42 km.

4 months.
31 training runs.
482 kilometers run.

i think the coolest mental effect the training had was that it doesn't matter if you want to go or not, you just have to do it. you don't have a choice. you've signed up to the marathon and if you want to run it, you need to do all the trainings.

it is a strong mental state to go into. one could describe it as a very masculine approach, where it doesn't matter how you are feeling, what matters is the action to be done to achieve the goal. opposed to that would be what could be described as the more feminine approach, of listening to your feeling, following what your body tells you etc.

i think both ways of operating are very useful, and not ascribable to a gender, but are just different ways of operating. i think living your life always taking the masculine approach probably won't make you really happy. nevertheless, it does create a deep sense of fulfillment, self-confidence and power of just sticking to something although you really don't want to.

the coolest physical effect was that my legs got absolutely massive. it was kind of shocking, they are quite out of proportion now with the rest of my body.

the trainings were fun in the beginning, but when the runs start to become 20+ kilometers, it's just annoying and tedious and takes so much time.

the training

my training was 2 runs per week: 1 short one between 8 and 12 km, and a long one that started with around 12 km and went up to 30km, adding about 1 or 2 km's per week. the last 3 weeks i tapered, and went down from 30 to 10km.

i tried to go slow and keep my heart rate in zone 2. i don't know what is wrong with my heart, but it was basically impossible. even at very low speeds my heart rate would be 150+, and if i ran at a normal pace ~6:30min/km, it would usually be around 170, which is way too high according to what you should train for. but it felt good, i could still breathe just through my nose, and have conversations. so i started to ignore my heartbeat monitor and just go with that.

the race

the marathon itself was an awesome experience. i went with two friends, waking up at 5am, slightly nervous, excited. there were so many people and they're playing loud music and you're just full of adrenaline and hype.

then we started running, and the first 20km i was just really enjoying it. it was raining heavily, i wasn't listening to music, just going, and it went by fast. between 20 and 30 km i called with some friends, listened to chill music. i always stuck to my 6:30 pace.

for the last 10km i told myself i'll push. i took some caffeine, put on really strong music and started to go at a sub 6 pace (which is really fast for me, for others it's normal).

i also overtook a friend who had previously overtaken me, because he cramped up. for some reason that gave me energy, some competitive part in me got activated through that. i went into a really strong mental state where i was just pushing through, overtaking probably thousands of people.

in the last 2km friends were waiting and ran with me. it was a crazy feeling. i started sprinting. i went into the goal full of energy, happiness, adrenaline.

i then noticed two of my toenails are kind of falling off. recovery was pretty fast.

next, i am training for a 150kg deadlift, 100kg bench press and 130kg squats. check out the journey here.