Made It! Under Four Hours as Official Time at the Marathon Before Turning 40!
This must have been my most tactical and calculated run ever, and changing my intake strategy made for two particularly difficult periods earlier, one starting as early as 12 km and which might be said to have lasted all the way to 23 km, though after 17-18 km I reached something of a plateau, and another being between 31 km and 37 km, though once again things got less bad later during that period, after 35 km. During that first period, I wondered whether I was even going to finish, while during the second it seemed highly unlikely that I’ll manage to stay under four hours, even a new personal best, beating the time from 2022, being in doubt. And then, until 41 km, I thought that it was going to be really tight, a matter of a few seconds either way. But in the end I made it with over one minute to spare, the official time being 3:58:47, with a net time of 3:57:49. So I achieved what I had set as my target probably after getting an official time below two hours for a half marathon, in 2017, getting under four hours as official time at a marathon before turning 40, at the last possible moment, a mere two days before that date. I know I’ll be paying for what I put my body through, but it’s worth it.
But now, after eating watermelon and a sweet pastry, taking a shower with water that started at a temperature that was barely all right for a shower and then got colder before eventually heating up to something much more comfortable but probably still not enough for a bath, then also eating a bag of peanuts, which meant some 950 calories on its own, and drinking the protein shake which had been in the race kit, I’ll be making a pizza and stuffing myself. And this post is not a placeholder, because I don’t see myself writing the detailed one about this day too soon, and definitely not before Tuesday, when I’ll probably just throw something here to mark turning 40, especially since I’m planning to go out again tomorrow evening. So this is pretty much all I’ll say now… And what makes this even more of a problem is that I don’t see myself writing many notes about the run right away either, so plenty of details about what’s definitely my most important run ever will slip my mind. But I’ll see what I’ll do, the one last thing that I’ll add now being a picture taken after I finished, once I finally convinced myself to ask someone to take it.
Later edit: Oh, I just noticed that this is post number 1000 filed under “Personal“. Maybe it’d have been more fitting for the next one to mark this milestone, but this is probably better, to mark it with an achievement.
