After Boston and London last Spring, things kick off again this weekend at the Berlin Marathon, followed in 2 weeks by the Chicago Marathon and then by New York City a month after that to finish up the 2009-2010 season.

For the men, Tsegaye Kebede of Ethiopia and Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya are currently in the lead for the half million dollar prize purse, each with 50 points which are gained by top 5 finishes in any of the World Marathon Majors events.

Both of them are running in Chicago, and their only real competition is either going to be in Chicago or in New York. That doesn’t mean that Berlin doesn’t have some fast runners, though!

There are likely to be 7 men on the starting line that have run under 2:07, led by Kenyans Patrick Makau and Geoffrey Mutai, who gave the fans something to cheer about in an exciting 1-2 finish at Rotterdam for the fastest marathons run so far this year in 2:04:48 and 2:04:55.

I’m not aware of any sub-2:10 Americans that will be racing in Berlin, but our own Chuck Engle, who started running marathons about a decade ago, will likely run his One Hundred and NINETY NINTH sub 3 hour marathon! No wonder they call him a Marathon Junkie.

In the women’s race, Sabrina Mockenhaupt will be the local favorite, although her 2008 PR of 2:26:22 puts her a bit slower than Bezunesh Bekele, who’s run 2:23:09, and Aberu Kebede who has a 2:24:26 personal best. Both women ran their fastest marathons in Dubai and are from Ethiopia. Japanese runner Tomo Morimoto has to be counted in the running as well, with her 2:24:33 personal best set in Wien back in 2006.

So good luck to all of the runners in Berlin tomorrow, and I hope that you have a really good race. For all the spectators that are going to be there, it’s going to be pretty exciting.