I ran the Barcelona Marathon without training

You hear a lot of horror stories about running marathons. Some people nearly die, some people break their legs, some people shit themselves. But last month, against all odds, I ran the Barcelona Marathon without training for it. And I am here to tell you that you probably can do it too.

I had signed up for the Barcelona Marathon last year, but dropped out because I didn’t have the time or energy to train. I decided to still go anyway and support my friends doing it, as it would be a nice trip to Barcelona on my birthday.

Team Barcelona

When everyone was getting prepped for the marathon I got really bad fear of missing out, or FOMO as some would say. Something inside me burned to give it a go; but I had only ever run 10km before, so I hadn’t come prepared at all – I didn’t even pack any comfy running pants.

But that wasn’t going to stop me. I doused myself in baby powder, loaded up on Powerade, water and energy gels – and against my better judgement, I gave it a go.

Daunting af

At first I thought I would try do as much as I could, just to shift some stomach flab. However, in an interesting turn of events; I made a friend called Peter (shout out to my boy Peter Clamp), who had fucked up his knee and together we decided to give walking it a try: attempting to finish under the 7 hour cut off time.

Peter’s beautiful face and motivation got us to 18km, but then in a tragic twist of fate he had to stop and be literally carried away from me. I carried on running until about 30km, when in a state of achy legs and confusion as to why my thong hadn’t begun to chafe yet, I texted my housemate in a desperate attempt to fish for some encouragement. Her words and wisdom carried me through the last 12km, and I eventually crossed the finish line in 5 hours 26 minutes.

Desperate times called for desperate measures

People were so friendly and encouraging in the race, which was an undoubtably massive boost. The atmosphere carried me through and the kind flat route meant that I was able to overcome the near impossible. As a result of this, I would say that if you ever feel like spontaneously running a marathon, then Barcelona is probably the only one possible to crawl around.

I thank the lord for the flat route, my iPhone’s low battery mode, and my unsuitable underwear proving surprisingly suitable. Even though many people told me I was stupid and could have got seriously injured, it still goes to show that anyone can run a marathon: even if you haven’t trained!

Sign up for next year’s Barcelona Marathon here