Once upon a time

Event Stats:
Name Regensburg Marathon
Date 5/23/2004
Location Regensburg, Germany
Event Marathon
Finish Time 04:28:43

The story begins 12 and a half weeks earlier. I am in the kitchen with @Fuzzel, the fourth bottle of wine is nearly empty. My current hypothesis: the physical limitations of the body are greatly overrated, mostly it is the head that leads you to quit. [I have much later found out that there is a corresponding theory about a central governor by South African Professor Tim Noakes. Maybe we drink the same wine]. Anyhow, to support my claim, I proclaimed that I would, on about two packs of Lucky Strikes a day, run a marathon.

The next morning I did two things:

a) I ordered a book about running from Amazon ("Runner's World. Das Laufbuch: Training, Technik, Ausrüstung"). Das war damals ungefähr das Beste, was es gab.

b) Having read that the training plans in said book are for twelve weeks, I looked what marathons were available twelve weeks from then. That was Regensburg and Regensburg, so I signed up.

The book arrived, I read it immediately (not very much content). It contained a training plan for a beginner with a target time of 4:30. That was the one for me. Admittedly, it also said something about requiring a minimum of one year of running experience, but who cares for details.

I followed the training plan for the first 7 weeks, than took a break for 4 weeks due to illness and lack of motivation.

However, the race itself was not that bad, I hit the wall, but not badly and the finish time was exactly as planned.

The rest, as they say, is history.