Berlin Marathon

On an appropriately sunny day in September 2018 our heroic 8 marathon runners convened in Berlin. This iconic marathon was chosen because Archie had travelled there in the weeks before his death and we were all keen to walk through the Brandenburg Gates in his memory.

Five of our runners had NEVER run a marathon before, two of our valiant team were carrying knee injuries, the legendary Paul Bowker had recently completed a five day, five marathon challenge so was fearful of being a little bit jaded and two of the team, James Lloyd and Rupert Allison were attempting to run further than they had ever run before, starting and ending their marathon running careers at the age of 54. 

There were rock, jazz and pop bands along the route to galvanise the intrepid runners from all over the globe. The atmosphere was fantastic however, we did notice that there were very few running for charity. Our teamArchie gang really stood out and we were so proud of them. Conor Meadows and Bella Bowker both finished heroically limping their way to the end and in pretty spectacular times under the circumstances. At the finish there were few who would have signed up to do a marathon again but they all agreed that being part of a team and having noisy and enthusiastic supports made it very special and pretty emotional. A beer or two later they were all signing up for another challenge as were the supporters!