How to run a marathon?Resistance testimonies

Although today approximately eight hundred marathons are run every year around the world, in reality the practice of this race is quite recent, if compared to other sports.Although the first marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 Olympic Games, with the complicity of its founder Pierre de Coubertin and that of the French philologist Michel Bréal, who were looking for a popular event to commemorate the sports glories of ancient Greece;And even though the Boston Marathon is the oldest annual race in its class and has been carried out since 1897, the generalized practice of the so -called jogging began in the United States until the seventies were very entrance and extended through many places in thePlanet since then.Until that time, running or jogging long distances was an almost exclusive experience of olates or high -performance athletes, and was not surrounded by that aura of health and well -being so in vogue today.

One of those responsible for the rise of running and, therefore, for the popularization of the marathons in the seventies, it was Jim Fixx, who, being a obese and smoker thirty, began to travel kilometers with great passion seeking to redeem himself.Suddenly a person dedicated to writing books about ingenuity games was already a guru and evangelist of running.Fixx, who belonged to an intelligent people club, published in 1977 a best seller that changed the world of runners forever: the full book of the corridor.Two are his hypothesis: for those who enjoy loneliness and subtlety, there is no more pleasant sport than running;And this activity has unquestionable health benefits.The paradox is that Fixx died at age 52 while training on a Vermont road.

The question of the reason why a marathon is decided to run, if it is a tortuous and afflicted hobby, beyond whether it is a beneficial, profitable and healing activity or whether one can end up dying in the asphalt, it brings me bad memories. Between the twenty -five kilometer and thirty -five, the dreaded wall that prevents the race. It does not happen to all runners, but many. Energy ends. The fuel is exhausted. The muscles are gathered. The world becomes gloomy and dense. You cannot advance no matter how much you try. The cramps appear along with unbearable pain in the head. It has happened to me three times and only in the last marathon - which I ran a few months ago - did not stand in front of me. When that metaphysical battlement has risen, I have had to stop, breathe, shock some curses and mentioned, and continue, dragging and walking until it trots again. The wall or wall is the moment when the glycogen reserves are over, of which our body provides and that are stored in the liver and muscles; It begins to consume its own fat, that is, it starts a hall and painful autophagy.

That the wall is lifted or not depends largely on the training that a marathoner has had in the previous months.If enough kilometers have run, it is very likely that it does not appear, but if it did not happen, it may be that it is built in front of those who dare to challenge this distance without the necessary preparation.Ricardo Barraza has never faced the wall.With fourteen marathons in tow and 52 years of age, the training programs that he has continued have always been prepared, according to his ability, by different coaches.His sports was linked to his father's.He shared with him the love of him for basketball, who played from primary school to university, and then began to run at the request of him.He says that his father was going to run “with some cotton pants;He put on a plastic down to sweat, contrary to what is recommended today: the more I lined, the better, because one has to breathe. ”

His father died twenty -six years ago running in a park and it was at that time that Ricardo decided to run more structured.He approached Coaches and reviewed different training programs.He began using a band that was placed in the chest to measure the heart rate."You get to know and run into people who share the same passion and take you to readings, experiences, people who have already made the marathon," he says.He celebrated the forty birthday of him running his first marathon in New York, a race that on that date also celebrated his loss anniversary.Since then he has given the task of knowing the race thoroughly, not only the recreational part, but food, tennis, clothes, times, frequencies, strategies.

Unlike Ricardo, Víctor Carbajal, who is twenty -one years old and studies the Bachelor of Physiotherapy, ran his first marathon, Mexico City last November, almost without any previous training. He says that throughout his life he had done different physical activities, except running, a sport that he had never liked, like the Czechoslovaco Athlete Emil Zátopek who hated the careers before his work forced him to participate in one and then became eighteen sometimes worldwide plusmarch. The thorn of the race was put to Victor at the end of 2020, but by the pandemic he delayed his preparation until early 2021. Like Ricardo, he began running with his father. Remember that he saw a sign that promoted an Ironman (competition that consists of swimming almost four kilometers in the open sea, traveling one hundred eighty kilometers by bicycle and finally running a marathon, in a maximum time of seventeen hours) and had the idea of ​​doing so, without have any history in the practice of resistance sports.

In May he thought about participating in the half marathon in Mexico City, but as there was uncertainty about whether it was going to be carried out or not, he stopped training in shape.In August they announced that the marathon of Mexico City would be made and registered.As part of the training program she took from an website, she ran a virtual marathon that was held in October.She felt good, went to a quiet step and did not have in mind to do some time.

Victor acknowledges that running the forty -two kilometers was to discover a new world."I heard that the mind plays certain traps throughout the race, but I did not think it was so drastic, it was a huge factor in what I lived."Victor ran into the wall in the second part of the marathon.He tells that he unfolded at the beginning of the race when trying to reach the runners and recognizes that he was going further step in the program.

"The ego you have to leave it at home, you have to leave people pass, and you have to follow the plan you carry," he says recognizing one of his learning in this first experience as a marathoner.And when one travels through such a huge distance, he must stick to the rhythm with which he has prepared, regardless of the speed of the other competitors;Otherwise, the marathon charges invoice in the last kilometers, as happened to Victor that, despite the difficulties, he managed to end in approximately four and a half hours.

Preparing conscientiously is one of the teachings left by the Coach Melissandre Passerat, with whom I began to train two and a half years ago in his team M Arm (Mélie Running Crew).Without her help and without her training program, I would not have been able to run my fourth marathon without having encountered the infamous wall, in addition to reducing my previous brand in more than twenty minutes.

When asking Mélie why she decided to run marathons, competition she considered "crazy", he does not hesitate to answer: "I am a person who seeks to do something big, impossible.Making a marathon is very much, maintaining a rhythm for forty -two kilometers is not anything, you have to train. ”Mélie, originally from France, has lived in Mexico more than twenty years.She tells that when she arrived in this country, her idea was to continue with her vocation as a tennis player.However, there were not many spaces to practice that sport, so without knowing anything about athletics, she decided to start running.

He had a clear ease and shows this is that his first five -kilometer competition ended in nineteen minutes, a great time for a beginner.She ran in the Tlalpan forest and she thought that this sport was to give as quickly as possible to the circuit of nine hundred meters of this space.She little by little she understood what it was.In this way, she first ran a ten -kilometer race;Then, in 2006, a half marathon;and it was until 2009 that she made her first marathon.A coach told her that she, of having started before in athletics, she could have participated in the Olympic Games.

“My mother never let me make my dream, which was to be a professional tennis player;Now that I am mature, adult and that I make my own decisions, I can do what I want and I wantedTwo hours and forty -six minutes, a prodigious time.She says that one of the motivations for which she runs from her is that the skills are a job for her: "I run because I require money and that's why I feel motivated."In addition, and above all, she runs for pride: "Everything you have trained is not to throw it away."

Miguel Navarro, 51 and an architect by profession, has other motivations.He tells how he started running in the nineties when listening to ads on the radio promoted by ten kilometers in Paseo de la Reforma.Until then, sports were not on his horizon.However, something caught his attention and he decided to register for some competences.He liked them because they aroused their adrenaline, the tension and the desire to train."I was attracted to be able to travel, go and travel," he remembers.Without having a plan in mind, he began to cross twelve kilometers and then fifteen, to a half marathon.He tried to participate in the Marathon of Mexico City, but his ankle was twisted a few days before.Finally, in 2013, along with a group of friends, he enrolled in the Chicago Marathon."I loved it, I felt a hero," he recalls.

Photography by Luis Barron / Reuters.

Today, Miguel has run eight marathons and has an impressive three -hour personal record and twenty -one minutes.He says that something that motivates him, in addition to the satisfaction of reaching the goal, is the trance.It has been documented that in sports activity it is possible to reach the experience of ecstasy.Sports psychology, and more precisely Abraham Maslow, has defined as Peak experiences that totalizing sensation, which only some athletes recognize having lived.Gaia de Pascale, in running is a philosophy, says that this ecstasy occurs when the corridor "reaches a state of extreme satisfaction, feels intense pleasure for what he does.He has set aside anguish and frustrations, he has put pain in parentheses and his perception of time is altered, compressed in the present. ”

Miguel describes this perception: “You do not know how I am hallied with that feeling, it is like a trance in which everything is connected: the body, the mind, the heart;You are not thinking, you are in trance. ”Even more, he says that he has thought about what happens and warns that "a resistance limit, a life limit" is approaching.He thinks that "look out that scalp, that adrenaline of being on the limit makes you feel very alive."He concludes what enjoys sport more.

For Alma Enriquez, adrenaline is also part of running.“I do my training according to a forecast of the time I want to do, but being in the marathon I get the turbo.I'm not cracking.Everything hurts me, I'm dying, but I tell me ‘Don't go down, don't lower the step’.I like that demand, ”she confesses.With twelve marathons to his credit and a great three -hour mark with thirteen minutes, Alma also identifies that "the marathon is a trance."After the race he does not remember the sites through which the event is held in the cities."I am very concentrated in the active body, feeling the pain," she says.

Alma started running thirteen years ago.She says that she had gone up and exercising became prevailing, so she tested several activities - a treadmill sessions in the gym, Zumba classes - before running.He says that seeing people training on El Sope's track, in Chapultepec, near the work he had at that time, he caught his attention, so he tried."I liked the feeling he had when he ran outside," he evokes.

He began to attend the track regularly and bought sportswear.After two weeks, she could already train for forty -five minutes.Shortly after she signed up for a ten -kilometer night race that he managed to finish in an hour.Little by little, he was increasing the distance, until he run seventeen kilometers and, after just eight months, he enrolled in the first half marathon.It was in 2010, when he turned thirty, when he decided to register to his first marathon, and he did it in the fastest of all, that of Berlin.

One of the greatest difficulties he has faced is to harmonize working life with the demands of the marathon.Being a graphic designer and devoting himself to corporate communication, her works have been very demanding, so she says that you have to have creativity."I am very closely," she acknowledges, she has run at night, at noon and at dawn;In hotels, in villages, roads, jungles and rural roads, because the requirement of the marathon is that you cannot skip training.Alma she reveals that she continues to participate in marathons for "the feeling that you have left when you finish one.In no other area I have felt it, not even at work.Nothing has given me so much joy. ”

The joy that Alma lives in each race is also shared by Carolina Salazar.At twenty -six, she managed to run her second marathon and graduate as a surgeon in less than two months.And, despite the fact that I previously thought that running marathons was crazy, today Carolina confesses that she runs not to lose the stirrups before the demands of her university career: “When I am studying and I can no longer be when I go to run;When I return I can concentrate, it's a time for me. ”

His beginning was similar to the majority, he had no idea how to run.He started training in the Tlalpan forest and a few weeks later, five years ago, he participated with a friend of his five kilometers.There he discovered the pleasure of the departure shot, the arrival at the finish line and take the photo.He liked the atmosphere a lot, so much that he continued training intuitively and finding major challenges.His parents have been very important in this tour: "They are the official baton, a career that I register is a career in which they are."A month after running a half marathon in 2018, he accompanied a friend in the last twenty -two kilometers of the Marathon of Mexico City.The experience was very pleasant and a year later, in 2019, he enrolled in the full marathon without having adequate preparation and with an injury.

Some believe that, in reality, the marathon begins at kilometer twenty -five or thirty and not before.That's when the corridor knows if he can make a bearable transition from the glycogen energy source to consume the fat of the body or if it will take place against the wall.Carolina did not have a hydration plan, very important in this race, and she felt exhausted."I think I realized at kilometer twenty -five of the distance she was going to run."She knew that the marathon is the graduation of every corridor and that is why she continued until she finished, despite having hit the wall, walking until she little by little she could jog again.

Photography by Luis Barron / Reuters.

For this reason, for his second marathon he decided to have a more serious preparation, he joined a team and a coach followed his progress.He knew he had several months to be about.To the difficulties inherent to training, the very complicated medical internship that, paradoxically, confesses that it helped him: “The boarding school is death for many, you make guards of thirty -six hours every four days.Honestly helped me the pandemic because I went to the guard and went and returned to four days. ”

In this way he was able to run with "normality" the days that did not go to the boarding school: "Sometimes, after the guard I slept an hour and I was going to run."In August it was announced that the Marathon and Carolina would be held.However, in November, missing less than four weeks for the test, the guards ended and the schedule became more demanding, so she could no longer do training as she wanted.

He says that the day of the event was mentally very tired, "she trembled and was full of uncertainty."But it was so good that he managed to lower his previous brand in more than forty minutes and, like many people who finish this test, he immediately began to think about the following athletic challenges - and also university students, among them, his professional exam that he presentedsuccessfully a few days ago.

One of the factors that led the great Mexican athlete Gerardo Alcalá to the world of races was also an exam.Not exactly professional, such as Carolina, but an extraordinary physical education in high school.He had two options: he donated a ball or gave him eighty laps running to the school patio, which measured one hundred ninety meters.To know if he was able to run that distance - it should be noted that Gerardo suffered bronchopneumonia when he was a child and had some respiratory problems - he went to the Cu practices stadium."Inhale by the nose and exhale by the mouth," he had advised a little older friend who accompanied him.

Gerardo hurt the bronchi and muscles, and his nose burned.However, when he ignored the recommendation and began to breathe through the mouth he says he began “to feel the race.I started to advance, run is to advance, move forward.I started having a feeling that I had never felt, a strange pleasure for exercise, for effort. ”Gerardo had already given thirty -six laps to the track of four hundred meters (almost fifteen kilometers) when they had to stop him.Obviously, he approved his extraordinary exam without any problem.

Those laps around the track liked so much that, from that moment, he knew that the race would be part of his life."I want to run, I want to dedicate myself to this, it was a revelation and I put it above all," he recalls to have thought.In addition, it was the way in which he overcame health problems, because after a few months of training the grip and colds disappeared, and he could grow a few centimeters."Sport was the best treatment for the conditions she had had in childhood," she says.

However, many learnings were still missing.At fifteen, he had his first experience in a competition and was terrible.He enrolled in a three thousand meters race.His strategy was to go with the leading group and accelerate in the last return to the athletic track to obtain the victory."They gave the exit shot and everyone went crazy," he recalls.He did not understand, for what he left with the front squad.After a return he was pissed off.He then realized that he could jog many kilometers, but he could not maintain the pace that a competition requires.In the end he was disqualified, when the first place took a return.

Instead that this hard lesson ended with its sports aspirations, the opposite happened: he began to train conscientiously and won his first competition after two years.It was a national cross -country championship.He little by little he was dominating the short tests, which would allow him to make the leap to the distances."You have to exploit the speed and gain intense rhythms to be able to then control a longer race," he explains.

At nineteen he was already a national champion of one thousand five hundred meters and began running the five thousand.The results soon arrived.In 1982 he described the Central American Games in Cuba in ten thousand meters, where he obtained a bronze medal;In 1983, at the Caracas Pan American Games he won the silver medal in the ten thousand flat meters, and in 1984 he described the Los Angeles Olympic Games in five thousand meters, not bad for whom seven years ago he had gone to the extraordinaryPhysical education in high school.

He acknowledges that he did not get the results he expected in the Olympic Games because he needed to prepare.The way he found to overcome that frustration was to participate in the II International Marathon of Mexico City that same year.It should be stressed that Gerardo was a specialist in shorter distances, such as five thousand and ten thousand meters, but he had the necessary base to participate in this test, as it ran around two hundred and twenty kilometers a week, while some high -performance marathonersThey only reach one hundred and eighty.Without waiting, Gerardo achieved victory by imposing two Soviet twins.Later, in 1988 Gerardo made two hours twelve minutes in the Chicago Marathon, his personal record in this distance and one of the best brands made by Mexican corridors at the time, and specialized in the ten thousand meters test, in thethat reached its highest level.

Now Gerardo is coach of a school team and an adult group.He says that to the athletes who he accompanies does not apply the same training he had, since he has learned a lot over twenty years as a coach.He conducts a study of each corridor and, based on it, prepares a program for each one.

I ask Gerardo about how he motivates the people who train: “We think that motivation has to give us, that it comes from outside, and that we have to assimilate it.With experience, I know that motivation comes from inside each one.If the person is not restless, he lacks desire to do something, if he does not passionate what he is doing, you will not be able to motivate him.Thinking that you can instill someone motivation is like thinking that you can fill a container with a gap.The least we can expect from a person who wants to motivate himself is that he is not empty, that it is not hollow, that he has something inside, that he has a spark, that he has an internal fire.If an external stimulus is placed, a movie, the video of a race, something will jump, something will make it vibrate, ”he reflects.

***

It was November 28, 2021 and I thought: “One step behind another.Thus, thirty five thousand times.It's all I must do. ”That day I hardly slept.Night anxiety increased as the deadline approached.It had already happened to me in previous years, but this time my desire was to do better;The pandemic, paradoxically, had allowed me to be more constant, in addition to following for several months a training plan with my coach.In the parking lot of the University Olympic Stadium, at six twenty in the morning, ten minutes before starting the marathon and leaving for the Zocalo, I wondered what I was doing there, with a cold that pumpled the bones and next to a lot of strangersand unknown in shorts, who stretched or prayed or talked to each other on what was coming.I thought that perhaps all those runners asked the same question as me.

I think that life and marathon are made of the same substance and the same questions surround them: Why are we here?Will we get to our destination?What will our route be like?Ricardo Barraza is very clear.He says that the marathon is a long -term race, sacrifices must be made and have a lot of patience to travel the forty -two kilometers;Like life, it is more resistance than speed.That is why it is no accident that when marathoners cross the goal they are not precisely smiling.When Emil Zátopek was asked why he gestured so much and did not look happy at the end of his victorious competitions, he replied: "I don't have enough talent for running and smiling."