Why run a marathon slower than you can

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The other day I ran the eighth and slowest marathon in my running career, because I decided to do it with my girlfriend, with her speed. The result differed from my personal record by more than an hour. And yet this is a very curious experience - not to rush headlong, but to try long-distance running as a kind of meditative process, to feel everything completely differently than usual.

You do not run up, but restrain yourself, you run slowly, and as a result, the body works in a completely different way. There is no such terrible fatigue in the second half of the distance, after the 21 km mark. There is no well-known "wall" when the muscles run out of glycogen and it is very, very difficult to move on. There is not even a particular muscle fatigue due to too high a level of lactic acid: I ran with an average heart rate of 133 beats per minute, and in this case the lactate generation is very low.

By the way, a long run on a low heart rate is a great way to lose weight. After all, it is a low heart rate and a long duration of exercise that lead to the burning of a large amount of fat.

Running a slow marathon is a great way to see a familiar city through different eyes. With a measured run, you can take a good look around and feel like not a pedestrian or a motorist, but someone completely new. Someone who can run through blocked streets and not be afraid of cars. If you're lucky with the weather, it will be perfect for exploring the city!

We ran this slow marathon in Barcelona. And I was able, firstly, to visit new places for myself, although I had been in this city five times already, and, secondly, I saw something completely different. Imagine that it is now the 17th kilometer of a marathon and you are racing through a sun-drenched city past the Sagrada Familia. The sensations are just cosmic! And to start and finish with loudspeakers where Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé performed this song live is a separate pleasure.

Another sensation long forgotten by experienced runners is to start at the very end, at the twentieth thousand runners. Usually I find myself somewhere closer to the beginning of the starting corridor, where, as a rule, you can meet only trained people. This time it was very interesting to see the newcomers. They are completely different and probably then suffered from jambs such as excessive insulation of themselves or one and a half liters of water on the belt. However, there was a sense of purposefulness and fearlessness in them: just picking up and going to the start is still a challenge to yourself.

In this sense, two types of motivation can be distinguished:

When you strive for your best result and all your workouts are aimed at running, relatively speaking, one or two more minutes faster.
When your goal is not to be faster, but to be healthier, and for this it is not necessary to constantly improve through increasing acceleration.

In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami writes that he wants to safely run 10 kilometers every day and one marathon a year. And he has enough motivation not to merge and not to abandon it all, but to move, move, move forward … Not necessarily in the fastest way, but sometimes just constancy is more important.

I don't know if I want to run another marathon in 4 hours 37 minutes. Still, I am more driven by the ego and the desire to be "faster, higher, stronger" - well, you understand. However, a slow marathon is such an enjoyable experience that I recommend to everyone. Yes, with a girl by the hand. Have a lot of fun, especially if you choose the right race and season.;-)