Commitment & Consistency

Marathon commitments

Runcation is over. Thank you, Monte Gordo. It’s been beautiful and I’m gonna be back. "Monte what?" Here’s a quick unrequested update on what is actually going on in my running sphere right now.

After detraining and gentle base building for the past months, I’ve just finished the first 2-3 weeks of a somewhat tougher training block with bigger volumes and a few harder workouts. Most recently during a runcation in Monte Gordo. What for? In brief: the marathon.

It still feel a slight stranger anxiety for road marathons. Although I’ve been running a couple of them for fun, or as part of my ultra-distance preparations, my last attempt for a fast time, more precisely breaking 3 hours, was in 2019 and ended with three magic letters. It feels like unfinished business since then.

Although I have abandoned working towards this goal for the last 3 years, it’s been on my mind constantly. I have discussed the sense and nonsense of over-hyping such artificial time barriers in another Too Far Gone blog post. So let me just say, that the carrot dangling in front of my nose is both, a blessing and a curse. A curse, because it is stuck in my mind like glue until the day it’s finally done. A blessing, because there is no other running goal that motivates me to train hard and makes want to evolve as a runner so much. I have no idea how my running and even more my training would look like, once I have this one checked off my bucket list.

To underline the seriousness of my endeavor I have not only committed to one road marathon, but three of them. While a spring marathon is meant to reconnect with the distance and refine my road racing execution, another one by the end of the year is most likely going to be a serious Sub3 attempt, or at least a fierce hunt for a PB.

Either way, I have decided to give this A-Goal of my running world a proper shot for the next few months. No half-assed BS but a serious attempt with a long-range preparation and all the patience and consistency that goes with it. So far it has already paid off for me. Marathon training itself granted me a good number of micro-successes already and spoils me with a general holistic body feeling that no other running preparation can give me. That is to say, I am enjoying my running very much right now.