If you missed the action on September 21—here’s what made 2025 special.

You train for months planning to make race day orderly and predictable. Berlin 2025 laughed in our faces and gave us chaos instead—for all the right and ridiculous reasons. From record-breaking heat to surprise celebrity sightings, Berlin delivered a marathon that had it all: chaos, courage, and a few comical mishaps only runners would put up with. As a 20-something American participant chasing the famous Brandenburg Gate finish, I experienced every wild twist that made this year’s Berlin Marathon experience out of the ordinary.

The Hottest Berlin Marathon Ever

Let’s start with the obvious: it was hot. Not “oh it’s a little warm” hot—record-breaking, melt-your-soul, vision-going-hazy hot. Temps hit 78°F (25°C) with 70% humidity, officially making this the hottest Berlin Marathon on record. I laughed when I saw SCC Events’ put out a pre-race email that basically said, “we warned you,” complete with a liability disclaimer that could’ve said R.I.P. your hopes and dreams between the lines.

Out on the course, they rolled out sprinklers and misting stations at aid stops, which sounded great until you realized that cooling off just meant trading “hot” for “hot and wet.” Runners stopped under the sprayers like wilted plants trying to rev back to life. As early as at mile 15, fingertips were bloated, salt crystals framed foreheads, and the pavement equally looked like a cookie baking sheet and disappointment. Berlin 2025: an unseasonable heatwave in carbon plated shoes.

Harry Styles (Almost) Goes Incognito

This one was an Easter egg for those in tune. Music superstar Harry Styles laced up under the pseudonym Sted Sarandos, sunglasses and sweatband, flying under the radar. His disguise fooled most, but his leg tattoos tipped off his highly devoted fans.

Despite the brutal conditions, he turned in a 2:59, a massive leap from his Tokyo debut (3:24). Fans along the course whispered, squinted, pointed—half unsure, half certain—and by the time word spread, “Sted” was already somewhere between the Brandenburg Gate and the carpet, legs churning, curls bouncing. There’s “running undercover,” and then there’s PR’ing 25 minutes while everyone else melts. Respect.

Nike’s Area 72 Pop-Up

Not to be outdone, Nike built its own Berlin Marathon exposition—Area 72. Because when you’re not the official race gear partner, you do what Nike does best: create your own stage.

With the Berlin flagship store closed for renovations, Nike wooed runners to an offsite pop-up, G-wagons shuttling runners straight from the expo to their sci-fi performance lab shrine. Inside: NSRL form analysis, Hyperice recovery stations, and enough futuristic lighting to make you feel like you were prepping for lift-off to a marathon PB.

And the real eye candy—Nike Crown Jewels—Eliud Kipchoge’s Alphaflys from the Breaking2 event and Faith Kipyegon’s custom speed suit. For gearheads and running nerds alike, it was the holy grail of marathon memorabilia. Adidas might’ve been the marathon’s partner, but Nike’s Area 72 was what everyone was talking about.

The Name Wall Disaster

Every major marathon has one—a giant wall of participant names for runners to find, point at, and pose proudly beside. But this year, Berlin was… something else.

The picture doesn’t do it justice: a 35-foot-long (about 10.5 meters) wall of text, every single name listed in one continuous column. One. Single. Column. To find your name, you had to physically shuffle right for every line your eyes scanned—like a human typewriter printing across a life-sized page—and then go all the way back left to without losing which line you just read.

The result? A growing crowd of increasingly frustrated runners zigzagging in unpredictably, some crouched low, some reaching high, trying not to trip over each other while squinting at the world’s most stressful Where’s Waldo. It was chaos, hilarious in hindsight, and a solid lesson for SCC Events: always multi-column your name wall.

Whether you were there as a participant or sadly missed this year, 2025 reaffirmed that no marathon ever goes as planned—and that’s the magic. Between the heat, the adjacent celebrity electricity, and Nike’s offsite peacock fan, Berlin gave us a race that was equal parts grit and grin. Everyone passed under the Brandenburg Gate with a story—some drenched, some dazzled, all smiling. Here’s to the chaos, the community, and the beautiful mess that keeps us lacing up again and again.