final time. 

You peel off the circular path for the final 150m to the funnel. It’s the sort of finish that lets you really empty the tank, which is exactly what I did, earning a 69% age grading for my efforts. 

The volunteer team managed the funnel like pros, and I went back to the final 150m corridor to cheer on the other parkrunners. It was wonderful to see so many people finish with resilience, joy, determination, and, as Friedrich had hoped, pride on their faces.  

Today’s promised rain finally started to arrive but this didn’t discourage people from queuing for pictures with the Hasenheide parkrun sign. All the while regulars, tourists and the visitor team swapping those all important parkrun facts and stats and general parkrun faffing. 

Whilst I’ve now completed a Berlin dopplet, there are many more parkruns in Germany to do, parkrun remains the infinite game. 

A huge thank you as always to all the fantastic volunteers who make parkrun possible.

Goodbye Berlin, you took my breath away.

Stay well and happy running, walking or volunteering. 

www.nuhorizons.uk

You can read about how parkrun was created by the founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, a care leaver, in his book ‘One Small Step’ The Definitive Account of how a run become a Global Movement by clicking here