At Least 9,150 Runners Overtaken During the Berlin Marathon

A performance which could well qualify for the Guinness Book of Records was achieved by Terefe Yae and Shimeles Molla during the Berlin Marathon on 26th September. It turned out during the analysis of the results that the two Ethiopians have overtaken at least 9,150 runners during the 42,195K race.

As elite athletes Terefe Yae and Shimeles Molla should have started in the first of three starting sections and right at the front. But somehow they entered the wrong section and because of this had thousands of runners in front of them. They had to make their way through the large field of fun runners before they could finally run their own constant pace. Still they finished surprisingly well: Terefe Yae was 26th in a time of 2:17:29 while Shimeles Molla crossed the line just four seconds behind for 27th place.

Running like in a slalom during the first part of the race has cost them at least four minutes and plenty of energy. It took them 19:11 minutes to reach the 5K mark, they then passed 10K in 35:05. For the next two 5K sections they were timed with 15:10 and 15:14 minutes. It would probably have been that sort of pace that they would have normally run during the first 10K as well. During the second part of the race they slowed a bit.