If you’re aiming for that much coveted Six Star World Marathon Major medal, you can’t really turn down the opportunity to do the marathons when they come up. It was only after signing up for the Sydney Marathon that Barry Dolman found out he’d got a place in the Berlin Marathon. In a way it was good as it meant he could essentially get two big marathons done for the price of one training block. The only snag was that they were only two weeks apart.

It was a big ask but Barry decided to go for it. What was the worst that could happen? Ever since his amazing Boston Marathon performance of 2023, Barry has had the bug for marathons. He ran 2:54:26 that day and then went on to eclipse that at London this year with a superb sub 2:54 effort.

He knows what formula works for him when training for marathons and he doesn’t mind putting in the hard graft to get himself in shape for it. In fact, he rather enjoys the structure, discipline and focus that it gives him.

His idea for Sydney was to go for 2:57, since it isn’t a flat course so in theory, shouldn’t be that fast. He felt good on the day so decided to go for it and ended up coming away with a marvellous new PB of 2:53:16. He was elated with that and ordinarily, it would have been very much a case of, mission accomplished, take some time out to rest, reflect and recuperate. In this instance though, it wasn’t mission accomplished. He was only half way there. He still had Berlin looming large on the horizon.

Four days later he was back running but his legs were aching. The next day he felt a sharp pain in his left hamstring. The following day he tried another run but it felt no good. Now he was in serious trouble.

He stopped running after that up until the day before the Berlin Marathon when he was going to do parkrun. That was cancelled though but he still managed to do his own 5k. Luckily, the hamstring felt fine, although of course, that was only 5k. 42k could be a very different story. All he could though was to get on that start line and see how it goes.

Despite his hamstring troubles, the competitive runner in him was still hoping for a sub three. In all honesty though, just to make it round would be an achievement with the situation as it was. He was really nervous about it.

Starting off at 7:07 pace for the first mile, he then found his rhythm and started going at around 6:50 to 6:45 pace. He clocked a 21:49 for the first 5k before cranking the pace up a notch to around 6:40, leading to a 43:04 at 10k.

Running the next few miles at 6:30 to 6:40 pace, he managed to clock his fastest 5k of the race so far at 20:56. That brought him to 15k at 1 hour 4 minutes. He then went at 6:45 pace for the next few miles to reach 20k in 1:25:12. Reaching the half marathon point in 1:29:47, he was just about on course for a sub three at that stage.

The miles between 14 and 18 were on a slightly uphill trajectory but Barry was still going strong and maintaining his pace well. His 5k split times remained between 21 and 21:30 up till 30k. He’d now been running for 2 hours 8 minutes.

After that his pace started to drop and he went over seven minutes for his 21st mile. A 7:21 and a 7:26 followed and his hopes for a sub three had fallen away. Now it was just a case of grinding it out, all the way to the finish. It wasn’t going to be pretty but he had to dig deep. He couldn’t let the Berlin wall stop him.

Showing great character and fortitude, he pushed through the pain and made it to the finish line. His time of 3:06:31 wasn’t quite what he was hoping for but given he’d bagged a marathon PB just two weeks prior and had the hamstring injury to deal with, it was a creditable result.

It was probably a feeling of relief more than anything else when he crossed the line as he had been worried that he wouldn’t get to wear the finisher’s t-shirt that had cost him £40. Now he can wear it with pride though knowing that he’s managed two big marathons with a very short turnaround time. Not too many athletes would have even been prepared to attempt that.

Coming in in 5,715th place, Barry was 117th in the 55 age category. The were 54,280 finisher in total, which makes it one of the largest marathons ever.

Egdon Heath Harriers woman Alex Door was competing as well and going into it off the back of very little training, she didn’t really have any expectations, other than to complete it. That was quite nice though in a way as it took the pressure off somewhat.

For the first half of the race she was clocking each 5k split in around 22 minutes which led her to half way in 1:33:51. Over the second half of the race it became a case of just hang on as best should could though and she had to dig really deep over the last few miles.

She managed it though and got to the line in 3:15:35 which put her 7,961st overall. In the 35 age category, she came 176th, and out of the women in the race, she’d come in 956th. All things considered, it was a good performance from Alex and she was pleased with that.

Alex really enjoyed her time in Berlin and found that the people really embraced the race. In fact, she even preferred it to London. Whilst out there she also bumped into the pineapple man, who famously runs marathons with a pineapple balanced on his head.

Dave Tindall of Poole Runners was there as well and he finished in 2:51:24 which put him in 2,470th place. Nichola Saxon, also of Poole Runners, did it as well, getting round in 3:44:55 and that put her 3,693rd female. Jonathan Tice who also represents Poole Runners completed the course in 4:45:01. There were also a couple of Poole AC runners there, with Martin Sell finishing in 4:10:31 and Tammy Frias-Robles getting round in 5:44:50.

With his third star of the six safely in the bag, it had been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Barry. He’d certainly experienced a range of emotions and made some memorable moments to savour. The one overarching takeaway from it though was perhaps to ensure he never books two marathons so close together again. You live and learn.