When I started my new job at Liebherr, I met wonderful teammates – people who are supportive, always ready to grow, and who try to lift up the people around them. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I was in the right place. When you surround yourself with ambitious, dedicated and supportive people, setting high goals suddenly feels natural. I was 120 kg, clearly overweight, when I set my first marathon goal for 14 December in Málaga.
I’m not a professional runner, obviously. Just someone who likes small improvements, someone who likes to see his limitations, if any. So I treated this race like a long-term project: weekly mileage as sprints, long runs as milestones. There were also unexpected events like my trip to hometown to spend some valuable time with my family. We did a nice holiday with my parents and my brother. But even there, i tried to stay in the line. Still i go my easy runs and even one long run. It was hard to discipline, because you re not meant to run on holiday, your mindset is okay, i am here for chilling and enjoy. But discipline is exactly needed even such times, i believe.
I tried to do my best for the marathon but burden of trainings, exams and winter had blocked me a bit to be honest. I wanted to give up, I said "Alpi, you can not make it until December, its impossible". But still I didnt gave up completly, i wanted to achieve someting big before new year, so i changed my marathon goal to halfmarathon. After that my goal seemed to be more achievable. But still I continue my training even when i had projects from work, university. Even when I had to to necessery things like houseshore, cooking etc. I had ton of excuses like everyone else but still I did show up everyday.
Crossing the finish line with a big smile was less about the time on my watch and more about proving to myself that I can design, follow and enjoy a long process. This race made me hungry not only for a full marathon, but also for more projects where patience and curiosity matter more than speed.
If you want to see how it looked and felt from the inside, I documented the journey in a 4-episode half marathon vlog series on my YouTube channel.