Context: It was a Friday afternoon in May (May 29th to be exact), when I decided to procrastinate a little bit and scroll through our internal social network at work. As I am scrolling through the day to day normalities, ideas, comments and concerns I all of a sudden saw a message that was not like the rest. The first ten people who commented on the post by one of our managing directors would get a trip to Mallorca, the only catch being you had to train and complete a half marathon...
"I already feel more sporty now that I registered" he said...
The wheels in my head immediately started turning faster and faster as if I were a hamster running on a wheel. I was reading "you must run a half marathon" but was hearing trip to Mallorca in October when it's spitting rain in Germany, I was of course, all of a sudden a running fanatic. Do I sign up? Do I not sign up? That was the question...
Well it happened. I volunteered as a tribute to run what I thought was 27.093 kilometers (later learning it was only -- I say that gently -- 21 kilometers) under the Spanish sunshine with a group of my amazing coworkers. Oh the things we do for travel.
I found myself on a plane to Mallorca both really excited and slightly mortified for what I was about to put my body through. To prepare properly for the event, we wanted to make sure our bodies could handle the shock of the heat from that one large object 93 million miles away, also known as the sun... It's a pity Germany doesn't get to say hallo to too often because we spent Saturday relationship building by soaking up some vitamin C at the hotel pool, followed up by some serious (and I mean serious) carb loading.
the hotel.
Contemporary - Crisp - Scandinavian
the rooftop:
the rooms
the details
sunday funday
The marathon. Everyone met at the hotel in the morning, ate breakfast bright and early and set off (in our very trendy shirts if I may add) to the center of town. Nearly 9,000 people ran the Marathon / Half Marathon which created a vibrant environment - not to mention the sun was shining brighter than ever.
I had set a tentative goal of 2:15:00, thinking that the longest I had ever run before this was 10.5 km in 1:10:00 min or so, maybe it was the sunshine or maybe it was the energy from everyone around me but I truly surprised myself with a 1:57:43 finish... My legs are certainly feeling it now... But as they say, no pain no gain.
Oh & after training for a month a cold brewsky and an ice cream had never tasted so good.
Moral of the story - challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone. I'm not a runner but am always up for a little personal competition with myself alongside people I have the pleasure of working with on a daily basis.
Photo by Heike
