A new experience a week — No. 1
After reading that Michael Batko, a friend from WU Wien, reached 104 continuous weeks of at least one new experience per week, I decided to try it myself. My rules will be the same as his:
A new experience that
- I have never done before
- I will do at least once a week
- can be anything, either big or small, as long as I haven’t done it before.
I do think it will be challenging from time to time but it is also a very good reason to go out and experience new things. If you would like to join me on a new experience or have a suggestion for something to try out, send me a message on LinkedIn or via carrier pigeon. I am not an avid photographer but I do post the occasional Snapchat story.
No. 1 — Marathon
To start things off and as my new experience for calendar week 37, I ran the WACHAUmarathon as my first marathon on September 17, which I completed in 3:58:21.
My marathon experience started at 6:28am to catch the train to the start and already gave me an outlook what will be expecting me for the next 8 hours: rain and the occasional gust of wind. While freezing in 10°C and rain together with fellow marathon runners, I was wondering whether it was such a good idea.
Once the race was started I found the pacemaker for 3:59:59 and ran with him for the first half of the marathon, which was very important to slow myself down and not lose all my strength beforehand. I also learned to slow down during aid stations because trying to drink water during running is more like waterboarding than it is refreshing.
As the pacemaker slowed down at KM 21.095 (as planned) I decided to keep going as I was on good track to reach 3:50:00. However, this turned out as a big mistake as I ran too slow and eventually lost my strength around Dürnstein. With the pacemaker slowly catching up to my I managed to find some strength left in my legs and finished the marathon shortly before him.
My goal was to run the marathon under four hours, which I accomplished. I probably will do it again sometime and beat 3:45 or even 3:30 but for now, I will rest my legs.
