Marathon.
42.195 kilometers.
26 miles and 385 yards.
As you can read in short in my About page I have gone from zero to marathon in less than a year. Which means the journey towards it has been full of anticipation.
At first I just liked being active and getting in shape, but soon I found out I actually liked running.
Running gave me a certain calm and gave me time after a busy day to clear my head.
So after training for a couple of months I found out running goes well for me. I see improvement, but start to stagnate.
Time to find some theory that can support me.
I started reading up on Long Slow Distance, watching your heart rate, make sure you don’t produce lactic acid in slow runs, minding your posture, stride, foot landing, … and started putting it in practice.
This wasn’t always easy (I’m sure some post will once go about my cursing on midfoot landings), but I did see I was getting better all the time. Sometimes barely noticeable, some weeks I amazed myself.
After my 5k race that started all my trainings (read the recap here) I wanted a new challenge and decided I wanted to go for the big leagues: marathon!
After some talk with the Mrs. I decided to undergo a medical screening, lactate test, vo2Max test etc. so I could decide if I was built for it, wouldn’t crash during race day and if our joined schedule could find the time for all the trainings.
The calendar got filled out, the appointment at Mensana set for the medical part and just like that the decision got made for sure.
I was going to run a marathon.
How my training went? I’ll write about it in a not so distant future.
Have you ever run a marathon? How did you decide about it?
Have you taken a medical exam as well? Why (not)?
If you haven’t run one, do you want to?