use Perl

So yesterday I finished my first marathon ever in the time: 03:51:10 (according to the official timing at )

The event was marvelous and I had a great time - even though I made a huge tactical mistake.

Anyway I misunderstood the concept of the times on the balloons attached to the pace-keepers to I went looking for a balloon with the writing 5:20, which should be the minutes/km. I wanted to stick to. So I located the balloon saying 5:00 - and they announced that the times on the balloons was the finishing time in hours - damn.

The start of the race only being minutes away I gave up making my way through the more that 8000 runners attempting to locate the right balloons. So when the race began I just ran a bit faster to make it to the next balloons - I was so lucky as to run straight past my family :)

At some point I reached the balloons saying 3:45, but I was going at a quicker pace, so I just passed them. in retrospect I should probably just have have stayed with them.

The first mistake of mine was probably to attempt to catch them at all since I was running somewhat fast from the beginning and as a beginner you should run slower in the beginning until you get a good pace and rhythm.

So at about 36 km. my legs were wasted and I had to walk. I had been walking through all of the depots where you could get fruit, water and powerade, but it got harder and harder for me to get back to a good pace in running with the stops after 36 km. So eventually I was passed by the 3:45 pace-keepers - but I was able to get running for the last 3 km. thinking that I wanted to attempt to finish in less than 4 hours.

So I succeeded, but in general this is one of the toughest things I have ever done.

When I got home my stomach went crazy, I was pretty tired in the legs, but I could walk - the stomach problems went on all night
and just before going to bed I got sick and emptied my stomach contents into the toilet. There is no doubt that my body suffered from serious physical exertion.

Today my stomach it better, I have eaten some yogurt and I feel much better - it is faster for me to walk backwards down the stairs however - but I should be walking normally when we get to NPW next weekend.

I have considered going to Berlin to run the marathon there in September, but my physical condition taken into consideration - I think I will skip this, since being sick like this in a hotel room is not fun, I would much rather be a home, so Iceland and Berlin will have to wait. And I have a 5 day marathon coming up for the first week of my summer holiday :)

But I am sure this is not my last marathon.