Rondje 🟡

Weer eens rustig opstarten😊

Recovery ride Alicante

Marathon Valencia 🥰 big PR😎

Finish bekijken 😎☀️

2:38:06 >> 2:36:40

What a race in a special City! Enjoyed the whole package. Weather conditions were good, not as good as 2024 😉. It was predicted that at the start would be 13 degrees, however when in the starting box one could see it was already 15 degrees.

The special thing of the marathon is has so many different moments, feelings and mental states over a longer period. That makes it a rollercoaster. One has 2.5 hours (at least for me 😉) to think negative or positive thoughts, feel pain, get tired or feel oversugared by all the gels. On top of that one just keeps running.
At the same time there were so many positive things at this marathon, so many people running fast, the city, the ambiance. You can feel you are in a big long fast train and you just have to run your pace. Fortunately this year I could run faster than last year and it felt like the kilometres just flew by. For me the first 8 to 10km is always testing and feeling the pace and the first part does not feel necessarily easy. Takes always some time for my body to be warm and run smoother. Then from 10-20km it becomes little bit less crowded and also the running gets smoother. After the half marathon distance I still feel good and I then look forward to reach the 32 km which is another important point. During this marathon many people also step out or start to walk which is not very encouraging, towards the end I feel the that temperature is doing something as well. My goal was to run as long as possible at 3:40 min/km pace and then maybe to accelerate towards the end. I ran all the way controlled but between 30 to 40 km I think I had some physical energy, but could not bring up the mental energy to push and to fight, I even went slightly slower. Instead of pushing and fighting I chose to just secure the race in this pace and make an acceleration in the last kilometres. One could say you could dig deeper and get an even more fast time, but that’s also quite risky and I don’t like risks in a marathon 😊.

Very happy that all the effort and training put into this brought such a wunderful result and now really looking forward to not be so strict with food, sleep and a schedule!! Relaxing enjoying and no running for some weeks probably 😊
Of course also great thanks to my friend and excellent coach from Norway Lars-Olav Vidvei  who managed to let - a soon 49 yrs old man - run PB’s at nearly all distances this year:
1500: 4:21
5000: 15:58
10km: 33:41
Marathon: 2:36:40

My Strava year displays that the well balanced mix of training activities result in a lot of moderate and easy runs, see also attached pictures. It is perhaps not that exact/accurate but the main part of the trainings have been in Z1&Z2 😊.

Now time for recovery and doing some more other things with friends and family 😊.

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Gideon Habtab

Marathon Valencia 🥰 big PR😎

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Rondje 🟡

Weer eens rustig opstarten😊

Recovery ride Alicante

Marathon Valencia 🥰 big PR😎

Finish bekijken 😎☀️

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