Tuusulanjärven Maraton

„How can I inspire others, when I fail?” – I thought to myself at the 25. km of the Tuusulanjärven Marathon, Saturday 23.05.2015. It was my 7^th marathon and the 3^rd time I was taking part in that event. 

Vege runners: Agata & Remi
Tuusulanjärven Maraton 2015

The marathon course goes two times around the lake Tuusula. There’s almost always windy and always hot, when the weather is sunny. This time the wind was really awful on the West side of the lake: around 11-19km and 31-40km of the marathon. What’s more, the West side is more difficult because of the hills. My run felt pretty good on the first round. I felt strong, comfortable and calm, keeping the pace around 5:20 at the first 11km. I knew that the other side of the lake might be more difficult, but I didn’t expect the wind to be that strong. Quite fast I realised that keeping my pace in that wind would be suicide, so I dropped it to 5:45 and hoped that I can work on it again on the East side, which was more still. But after the first round, with over 21km behind, I was exhausted and disappointed…

In tears at the finish line

My pace dropped dramatically. From the plan A, which was to run the marathon in time close to 3:50, I was forced to start the plan B: to get to the finish line without hurting myself too much before the ultramarathon, which’s coming in 2 weeks. Fighting with the wind took all the energy and I had nothing left for the second lap around the lake. I thought about quitting so many times: “maybe it’s a good decision to quit now and to consider this marathon a faster training before the ultra”, “is there any sense in collecting marathons and running all of them with such a miserable result”, “what will others say about my slow pace this season?”…  My head gave up and my body immediately followed. I was in terrible pain, my thoughts were down and I felt absolutely no joy of running. I was so exhausted that for the first time since my first marathon I had to walk on the hills. I tried to focus on crossing the finish line and relaxing at home on the evening party with my man.

The last kilometres went quite fast. It felt so good to cross the route marks: 35, 36, 37 (only 5km left!), 38… I got ahead of so many runners! I’ve never seen so many marathon runners walking at the end – looks like I wasn’t the only one, who took a beating from the wind. I crossed the finish line after 4 hours and 21 minutes (last year my time was 3:55!). I started crying like a baby, because of disappointment and self-pity. My man took care of me immediately. He run the marathon in 3:28 – it took him 18 minutes more than last year. I pull myself together in a few minutes; after all it felt so good to rest on the green grass in the sunshine, having run 42km for the seventh time.

Never underestimate your achievements!
You knewer know, who you inspire...

In the evening I was analysing my silly behaviour and sad thoughts on the finish line: why the hell I felt so disappointed of my achievement? Thousands of people in the world do sports. Only very little percentage of them do it for money and break the world records. So there must be some other reason behind it than achieving a good time and breaking the personal bests! Otherwise sport would be a very narrow activity only for the champions. Suddenly I realised that today’s experience was very precious for me. What if I run all of my competitions close to my personal best or a little better every single time? Today I had to face a really big crisis, dark thoughts of self-doubt, muscle pain and total exhaustion. What’s more I had to learn how to keep going in pain and how to deal with worse results than usually. All of these experiences were another barriers I had to go though. I had to experience all of that in order to learn to feel respect and happiness about my life and my achievements; to feel happiness of doing what I love, no matter what “result” I achieve, as the result is something different than time and the numbers. Having realised that I feel grateful for this experience, for the pain and exhaustion. Marathon is not always fun and sometimes it turns out very different than we think. It always teaches us something precious about ourselves. I embrace it and feel thankful, taking what it brings.

Tuusulanjäven Maraton medal series