This is it. For months, there had been a sole focus on this one day, September 24th 2023. Between my debut marathon in Seville in February and Berlin, I’d been away from home from more than three months, preparing one of the most legendary marathons of all time. World records have been broken here a lot. So the course was not going to be too slow. No excuses there.
Three altitude training camps were planned to get myself ready for the biggest challenge of my life. I prepared for my debut marathon at sea level, so this was the logical next step to take my fitness to the next level. The first one was the most enjoyable: Sankt Moritz in April 2023 with my coach(es), who also serve as solid training partners and even better friends. With them, I starting planning how to tackle the marathon, and #ProjetParis was born. I’ll introduce them here in short.
Hamish is the head coach of #ProjetParis and the most ambitious of the team. He’s a Rio Olympian, and I’m the first and only athlete in his coaching portfolio. 😉
PJ – also Rio Olympian – is the self-proclaimed nutrition coach as he plans out how we’re going to fuel and hydrate during the marathon. More importantly, he’s the fun-coach. PJ makes sure I’m not getting in over my head, and stay relaxed. Hamish took his fiancé Charlotte and their baby boy Casper with him to Switzerland, which made this camp very fun and relaxed.
The second training camp was different, as I traveled by myself to the US, more specifically Flagstaff, AZ. The goal of the camp was to take the next step on an aerobic level, focusing on running lots of volume at a low intensity. At that point it was July 2023, we were still 12 weeks from Berlin, hardly the time to hammer marathon workouts. I was staying with some running friends that I had made in the US a few years before. It was fun to spend time with them, but since they were in a different stage of their preparation, I was mostly training by myself. On top of that, Flagstaff in July is HOT. I woke up at 5:45 for long runs, because after 9:00 the heat was unbearable. Great way to build some mental resilience, but tough nonetheless. I got home after 4 weeks with a lot of miles in my legs, and the feeling that I was ready for the higher intensity of specific marathon training.
Four weeks before Berlin, we went back to Sankt Moritz, to put the finishing touches on our marathon preparation. This time, PJ could only come along for the last 10 days, mostly to help me to not lose my mind thinking about the race. I don’t want to romanticize these last few weeks before a marathon, it’s quite a challenge to have such a daunting goal in front of you. It’s awesome to prepare for something that is both exciting and terrifying, but the last weeks can be nerve-wrecking trying to do everything “right” – not getting sick or injured or something else that can derail your race. But I had executed my #ProjetParis to the best of my abilities, and could share that with friends who cared about this as much as I did. I think that’s pretty cool.
As I got closer to the big day, I’d hoped I would feel like some indestructible monster of a runner. I didn’t. I realized afterwards it’s still just you on the start line, with your doubts and fears and insecurities. But there was one feeling that struck me. I felt I couldn’t do much more to prepare for this race. Whatever happened now, I’d be okay with. So, I was surprisingly relaxed at the start line.
I had proclaimed to all my friends and family that Berlin was the one where it was supposed to happen. They understood how important this race was for me, and were there to cheer me on. They had divided themselves into groups, to see me on the course multiple times, and to assure that I heard my name as much as possible. The first few miles flew by, and I felt amazing. I was in the front of my group, running just behind the pacers, and therefore not realizing that our big group going out for the Olympic standard, was slowly but surely losing athletes. After 26K, I lost contact with the pacers, who ran off with just one athlete, the rest of the group falling apart behind them. I decided to run my own pace from that moment on, I was still on pace for the Olympic standard. The last 16K, I was on my own. But I wasn’t alone. Every few minutes, I was reminded that there were so many people rooting for me, having their own race through Berlin to see me run past as much as possible. Obviously, things get very hard at the end. Your body is screaming at you to slow down, just slow down a little bit. It’s your job to tell it: “Not yet.” As the miles go on, the body screams louder, until it’s the only thing you register. You need a very good reason to keep ignoring that voice, to keep shutting it up. My reason was them. Disappointing myself is easy, but being able to bring my friends and family so much joy by hitting the Olympic standard, this arbitrary mark, forced me to pour everything I had into those last final miles. Celebrating such an achievement after the race, makes you forget the hard times very easily. I could’ve accepted not running the Olympic standard. But I can’t accept not giving everything I have.
I still get chills thinking about seeing my family and friends after finishing in Berlin. It was such a perfect moment, celebrating something I worked so hard for, with the people who saw me do the work. It’s hard to describe the moment when everything falls into place. The preparation, the race, the execution, loved ones to share it with. Someday, I might run faster than I did in Berlin, but it’s hard to imagine a race that will be more special than finishing that marathon on the 24th of September 2023. Then again, maybe on August 10th! 😉
