Finally, the die is cast. After an endless ordeal, I’ve completed my registration — the race will take place on September 19, 2021 at 5 AM! Dropping out now would mean losing the registration fee, and that would be anything but acceptable.
Running costs Link to heading
Naively, at first glance, running might seem like the cheapest of sports. After all, what does it involve? You put on a pair of shoes, go out, and run. But the situation flips when you move from running to running well.
Already by the second month of preparation, buying running shoes had become necessary — a purchase that significantly improved my comfort, increased my performance, and in all likelihood prevented several injuries. All this, however, at the modest sum of €50 for the podiatrist visit and €110 for the shoes.
When I started looking at which race to sign up for, other “formalities” became necessary. To begin with, you have to be a member of a FIDAL-affiliated association. To join one, you need a sports medical exam, a photo with the club jersey taken at a photography studio, and to pay the membership fee. Once that’s done, you obviously have to pay the race registration fee. In summary:
| Expense | Cost (€) |
|---|---|
| podiatrist | 50 |
| shoes | 110 |
| medical exam | 60 |
| photo | 5 |
| membership | 20 |
| registration | 90.85 |
| total | €335.85 |
So, simply put, to run a race you spend a minimum of €335.85 — the cost of an annual gym membership.
Injuries Link to heading
I admit it: I’m someone who always breaks. Every time I try to practice a sport seriously, I manage to traumatize myself and end up in physiotherapy for months. It happened at the gym, with wrist tendonitis that, besides medication and tekar therapy, required acupuncture to heal. It happened with Muay Thai — a small thumb trauma that prevented me from doing any kind of sparring and seemed impossible to heal. So when I started running, I tried to take every possible precaution: a very thorough warm-up at the start, stretching at the end, proper shoes, anything that could help avoid injury.
Despite everything, a minor injury still happened. During the 21 km training session on 29/05, I was a bit reckless — I went after working all night, and at the eighteenth kilometer (an uphill stretch), perhaps due to a wrong foot movement, I hurt my right tensor fasciae latae (a bundle of muscles running from the head of the femur to the knee). I felt excruciating pain and had to stop the training that day, limping the last three kilometers home. After a 4-day break, I tried running again and the pain seemed to have subsided. However, even today, when I push a bit beyond my pace and distances, the pain in that exact spot makes itself felt — it builds gradually and lets me know I need to slow down. It’s become a kind of warning light.
One of my biggest fears is that on the big day, when I’m at the end of my strength, that will be the exact point of failure that prevents me from reaching the finish line, given that it’s already happened even during training. For now, I keep training and keep an eye on it, hoping it heals completely.
Training Plan Link to heading
Since there are just over two months until the race, it’s time to change the pace of preparation. It seems clear now that reaching a 5 min/km pace is impossible for me, but 5:30 seems fairly sustainable. Maintaining such a pace, it’s plausible to finish the race in 4 hours (shameful for runners, but it would be an immense satisfaction for me).
The plan is to spend the first month, roughly until mid-August, consolidating times and working on quality, also including a 21-kilometer training run every weekend. One month out from the race, I’ll follow what seems to be a standard training regimen: first week, a 35 km long run, then tapering down until race day.
Of course, every kind of plan and forecast is based on my hope of not getting injured — a possibility that’s anything but remote!