Yes, the day has come, I'm back here to get a bit of a breather. I'm running a marathon in 55 hours, my first ever. I just want to make it to the finish line somehow and not end up in a wheelchair the day after. I will have number 969, my dad used to laugh that it is almost like a satanic number because all you have to do is turn back the nines. Maybe there is something in that.
Do I know what I will be running in? No.
Do I know what awaits me? No.
Have I done the right training? No.
Am I prepared? No.
Do I set myself up for a good time? No.
Can I do it? I do not know.
Do I have people cheering me on? Yes.
So what if I have people who will support me if I can't do it. They will not care if I run the royal distance in 5 hours, in 3 and a half or if I overtake Kipchoge and break the world record of 42195m. They will be there for me, because I was there for them when they started. That's my hope at least. I've been playing 'private coach' for a while now, I have my own running group. It's made up of a few of my friends who I've been talking about running non-stop until finally most of them agreed to try it and now we go out together from time to time to jog or exercise.
I think it's a positive initiative, especially in the XXI century, where all the digitalization and scientific progress limit people, making humanity lose the meaning of life and who they really are - smart monkeys. It is human nature to play sports and simply move around. Sitting for 8 hours a day is not good for your well-being, your joints or your spine, although I don't know about that, but they say it is. I reminded some of them of the old habits and they are grateful to me for that, at least I think so. We are planning to take part in competitions together, but maybe we'll talk about that after the fact.
I am not an outstanding athlete, every day I do some exercises to improve my mobility, on Sundays I get up at 8 a.m. to go jogging on the beach, I can run 10 km in less than 50 minutes, recently I took the 4th place out of 50 in some ridiculous run for nothing, in winter I have been to the pool 5 times and went winter swimming 3 times.
I like to ride my bike some medium routes, seventy-two kilometres a day would be the maximum. Why only that much? Partly out of laziness and partly out of equipment limitations. I have a white bicycle, a Centurion, which was a typical mountain bike when I bought it with the money I saved from my 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th birthdays. A lot has happened over the years. I had a bike-car-elbow-mask collision, which is interesting by the way because it was the first time I sat in a police car. So far, the last one. The bike did not suffer but my knee did, I was limping for a couple of days but it went away. I could have claimed damages, but I don't want to spend any time dealing with it.