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15. Epilogue: guest post

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Again a guest post, from the one who normally has the last word!        The race is done, but I feel bound to leave a few words here, for two reasons: Primo, I can tell how it really went behind the scenes. Objectively, that is. Secondo, I have to clear my name: Flo never mentioned the trophy he got from me for finishing the race, despite my humble sole request for his blog to include it in his story. One task alone he had!      So, how did it go?  A few weeks before the race...           I was able to relate to his training until he started with those many kilometres. After a while, he moved from counting kilometres to counting hours.          “You need to be able to stay afoot for about four hours”, he told me, but I bet the real reason was only to confuse the sh*t out of me. But, to be fully sincere: do you remember when you were a child and people of 30 or 50 looked the same to you? Just plain old, I mean. The same for me with these distances: they were all infinite, so counting th
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14. Finis Coronat Opus

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The worst are the days before it. What if I weren’t fit? What if I didn’t sleep well? Oh, I need to go a day before I planned it. Do I really need this? Why am I doing it, again? You’re running it in your head and it goes well, until you’ve lost track of yourself and can’t tell how many kilometres you’ve covered. It’s like disappearing in the haze.  Anxiety? Plenty of it, smug grinning and awaiting for its nemesis: the first step.                      And amid all these cheers, flag waving and tears, we sailed off to Gallipoli…                 Was it Moscow or Los Angeles? I was little at that time, so it must have been Moscow then. 1980, the Olympic games. My first encounter with a marathon race. I had no idea what happened - they broadcast only pieces of the race, thanks God, it’s boring as hell to watch a full one - but I do recall how the winner got a blanket over his shoulders at the end of the race. Space blankets, they call them nowadays. Made of some material used by NASA, henc
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