About 3 hours 45 minutes later…

…and I am past the finish line. One of the amazing things about marathons is that they are over at some point. Just by doing it. Sounds stupid, but it really fascinates me. The time between the start and finish is a bit like a journey, I always feel like a different person to the one at the start line. And somehow in between you have the milestones. And each one is a witness of a different part of your run: waking up, getting excited, being worried, feeling strong, feeling weak, experiencing desperation and euphoria, sometime even at the same moment. The new thing about this run was how very physically bad and weak I actually felt last night and how very well the marathon turned out to be. I was running in my new minimalistic trainers and last night I thought it was a big mistake not to have the other pair with me. I was wearing them on my journey and after a lot of walking through airports and Warsaw my left foot felt like there is something in the shoe and it got more and more uncomfortable. But there was nothing in the shoe, hence there was nothing I could do about it. My only hope was that running in these shoes is different to walking and that it will be fine. Not sure if this was the reason why it turned out to be fine, but against all odds it did. And instead of crawling the last Ks, I was flying them. Not sure was happened there, but the last three K were the fastest in the run and entering the stadium for the last 195m was so buzzing, that I nearly sprinted over the finish. This is probably why I don’t look very relaxed on the photo, but it was great and all worth it!