Recovering from running a marathon versus rowing a 2k

May 15, 2020 by Joshua
in Fitness, Stories

I recently shared this experience with someone who described the feeling of suffering after beating their personal best for rowing a 2k:


Post marathon
This picture came hours after finishing a marathon, meaning I had already recovered a bunch. Can you tell how miserable I felt? And it was my sixth marathon, so I had experience to help handle it.

Your story reminds me of finishing my first running marathon. In the area where runners could get their bags and put on warm clothes, some happy-go-lucky guy, despite also having just finished, jauntily walks in saying spritely, “You did it! It hurts now, but the pain will pass and you’ll always be able to say you finished!”

The rest of us, nursing our pain, looked at him angrily and each other miserably, our expressions saying, “who is this guy and why is he making light of my pain?”

Nonetheless, not even an hour later, I came to see his point. Nobody could take away that I had finished my first marathon and the pain and misery subsided.

That said, the pain of a 2k matches or at least rivals, in about 8 minutes, what takes a marathon 4 hours to build.

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