Munich Half Marathon October 2025

I boarded the ICE train to Munich in the morning, watching the autumn scenery slide along beside the track. The fields looked as if they were having a disagreement about the season: some still green with late-year crops and optimism, others waiting to be harvested, and some already bare, as if they had simply given up. Most trees were already wearing their autumn colours and would probably soon dress down even further, letting their leaves fall to the ground.

The weather was not too bad yet, a cloudy, greyish twelve degrees outside - the exact temperature at which optimism begins to wear a jacket. Around the hills, a layer of mist hung indecisively, unable to decide whether it wanted to be low-lying cloud or high-flying fog. Yet somehow it seemed to find its way into the train, giving me chills. Either that or the heater had been set too low, perhaps an aftermath to the earlier, fuller crowd.

The weather tomorrow looked friendly for runners, but even thinking about it gave me that familiar blend of confidence and dread. As usual, I felt I could have been more persistent in my training, spending more time on my feet each week. And yet, the goal didn’t seem out of reach. The first ten kilometres should feel fine, maybe even enjoyable, if I paced myself. But eventually it would turn into a struggle. There will be a point at which my body wants to quit and my brain starts holding motivational TED Talks for an audience of one. Instead of soaking in the atmosphere and keeping the finish line in mind, my attention would probably narrow down to getting through the next kilometre, and then the next, until eventually I dragged myself across the finish line.

The human mind is a curious thing: it can plan runs and race while sitting perfectly still, clutching a pretzel and a misplaced sense of ambition. But that was tomorrow’s problem. For now, there was nothing to do but enjoy the rest of the train ride, assuming, of course, that one enjoys sitting perfectly still while travelling very fast to somewhere one intends to get tired.

I arrived in Munich, checked into the hotel, took a quick shower to refresh, and then headed out on the metro toward the Olympic Park to pick up my starter kit. The weather was unexpectedly good, and as I emerged from the underground, a steady flow of runners spilled out alongside me, apparently drawn by some invisible magnet labeled “Get Your Kit.” A few kids dashed past, proudly wearing their medals from today's kid runs, which glinted with the quiet confidence of future champions. The walk stirred memories of the 10K I had run here the previous spring. At least this time, the kit pickup wasn’t tucked away in some obscure side entrance so improbably hidden that one could have sworn it had been placed there by a committee of mildly sadistic spatial planners. Instead, walking through the Olympic Hall of 1972 evoked a peculiar sense of antiquated flair: hard to imagine it used to be modern and now it is not quite old enough to be comfortably retro. Fetching the starter kit and shirt took barely any time at all. Meanwhile, the sun shone benevolently, silently reminding me that I was wearing too many layers. I probably got dressed unconsciously thinking about last year run's gloomy weather.

From the Olympic Hall, I made a brief detour to Decathlon to pick up a few items that might make race day slightly less inconvenient, because experience had taught me that even minor comforts can feel like miracles once the legs start complaining. I also intended to stop by Uniqlo, reasoning that perhaps there were other essentials I hadn’t yet realized I needed. Exiting the subway, I finally spotted the store signage, only to realize that the shop was so new it hadn’t yet decided to open. Apparently some retail establishments prefer suspense over immediate utility.

Accepting that fate, I turned back to the hotel to drop off my bag and address the increasingly vocal beast in my belly. Its demands were clear, food, preferably something that did not involve running a fire drill in my digestive system tomorrow. I settled on a Szechuan chicken rice dish, carefully choosing the non-spicy version. There was already enough anticipated exertion to contend with, adding a fiery afterburner seemed like a bad idea.

The rest of the evening passed in relative calm, spent mostly relaxing in my hotel room and sorting through luggage and other bits of necessary chaos for the next day.

On race day, I woke up a bit earlier than I had planned. I tried to convince my body to grab a few more minutes of sleep, but eventually gave in and got up for breakfast. After that it was the usual routine, getting dressed for the race, packing my bags, and checking out of the hotel.

On the metro to the Olympic Park, more and more runners got on at each stop, leaving the locals and tourists looking slightly confused. Why were so many people wearing colorful shorts and shoes, long after summer had ended? It was a little funny, but also reassuring, at least I was not the only one heading toward a morning of self-inflicted struggle. 

Being with so many other runners gave me some peace of mind, at least I was not going to be late. In reality, it seemed we were all cutting it close. After dropping off my bag and a final restroom visit to settle a nervous belly, I made my way to the lineup. I was supposed to be in the second last pen, though it was hard to tell exactly where it started or whether the road was already filled by the next pen. I joined the crowd and moved forward, first in small steps, then in a steady walk that gradually became a jog. The marshalls rushed us along, their sense of urgency slightly at odds with the careful pacing most of us were trying to maintain. The start times for the different batches were scheduled a little too close together, but it did not matter. A short jog to the starting line is better than no warm up at all, and maybe someday I will actually manage a proper one before a race.

Jogging across the starting line, I started tracking the run on my watch and officially began my fourth half marathon, and my first in Germany after Budapest, Singapore and Sendai. The first six kilometres wound through the Olympic Park, which was probably meant to be scenic, though somehow my earlier 10K run had managed this better. This time, we squeezed along narrow paths that ran close to main roads, and although a few drivers cheered us with their horns, I was too busy navigating the crowd and checking my pace to notice much else. The first kilometres are for warming up, after all, which is a polite way of saying that no one is really enjoying themselves yet.

That focus stayed with me longer than I expected. Most of the run, I kept my eyes on my watch, the next kilometre marker, and the runners around me, while the scenery faded into the background. The route stretched out of the park and into the city, looping back past some of Munich’s sights. Crowd support was at its liveliest here, though I had almost no sense of where I was on the course. Compared to Ulm, a few extra turns would have made it easier to form a mental map. Still, the signs were clear, and my watch kept count without complaint.

The first support stations only had water, while the last two offered a few more options, including food, sugary drinks, and an unexpected extra challenge: the sugary drinks that spilled onto the ground by the horde of runners before me had made the ground sticky and it decided to cling to my shoes for longer than necessary, as if it had a personal grudge. It probably did not slow me down much, but it was annoying enough to notice. 

Before the run, I had been nervous about the distance, mostly because my training had not been as consistent as it could have been. I felt confident about the first ten kilometres, but after that, all bets were off. In Sendai it had started to get difficult around kilometre 13, and here, approaching kilometre 11, my legs were starting to show some signs of fatigue as well. A short walking break and an energy gel worked a small miracle: I felt stronger again and even managed a few faster kilometres. I could not maintain that pace for the remaining distance, of course, but it had given me a quiet confidence.

Something had changed. For the first time during this run, there was a real sense that I could actually finish it. The last kilometres brought us back to the Olympic Park, retracing some of our earlier steps. We had caught glimpses of the finish line very early in the race, between kilometres two and three, teasing us from just fifty metres away as if it was daring us to take a shortcut. A final sprint was trickier than expected: breath was short and the path crowded. The sun decided to join me for the last stretch, and just after I crossed the line, my watch told me I had set a new personal best, almost a minute faster than my previous fastest half marathon. How disappointing. Or rather, how oddly satisfying. Somehow I had misremembered my earlier best, thinking I had been ten minutes faster. A good shame, then.

The finishing area was crowded, and getting drinks and food involved more queuing than seemed strictly necessary. The helpers who were there were friendly and in a good mood, but there simply were not enough of them, which made the queues feel longer than they needed to be. The exit had its own bottleneck because marshalls made sure no reusable cups left the area, which slowed everyone down even more. People finishing their drinks also slowed the exit. At times, I wondered if more runners were crossing the finish line than there were people capable of actually exiting the area. Hoping that the finish area will improve next year, I feel it would work better to have a continuous flow through all the stations instead of multiple unorganized queues, and at least a second exit or a rethought cup strategy would help tremendously.

Fetching my bag was straightforward enough, but the showers were a different story. Lots of runners, unisex dressing rooms, a limited number of private cubicles. Most people did what they could to stay decent while changing, sometimes wrapped in towels, sometimes in underwear, sometimes in minimal runners’ gear. Queues spilled beyond the designated gendered areas, but there was no childishness, just everyone navigating their own comfort zones while being surprisingly considerate of others.

Once showered, I headed back into town to collect my bags and start the journey home to my cozy university town. On the train, I looked forward to stretching out in bed, enjoying the aftermath of the race and a weekend that had been just eventful enough. As a minor bonus, every train ran cleanly and on time, which is perhaps the most comforting sort of punctuation for a weekend like this.