Running the U9 U-Bahn Line

My goal for the end of August is to run the length of the Ringbahn, a 37.5 km rail line that goes in a circle around Berlin. Since I can’t run directly along the tracks, in order to visit every station along the Ringbahn, I would have to run about 43.5 km (according to a quick route mapping on Google Maps), which is just a little bit more than a full marathon (42.2 km).

I’m definitely not fit enough to do this properly right now, so to start off I decided to run the U9 U-Bahn line. The U9 line is about 12.5 km and (I think) it’s the shortest rail line in Berlin.

I started at the northern end of the U9 line at Osloer Straße station and made my way all the way down until I reached Rathaus Steglitz station. For the most part, it was a very calm run and I didn’t have to pass through many large crowds. Most stores are closed on Sundays so that helped. The one exception was at Zoologisher Garten station, which is a larger station not only for the U9 line, but also a few S-Bahn lines (above ground trains within Berlin) as well as trains going to other parts of the country. Aside from Spätkaufs, which are open later and stay open on Sundays, there usually aren’t many stores open on Sundays. The exception is at large train stations like Zoologisher Garten station and the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), where all the stores are open even on Sundays. So if you ever need to go grocery shopping on a Sunday in Berlin, go to the train station!

I still have about two months until the end of August, so I plan on training a lot more to be able to run the Ringbahn without dying. I think that within the next few weeks, I will try running the U6 U-Bahn line (19.9 km).

And if running the U6 goes well, I think I’ll try running to Potsdam (~27 km from my apartment).

And here’s the Strava activity for my run today!