My marathon or how i played 24h of chess !

Hello everyone ! Today I'm going to tell you about the craziest thing I've done, the most important to me too.

August 5, I had checked this day for a long time, since April already, I had asked myself a lot of questions, was it the time or not and if I was capable of it?

How i decided to play this marathon and to be a part of this madness

this thing you understood, it's the Lichess summer marathon, it was 1+0 and I'm going to tell you all about this adventure! ten days before the tournament, I said to myself I will dare to play it for 24 hours, I will not lie to you, I was afraid. I was afraid to do something dangerous for me, especially for my eyes because spending so much time in front of a phone screen is exhausting. but it was without counting on my strength of mind, and my determination
to get there, well, there is no miracle recipe, it is not by eating such a food or doing one thing or another that you will be able to improve your performance. in any case not only by counting on that. you have to tell yourself that endurance is the priority for a tournament like this, skills too.

Advices

already, when I started playing, I must tell you that I was happy! I was happy during my 23 hours of play! yeah I know, I'm always like that! so my first is: be happy, dare to do this once in your life, and tell yourself that you are doing something good (even if 20 hours after the start of the tournament you will look like a zombie since you will not have slept !)
another thing - no matter where you start never chase points, rankings or anything. I humorously call it "Tom and Jerry" because you're bound to miss your goals if you worry about staying at 2000 or 2100 during the tournament, if you're chasing a top500 several hours behind.
tell yourself: I do what I can best that's all. do not stress before the start of the tournament, it may be negative - after all it's just a tournament - think that you will have a good time and that you must forget the bad times. take short and regular breaks, 20 minute breaks every three hours if you are able, more if you need to. eat from time to time, avoid fast food, sandwiches, fries, ice cream and others. go there for balanced food, like what you eat every day (not if you eat fast food every day!!). it's the same for drinks, avoid excess sugary drinks, this sugar is not good and you risk hypoglycemia anyway if you don't eat anything. all tea is good (I have a preference for black tea), coffee, Argentinian mate (Argentinian mate would have crazy benefits for athletes!) drink water in the meantime, you must hydrate!
milk (animal and vegetable) is also good because it will give you calories that will allow you to keep up. I'll stop there the advice on food, it's only advice so that you just have to feel good.

My goal and how i played 23hours

why did I play this marathon? I wanted to surpass myself, have a good time and as I say on the forums, for the fun of playing as much as possible (yes I understand that you are surprised!). how did it go? the first 6-7 hours are extremely important and difficult, you have to keep up the pace and hang on to a part of the rankings where you will try to stay as long as you can. for my part I was surprised myself to be between the top100-200 (with a peak at the top 60!) I was very attentive at that time, I won several good games, and I was opportunistic . after 12 hours of play, I was doing a performance between the top 90-120 it was very tight and my goal was not to go too low so as not to have to fight against players who were well rested and who were playing the top500, I finally held out. after 15 hours of play, I started to feel tired in my left shoulder and to slow down, this time my goal was to try to streak without playing too fast. after 20 hours of play I learned something that made me seriously panic (I had closed the chat for the first 12 hours not to be disturbed and then I reopened it to see how it was going!)

No panic! No worries!

I read in the chat that 550 points would not be enough to reach the top 500 - I was at 530 points and there were 4 hours left in the game, I regret this natural panic reflex, I took 20 minute breaks to remove all panic and i regained my joy of playing despite increasingly intense exhaustion and it was hard to hold, after 9pm of playing my phone started to heat up seriously, so i took 20 minutes more to cool it. but after 23 hours of play, me or my phone wasn't been in any condition to continue the game. after 792 games and 23 hours of play (with the cumulative breaks it might be 21 hours and 40 minutes of non-stop play!)

The spirit of the marathon

as I often say, I didn't really care about the top 500, just having fun and pushing my limits. I succeeded, I had a wonderful time, I faced very good players of all levels (lower or higher than mine, it doesn't matter) and I was very tired (for the next two days I was exhausted !). I don't recommend you do it if you don't enjoy it. you will suffer twice as much. be happy, play well and take care of yourself if you want to participate in this event, it's like a running marathon, no matter the result, the emotions, the sensations and the feeling of having surpassed yourself and having succeeded in pushing your limits is more important, and since I have found a form of serenity by detaching myself from thinking about rankings and performance, I play better and I only enjoy playing!

Conclusion

Thanks all! Thanks Lichess, the best chess website where everything is free, thanks to all who gave me advices when i needed somes about playing during 24hours, thanks for all my oponents and thanks for all in chat, thanks for good vibes, fun! By the way, thanks pexels.com for the picture ! Greeting All and see you soon !