Ariel wins over 100 miles

The race followed a 161 km course around the former West Berlin. It is held annually with variations to the course, to commemorate the building of the Berlin Wall and the victims of the border. This year’s event also commemorated Karl-Heinz Kube, who was shot in an escape attempt in 1966 – one of 138 people who died due to the wall.

21 August 2016

“I wanted to run a relatively fast 100 miles,” Ariel told us soon afterwards “in order to automatically qualify for the Sparathlon race in 2017. In order to do that, I needed to run 20% better than qualification criteria, which meant running it quicker than 16 hours 48.”

Ariel’s Israeli background means that he has trained in heat, although with this race there was a different challenge.

“The weather in August in Berlin is unexpected” said Ariel, adding “I've practiced for the worse of course.”

The race attracted a record number of competitors including close to 100 teams. They included teams of two relay and four relay runners, and a ten-runner team completed it in 11:04.

Race victory – fast time

Ariel took the race victory in 15 hours 20 minutes and 49 seconds. The second placed runner was 24 minutes behind, and Ariel even beat the fastest pair who finished in 16 hours one minute. It was also safely inside his target time by 68 minutes.

Aside from his own performance, Ariel was pleased with the organisation of the event which he described on their website as “as good as it gets” and “very impressive”. When presented with his award Ariel spoke about the symbolism of the event and how he believed in freedom for his country and the freedom and rights of animals. See this here.

We asked Ariel what was going well and he gave us a great answer: “everything!”

“My overall feeling, my ability to practice high mileage weeks for a long time.”

This put him in a great place to take on his next big challenge: Spartathon The 246 km race in Greece is considered to be the most gruelling in the world, although as a runner who’s taken on and completed it before, Ariel is ready for the challenge.

Ariel’s profile

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