Tribute to Full Marathon Virgins (FMV)

At this moment, you’ve done what is best for your body to prepare for your first ever 42.195km running event, known as the marathon. Some of you might have been running for 6 or 7 hours per week, or clocking anywhere between 30km to 60km per week during your peak time. Every couch potato will fall in disbelief upon comprehending the amount of training you have to put, just to run a marathon.

By now, you have to consider that your physical preparation has come to an end. Nothing much can be done, with about plus minus 40 more hours to go before the gun off time, come Sunday 5am. What you should start doing now, is to build up your mental strength. You need all the positive thoughts locked firmly up on your brain, and a little courage in your heart to be standing there at the starting line.

Trust me, that is the real energy you will need, to get to the finishing line. The positive energy.

“No matter who you are, whether it’s your first time, or tenth time, you are going to suffer out there.”

“The physical pain is surely going to be there, no matter what. It’s going to hurt.”

You’ll come across some thoughts like above, and it is almost for sure, pain during a marathon is unavoidable. But, is pain what you are scared off? For all we know, we’ve been living with pain since we were first born. And I think you would agree with me when I say, the bigger the pain you can endure, the stronger you’ll become.

And deep inside your heart you know, you are strong. Or else, you won’t sign up for it.

My normal rituals before a big race, is to watch inspirational videos. Something big, much bigger than what I’m doing. I’m watching few Ironman triathlon inspirational videos now as we speak, because it is my BIG dream. And as I mentioned earlier, if we focus on something bigger, anything else will appear smaller. I’m not saying marathon is easy peasy. This is going to be my 4th time and I’m still pretty nervous. I’m just saying that, there’s a way to make it ‘feel’ easy.

Think about the longest distance you’ve ever done during your training sessions. Going one meter further will already be your personal best. How much better could that be, for you guys the FMV? It’s going to be your first experience ever. There will always be ONE first time in your life.

“Once you’ve crossed that finish line, it can’t be retracted. You did it, and you did it on your own.”

“You’ll find out what you are really made of. How strong you really are. So when you cross that finish line, you know more about yourself.”

“Even when you feel like dying, you actually haven’t.”

“You’ve been dreaming for this for months, and now you only have few more hours to make the dream comes true.”

“You can usually think of at least a hundred reasons why you should actually stop. But there’s only one reason why you should keep going.”

For me, I’ll try my best to do another PBE – Personal Best Effort run, insyaAllah.

My finishing moment last year. I suffered big cramps on both calves, 2km before finish line.

With my running buddy, Kash.
Hopefully this year we can all gather in a big group for a post-race photo session.

Good luck to all of you.
Enjoy your race!