Barcelona 2014, my first marathon

My first marathon after 40, to be exact. This race is my official turning point. Before Barcelona, I always had an extremely careful stance towards racing and training, but this race changed all that.

In September 2013 I completed a half marathon in London and it was real fun. After London, I continued running 2-3 times a week with no running plan or racing goal for the entire winter. Completing a full marathon distance was a bit scary and I did not feel totally ready to commit to it. As a young father of a cute 3 year old, I certainly did not have enough time. In 2014, my typical working day was really, really busy.

• 5:00 Wake up
• 5:30 Start running at Bebek, twice or three times a week
• 7:30 Quick shower and a coffee at the gym
• 8:30-18:00 Work, work, work, some more work
• 19:00 After a typical 60 minute struggle to cross the Bosphorus bridge, finally get back to home, have dinner, play with my son, maybe a glass of wine with my wife
• 9:00 pm Put my son and myself to bed, to repeat the same above.

I was also travelling quite a lot, maybe 3-4 times a month, which made following a training schedule a challenge. During the weekends, I was still waking up at 5:00, so that I could do a casual long run early on and spend the rest of my day with my family or do some fun stuff. In short, I did not have time to train properly. Eating right or getting enough sleep was also a distant dream. Still, I continued running as much as I could. My only plan was to put in 40 K every week. My wife and I really enjoyed having a nice dinner once or twice a week. Preparing for a marathon would mean committing to a few months of discipline, giving up on reading time and god knows what else.

But you should be careful choosing friends. They make you things without much thinking. One morning, after a usual 10 K at Bebek, I learned that most of my running buddies were beginning their training for Barcelona 2014. There would be interval trainings, weekend long runs, yellow team jerseys. It would be amazing fun. I just did not want to miss all that. Besides, Aybike and I could use a long weekend in Barcelona. It was a cool thing to post race registration slip to groups’ Whatsupp group. So without giving further thought, I called Aybike, marked both our calendars busy, bought plane tickets and registered to the race. It was done. For better or for worse, I was in.

Before the race, I knew I was a bit overweight for running. I did not have particular target in mind, but I decided to shoot for a sub-4, mostly because most of my buddies were choosing that. It seemed pretty doable. I used to do my weekday runs at 6:00 min/km pace. Two months before the race, I tried to do all my runs at 5:40 average. Those days, I did not own a GPS watch and I did not keep a training log.

I was not really sure If I wanted to run long distance races beyond the age 40. I did not think It would be healthy to stretch myself physically or psychologically. This race was to mark my 40th year and I didn’t want to plan beyond that.

I don’t have training records for this race. Until the race week, I planned to do weekend long runs, but I never covered more than 15K. Call it arrogance, but I knew I would complete the race. Running at 5:40 pace for 10 K was a piece of cake so how hard could a marathon be?

Barcelona is a beautiful, beautiful city. The day before the race was really dreamlike. My wife and I were really looking forward to some wining and dining and patience is not one of our virtues, so we decided to try some tapas, cava and red wine. If you ever decide to run Barcelona and never seen the city before, take at least a week. You will not regret it.

The day before race, we did a soft morning run with team and ended up spending more time posing for pictures than running.

The night before, I took my wife to a tapas restaurant and really enjoyed ourselves. I did not feel particularly confident about what would happen the next day. Still, I was not in the mood to stress myself.

In the next picture, you see three gels, a phone holder, a heart rate monitor, a black short, two buffs and our team jersey.

On the the race morning, I decided be my usual self. I never used gels, did not enjoy music while running and never used a heart monitor. Trying new things would be kind of stupid. While all my friends were busy “carb-loading” on hotels buffet, I had two cups of black coffee, as usual.

The ambiance at the start line was magnificent. To this day, Barcelona remains as one of the best marathons I ever participated. Everything was very well organised. If you are not particularly looking for a PB race, I can not recommend this race enough.

At the start line, everyone was talking about their race plans and expected times. One of the few things I did right in this race was to study the course well.

After the start, the course takes you to New Camp- the first 5 k is a climb. This is not a good way to start a marathon. Between 5 and 10, you hit a second climb. After 13th Km, it is flat as could get, but the roads become a bit dullish. Especially the segment where you run up and down The Diagonal can be a bit boring. After 35, the course is just a pleasure to run but last two kms are uphill.

Just before the race, quite spontaneously, we agreed with Murat to keep company until 30th. It was his first marathon as well. My plan was to never run faster than 5:40, never fully stop until 30 and walk the rest if I had to.

Things went more or less as I planned. First 5 k was really steep, but we were fresh and did not feel it too much. Until 15, things were quite familiar, but after that every step started to hurt as hell. The weather became just to hot and I did not hydrate properly earlier in the race. Too dehydrated from the day before, I started feeling a terrible headache. Things deteriorated after 25 and at 30, I did hit the wall.

It became all too clear that “running” the entire 42 would be out of question. Quitting would also be quite shameful. After 30 mark, I tried a 1 k run – 1 k walk routine but ended up walking the rest of the race. Running on fumes, I could barely fake a running pose to finish photographers.

During the last 10 kilometres of Barcelona Marathon, my entire perception of my physical self has changed. Before the race, I always though that I could still repeat my 20-year performances, despite my creeping weight and lack of training. But here I was and every step was torture. 60+ year old runners were just casually overtaking me, chatting with their mates and hi-fiving their friends. The pain is temporary, the pride is forever they say, and there is some truth in it. Meeting with my friends at the finish line was priceless. I was happy to cross the finish line, but surprised to see just how more difficult it was than I expected. I was simply not fit enough for this.

Aybike met me the the finish line, surprised that I could finish, and we decided to walk to the hotel, having a couple of beers along the way. After all, I had completed a full marathon after all those years. The beer did not feel as good as I expected. I was literally and totally exhausted.

After we arrived in the hotel, I took a very cold shower and tried to sleep a bit but could not manage it. I was feeling absolutely horrible, my legs were burning and there was a strange tickling burn at the back of my lungs. Yes, the race was over but I was not really happy with “how I felt”.

I had two options.

Option A. I could post my finish pics to Instagram, binge drink at the team dinner to celebrate, keep training casually as long as could and steer clear of marathon distances. That would be the easy, enjoyable and arguably the more sensible choice.

Option B. If I wanted to keep running marathons, It was clear that I needed to shape up. This meant going back to a healthier weight (89 t0 79), start keeping a training log, talk to a coach, in short start taking everything about running more seriously.

Normally, I take my time to decide such things, weighing pros and cons and doing analytical stuff like that. This time I asked myself what I wanted.

I wanted to keep running. I wanted to run long and fast. I wanted to run for as long as I could. That evening, I decided to start from scratch, do everything right and run another marathon soon. That would be Munich 2014.