Half Marathon (+1611 days, -34 days)

There is about a month until my participation at the Goettingen Half Marathon 2025. My body still needs a significantly higher training load to perform reliably. I will beat the gate, I know, but not expecting more than that.

I am about 8kg heavier than my self at the previous run, and well April probably isn’t enough to fix that. My previous run was in 2020, with a result of about 2 hours and 10 minutes (including water and photo breaks). I was too busy to reflect on what my participation meant to me. Well, here is what I remember.

That time I showed up with minimal training. Basically just there to ensure I won’t die from the challenge.

I still remember the beginning — energy overwhelming. Cheers from the crowd, booming music, fellow runners sprinting to catch up with the next faster pacer (or even further ahead), a wall of photographers with long cameras… “I could do this all the way, everything is pushing me forward.” The adrenaline tricked me into running much faster than usual.

Still, soon, reality hits. The heart rate spikes, your legs slow down, and runners you previously passed start overtaking you, even the ones in lavish and vastly non-aerodynamic costumes.

As exhaustion sets in, thoughts floated up: this isn’t about competing with others. The only real race is against yourself.

In a crowd are you truly alone, with your own set of training records, body attributes, and life trajectories. The controlled-variables principle from physics reminds you that comparing self to others, as easy as the next guy seems to beat, is meaningless.

What matters is surpassing past versions of yourself—the hesitant you, the inconsistent you, the exhausted you.

This is not unlike life, especially the shade of solitude I linger so long singing.

In a crowd is everyone alone. Some sets records, some struggles, some collapses, some keeps a steady pace.

Though we do share the same finish line.