A Marathon Runner’s Mental and Physical Challenges

Hi everyone

I wanted to share some thoughts as a marathon runner yesterday.

First of all, thank you Oliver for not sharing the time it took me, in the group. I'd rather keep that to myself - nothing to be proud of.

I had a rough week, for some reason I didn't feel fit the whole week through.

I woke up well rested on race day, but 5kms into the race I started feeling really crap. Legs, stomache, stamina, disposition. And mentally: "why again did I even want this?".

I wanted to quit at 15 kms, at 21kms (end of first lap), at 28 kms, and many times in between.

Not to bother y'all with my troubles, what I did want to share the feeling of support I got from the marshalls, refreshing stations, trainer, and universe in general.

At 10kms, I promised myself I was allowed to stop at the end of the 1st lap.

At 20 kms I was absolutely finished. For some magical reason, Nelson was standing at the split between the finish for 21 and the 2nd lap for 42, and he ran with me 100 meters which "forced" me into the 2nd lap.

From km 24 to 28, I was absolutely convinced that I'd take an Uber at 28. Just to have a Marshall lady shout "you are stronger than you think!" at exactly 28kms. So how am I gonna quit right now!??

Okay so let's push to 30km, and then we can stop. At 30kms there was a privately run refreshing station that had a banquet of fruit, salt and peptalk that kept me going.

Just after that, my coach called me and said "shut the fuck up and run!".

Sometimes even billboards with motivating texts ("just imagine") kept me going.

While it was the worst 5 hours of my life (okay now I've shared the time), it was also amazing to notice how much we depend of support from our surroundings.

And this makes me remind myself of how important it is when whe ourselves man a refreshing station.

So thank you everyone, and thank you uninverse. Okay, and thank you Oliver.

That's enough from me now, Suyen has way more interesting stories!