Marius Ionescu (Romania’s #1 Marathoner) on “Handling Pain”

Marius Ionescu: To be honest sometimes during the training I like to suffer, so if I suffer I have in my mind that this is going well, that this is what makes me stronger.

So just pushing myself through that moment. Sometimes during the race I have tough moments and I’m with someone else in a group or there is someone chasing me or I’m chasing someone, I motivate myself by saying to myself, “okay this is the moment where everything goes in your mind – your body suffers but your mind is the one who commands. I know this is tough for me, but definitely not easy for the others, so now the one who collapses mentally definitely collapses physically”.

Another way I sometimes push myself mentally: I say “I will stay 1 more kilometre and then we’ll see what happens after.” I get to that K and then it’s “one more” and “one more”. Counting the distance in small pieces. Telling myself that now it’s between me and my mind, but also it’s about who is mentally strongest, because definitely it is not easy for the others either.

Now if I push myself and keep the pace for another km then maybe the others will drop earlier than me, and if I can keep that pace for one km and the others slow down, I get much stronger mentally. I think “I beat this guy mentally, and now he sees that I passed him or that I’m taking a gap, and now I will push myself a little bit more to show him that I’m stronger than him”. I’m a tough guy. Some people tell me, “Marius you are a tough guy, pushing yourself a lot of times, you train on your own and we don’t know how you manage to do this?”

Even in Romania some coaches don’t let their athletes come with me because they have heard rumours that Ionescu trains too hard. Even last year, I was running a half marathon in 67 minutes at the end of a 215km week. That week was like 215 km’s and I did on a Sunday a half marathon in 67 minutes, and three days after, on Wednesday someone challenged me on a 3km on the track. I ran without spikes in racing shoes, and I ran 8.28.

This guy who also qualified for the Olympic marathon, was saying, I don’t know how you can train so hard every day and improve. Last year was probably the biggest month, in February with 29 days I did 846km I think. That was probably the biggest month of my career. I went to 235km per week, the highest per week. I was feeling stronger and stronger, week to week. Doing more but feeling stronger. That was giving me strength and mental strength that I’m doing well.