Saterday run - why am I into running?

Hi all!!

Last sunday I ran the Rotterdam Marathon 2025, which was an amazing experience - despite having some issues with regards to the weather and salt deficiency.

I always do an injury check run the day after a marathon, I felt during that run, that I just had issues with my salt levels, but other than that I could go for another run. As I never had such a perfect trainingscamp and I just love running, this is exactly my plan! Next thursday I will run another 42.195!

Today’s run
Today I did a short after dinner run, sunny weather and lots of green! Perfect to start the evening!

This week is mostly a recovery week - I won’t do any hard training sessions but will try to do a run every day.

Sofar I ran 46.9km this week in 6 shorter sessions:

Tomorrow evening I will go for a mid distance run 18 km - 23 km.

Why am I running?
Especially when I told people at work that I would take a day off next week to run another 42km - people asked me why? Why would you run that much, or why would you go another time after the 13th of April?
I do understand these questions and it is hard to explain what drives me - but I will try to explain as running had such an important and positive impact on my life - and I hope that it could inspire others.

I started running (from scratch) on the first of january 2015. I needed some time for myself as we experienced some hard times. My daughter was born in october 2014, just days after my best friend lost his 2 year old daughter (r.i.p. Evana). My mother in law was hospilized and battling cancer for the second time and my wife was severly depressed. I was living in a small bubble where I was fully focussed on taking care of others and there was hardly no time to take care of myself.

I decided to start running, to have some me.-time. At my first run, I did never ran before so I struggled to get 2.5km in. The second run I did 5km and fell in love with the sport. In the second week of Januari I signed up for my first marathon. Most people (including family) told me to work towards a half marathon first, or that I would never make it. Those negativity worked as fuel for my motivation - I wanted to proof myself I could do it (and I did).

I never stopped running, I use running as a way to find my inner peace, if I experience difficulies I try to run. If I want to reflect on a day, or on an assignment I run. When you first start with running, it becomes a physical effort, but when you build sufficient base you can really relax during slow long runs.

When you are struggling in your life running might help you, getting out of your stressfull environment and feel good about yourself again! Being proud of your hard work and achieving incremental goals. Running is exactly this for me - I run as it is just an important part of my life and would encourage everyone to give it a realy try as it really changed my life.

Happy running!