Last year at the Athens Marathon, I hit the 30km at about 4 hours and then just fell apart.

Here’s what I wrote in my race report:

This was the part that was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to go flying down this.

Nope.

Nada.

Never.

Instead it took a superhuman effort to run. My legs were like: NOOOOO. I couldn’t move them.

Part of me thinks that I tried to shift gears and the gear shifting fried the transmission. Part of me thinks I was just tired. 4 km from the end my body started to function again, so I am thinking it was the gear shift I attempted.

Oh well lesson learned. Don’t shift gears. And don’t assume you went too slow in the first 30km… Or more to the point get a damn Garmin watch so you can more accurately measure your progress!

After a year of training and improving my running technique, I know what happened

1. Pushed too hard on the uphill.
2. When I moved to the downhill didn’t have enough experience to realize my legs would feel like jelly just because of the switch to a steep downhill. My body wasn’t exhausted, instead my body was experiencing a natural change, but my brain freaked out costing me precious time ..

This year, there will be no collapse.

Mr. 30k you and I have some unfinished business, see you on November 10th.