My Very First Marathon
In November of 2019, my husband and I run our very first marathon. We did the 42 kilometres of Porto, Portugal. I am sharing in this article my learnings from that experience and all emotions that this achievement brings to my life until now. It was for sure the craziest thing I have done so far in my life. I hope you enjoy reading it.
And them the day of our first marathon arrived. A day which we would run 42 km. A day to run without knowing how the finishing line would look like. A day to remember. Since we decided to run a marathon 1 year has passed by. In a blink of an eye, the day has arrived, and the biggest challenge was there facing us. First, let me provide you with some background why we went to Porto to run. The point was that when we decided to register for a marathon, the Dublin one, city which we live in, was sold out. So, the nearest option with reasonable prices considering flights and accommodation was Porto, in Portugal.
It is quite difficult not being cliché writing about running. There are loads of good books and articles covering the topic. But everyone has a unique experience in life, that is why I decided to leave mine registered, so at least I can remember it later. To run a marathon is challenging, it means a personal achievement. Therefore, it means different things for each one.
My biggest learning from the whole preparation time is that training for a race, like a marathon, is a result of 50% physical training and 50% of our minds. On the day of the marathon, I witnessed how our minds can control even the worst physical pain. The soar went all around my body, but the willing to finish the race make you find the power from places that you did not even know it should be possible. After this experience, I learnt much more about my limits and how my brain is the most important tool in this process.
It was Painful
I started to feel the pain from the 30th Km awards, which is considered normal by runners. I knew from my previous “running studies” that this would happen does not matter how prepared I were. But I would not expect it would be so devastating, so aggressive and sharp. Until that point, I was enjoying the race, looking around, keeping a pace to finish in 4h45, which would be an outstanding result for a newbie marathoner. From the 30th km, the pain was increasing and going everywhere around my body. The pace was slowing down, and our only hope was to finish running. The only message that would come to my mind was, “we are going to finish this marathon running and not walking”. At some point, I was screaming it out loud to convince myself and Alex next to me in the same situation.
The constant movement of people getting out of the race by ambulance or by simply abandoning the marathon starts to get into my mood. It is one more evidence of our bodies that something is not right. Then I started questioning myself, why am I doing it? What is the purpose? When my brain was taken over by these thoughts, I would force myself to imagine the finishing line, the endless training, and that I was determined to achieve a marathon. Looking to the past, I can see now how it can be more an emotional intelligence game than anything else. A battle between our body and our mindset.
When the Tears Motivates
I was ready for the crying. I expected that. I knew that at some point I would break into tears. In my mind, it would at the end crossing the finishing line as we watch on TV during the Olympic Games. Frequently, during the training sessions, I would get emotional imagining the finishing moment and getting my medal. I know it seems a little bit simplistic, but I believe in the power of our thoughts and how it can help to achieve our goals. An empty mind can be fertile territory to bad messages, so we better fill it with positive vibes and dreams, which can become goals.
So, contrary to my thoughts, I cried a lot during the race and even during the start, but not at the end. At a certain point when the soar was everywhere one of the bands that were animating the runners were playing a famous Brazilian song, which says something on the lines of “….I live in a tropical country which is beautiful by nature and blessed by God…”. When I heard that, Jesus, I broke in tears like a baby, Alex even asked what was going on with me and I could not answer such emotional I was. When we live for so long apart from our family and birthplace this kind of experience gets into our soul and make us reflect on everything.
The marathon finishing was not so emotional as I expected. To be honest, I was almost irritated. Our mindset has a limit and the last 2 kilometres took forever for me, it was like a movie moving at a slow pace. I got the final shoot of motivation when I saw the official clock on the top of the finishing line indicating that we have not crossed the 5-hour point yet. In my mind, we were over 5 hours.
The Gains Running Brought to my Life
Discipline
From the moment that you decide to run a marathon and to train for it, you became a disciplined person. It cannot be different. You will need to accommodate the running along with everything else that we do in life, like working, leisure, study, relationships, etc. Finding out the best time for training is a matter of organisation and discipline.
During this process, I noticed how all the other things, the ones I mentioned above were getting better as I was consistently training and get more committed to my running goals. I found out, for example, that my best time for training is early in the morning, before getting ready to work. It works as an energy boost for my day. My mood gets better and it can reflex in a more productive morning. If for some reason I train during the evening, which I tried, I tend to get too excited and will interfere with my sleep.
To make this work, we need to wake up at 5h30 to be at the gym at 6 am, train until 7 am, then come back home, take a shower, have a 5 min breakfast, get ready and be at the door at maximum 8h15 to be able to get to the office on time. This timetable is just possible as my husband and I work and live in Dublin city centre. Everything done during this 2h30 timeframe counts. For example, I do not check social media or emails, I do leave my clothes organised, so I do not need to waste time deciding what to wear. I pack my lunch box the night before. That is the discipline and routine habit playing its part. It is impossible to deny the benefits of it.
All this process helps you to build the endurance, strategy, and focus that we need on the marathon’s day. If you go to bed late and with your stomach full, you will notice that on the following day your performance is not that good. If you sleep well and get a good/nutritious meal, you will see how the train goes great. If you skip one meal because was in a hurry, the effects can be noticed in your training. It is a constant learning process of getting to know your body and how it can react to different types of food and inputs. It is valuable knowledge and useful for different spheres of our lives. For me, it goes beyond running.
Anxiety Control
Before considering running a marathon, I had already adopted running as a way of controlling my anxiety. I am anxious by nature, since my childhood, during a certain period of life, I even took medicines to control it. Since then, I found out that work out in general and cardio activities really helps me control my anxiety without any medication. It also has a good effect on my mental hygiene.
Among those activities, the one which helps work better is running outdoors. Nature, the streets, all fresh air boosts my energy, clean my brain, and help me to sort problems out. Considering, I run in Dublin, it is a guarantee that we will get “really fresh air”, most of the time. It is a great feeling to observe how nature evolves thought the seasons, for example, the change of the colours, the landscape’s movements.
All the above help me with my daily work, my focus, and my creativity. It is a benefit for life that I cannot measure. For sure, I am a better person for me and to the others because of the running.
So, Running is All About Good Things?
It is, not! Running has its negative sides as well, like everything else in life. Injuries can happen and they will happen because you have over trained or maybe because of lack of training. Even from the pain, you can learn lessons such as patient, resilience and the list can go on forever.
I had an ankle injury in a crucial moment of the marathon preparation. When I got my best pace, my best long-run performance, my ankle started to show the signs that it was too much. During 3 long months, I was unable to run, doing parallel workouts to recover and get better muscles around my ankle and trying to not lose my fitness levels. It was great learning on dealing with frustration and the fact that I might not be able to achieve the marathon goal.
Social life is also affected by marathon preps. I cannot say it was a huge impact for us, but it can be for people with intense social lifestyle. My personal rule is balance. Everything that is too much, it is not good for our lives, even healthier habits. The line is tiny, so balance is essential. It is easier to get it lost when we see the results coming. I do not abandon my friends and family because of running, it is necessary to make some arrangements, prioritize and share the time accordingly. If I have a social activity on a Friday night, I will leave my long run for Sunday, instead of Saturday. If I know my weekend is going to be busy, I can do the long run on Friday during the evening, or even skip that training if I will have time to recover the mileage later. The important thing is to not let this become an obsession.
And yes, you can be addictive to running. It releases endorphins and our bodies love it and get used to it, and then they want more of it. During the marathon, I told myself several times that was my first and last time doing that, it was crazy, why on earth I would submit myself to that again? On the following day, I was already registered for the Dublin Marathon for 2020*. I need to confess that I miss the emotion, the discomfort, the challenge, and all environment which surrounds a race, the atmosphere is unbelievable.
*2020 marathons are being cancelled all over the world due to COVID-19, so I will not run my second marathon this year as planned, but we keep training and running.
