A two day ultrarun adventure on the Mauerweg (Berlin Wall Trail) - Berlin, Germany
While I’ve been traveling to Europe for work the past 5 years, and spent a lot of that time in Berlin Germany, I’d never spent an entire weekend in Berlin until recently. This weekend gave me an opportunity to explore a trail I’d looked at but never had a chance to run. Since I stay in a place on Bernauer Strasse, which is a street that the Berlin Wall used to run along, I’m also constantly reminded of the wall each day. On my walk to work I pass by the open-air museum of the wall.
The trail I was interested in trying is part of the Mauerweg (Wall Trail). I came across the trail while researching a 100 miler that is held in Berlin that closely follows the Berlin Wall path along this trail. The section from where I live to Spandau, following the trail north, is also conveniently about 50k. I mistakenly thought the route would be mainly road, but I should stop being surprised by the amount of trails within major cities.
I was training for a bicycle trip at the time so didn’t feel ready to run a one day 50k. Instead, I saw that I could use the S-Bahn train stations as my goals for two separate runs of around 24k. I thus decided to split up the run and did two separate routes:
Mauer Park -> Frohnau
Spandau -> Heiligensee
I ran the portion starting at Mauer Park first. Even though this part goes straight through dense urban environment, a lot of of it is wooded and trail. As you get farther north towards Oranienburg, the trail enters the Eichwerder Moorwiesen nature preserve. This area felt very remote with views of forest in the distance, and areas with large open fields.
On day two, I took an Uber out to Spandau and then ran northeast. The trail started out on a path through the dense forest, and then later on became fully off road skirting along farm fields and through forest. When the trail met the Nieder Neuendorfer lake and turned north, it became a wide paved path. One of the coolest parts of the run is a guard tower kept as a monument.
The Mauerweg trail is one of the nicest urban trails I’ve run, and certainly the longest through a major city. The fact it existed is tough to comprehend, but we can now enjoy the open area left behind from it being torn down. Berlin, Germany makes a great ultrarunning destination because of the convenience to such a great urban trail. Whether you want to go 20, 50 or 160k you can find a section close to where you are staying. In addition, there are trains and taxis that make it very convenient to make your run a point to point. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
