Man that was hard. It was around 0 Celsius at the start, and there I was, half-naked, waiting for a half an hour. Not a chance to warm up since I had to get into the target pace section. Everybody else was smart enough to wear old sweaters and sweatpants that they would throw away before the start gun, which was kinda funny. So, to get warmed up, I started up rather quickly. Streets were wide enough for the running crowd not to be an issue. I was feeling GOOD. I kept on thinking how the taper and high altitude training were giving me such a great boost. I never felt out of air during the entire race. During Medellin’s half, the first few Ks were tough, so I was prepared to feel a little uncomfortable at the beginning, while I started to get into aerobic mode. But I never gasped, so I decided to take the risk and speed up. So much that at the half point I was well below the target split time, and I was still feeling awesome.

Then around mile 18-20 I hit the wall. I passed from feeling great to feel like crap pretty quickly. Breathing rythm and heart rate were still doing great, but my legs simply weren’t responding. Was it because of the too fast start, or was it that I just didn’t have enough long distance training? I think a bit of both. During those last 10 miles I saw hell. I tried walking for about a minute after each mile. Sometimes trying to follow pacers, and then letting them go. I finally got into the finish line at 4:04, 14 minutes above what I had in mind, but 8 minutes better than my last and first marathon. I feel good about it because I know I gave it all given my low mileage training. And I’m more and more motivated to be able to classify for Boston in a couple of years, and get one of those shiny blue jackets. For the moment I’ll continue with the triathlon training, pumping up the running part, and thinking of the others as just cross-training.