spring marathon top 50 experience

as the month started, an unrelated offhand comment reminded me that the time was approaching.
so there's a lichess marathon this month huh. ain't that SO interesting?? you bet it is.

the anticipation

you know that strange feeling of dread, like, when you're just about to do something that you know is a bad idea?? yeahhhhh.
and all that what for???? a few pixels in my profile? aw yis count me in.

original: Marina del Castell, CC BY 2.0 (edited)

for the days preceding the big event, i kinda sorta prepared by kinda sorta making sure that i'd have as much time as i wanted during the marathon hours.
and playing a bunch of hyperbullet, of course.

i also tried to subtly manipulate my sleep schedule so that i would catch more of the later hours, rather than the early ones.
what, you're saying that's also a bad idea? you would be right. but bad ideas tend to invite other bad ideas, just like chess blunders often don't come alone. or something.

the big day

the sleep schedule manip didn't really work as i had intended, so i just woke up at an effectively random time and mindlessly did social media and other somewhat pointless activities until the tournament started.

original: Crystal Chen

a few cups of water and a chocolate bar to balance out the bitterness of the terrible streaks that were sure to come, and i was good to go (allegedly).
no illegal substances, or even coffee, as tempting as that was :o

the beginnings

did i say i was good to go? sorry, i didn't mean to say that :o
i was feeling lazy and i still hadn't set up a playlist for the event, so i did that and some more pointless stuff, and skipped the first hour ish.

original: Melwin Rodriguez (rotated)

as a late joiner, even if it was just one hour, i was blessed with some decent streaks to start.
but, quite quickly, i found myself in the top 50 and being repeatedly paired up with those Good Players who are just better than me. very annoying.

of course, i expected that would happen.
my plan was to get a little sleep when that happened, and come back and play a big session all the way to the finish.

the middlings

as it turns out...... that didn't happen.

i got too caught up in the momentum and just kept playing :)
spending most of that time in the top 20 and eeking a few points against the better players every once in a while, not even feeling anything, just going with the flow.
at some point, i even thought i could break into the top 10 :o but, while i did spend a bit at #11, it was not meant to be.

original: Abby Sterry

so i played a lot a few hours more than intended there, for an about 13 hour session...
which meant that, if i went to nap, i would play less of the late hours than i wanted.

the break

i did consider skipping sleep altogether. of course i considered it!!
what made me stop was not only the exceptionally high frequency of hallucinations on the board (that's pretty normal to happen, actually), but i started to feel a headache, and my body and my vision started to feel weird and hurty..

so i was like naaah i really have to get some sleep. and so i did.

original: Sofia

thus, i got a few hours of low quality sleep, and woke up to #43 with like 5 hours left, and an intent to play all of them.
that's kinda better than expected, i thought. surely, top 50 is in the bag??

of course, things can't ever be that easy.

the other breaks

after just a few games in (like 20 minutes or so), my internet service provider went down for like 10 minutes, for who knows what reason. well, at least the records say it was approximately 10 minutes.
while all the evidence does confirm that, it felt more like a full hour to me. don't they know i have some pixels to win??

original: Dimitris Vetsikas

out of all the ways to tilt in the tournament, i didn't see THAT one coming.......
while i was considering my options, like finishing on stupid laggy mobile data or paying a slightly awkward visit to a friend, i got my internet connection back.

okay, should be fine, right???? hahaha no it should not.

the panic

just some 20 minutes-ish later, it went down again.

at this time, i start to kinda panic as i don't know if my connection will come back in time, or whether it will even be stable if it does.
what are they doing??????? is it all over?? in the end it didn't even matter????
it was time to consider my options again.

original: Federica Diliberto (rotated)

i went with the mobile data.
as it turned out, not only the mobile data was laggy, but it also had this penchant to randomly cut off for a second, which made the whole experience super awful and tilt-compounding.
that said, i don't want to call it a mistake, as it did get me a few precious points......

the finish

so, after over an hour of downtime and a number of games on mobile data with a most awful performance, i got my main connection back...... placed at a most nerve-wracking #49 with a little under 3 hours left to finish.

will it be stable?? what if it breaks at the last hour??????? even if internets are fine just how many strong players are tailing me what if i play super badly what IS happening where did my life choices go wrong that i am now at this moment doing this oh no AAAAAAAAAA

original: Trà My

all those questions in my mind, yet i didn't really have much time to ponder them, for better and for worse.
i had to get back to business.

after an extremely tense half hour still hovering way closer to #50 than i wanted, by good fortune i won some decent games and managed to relax a bit, which in turn enabled me to play better.
one hour in, i was at #41.

while it seemed like things were going my way for a bit, at the beginning of the final hour i was at #46.
but i was not too distraught, and with some luck, composure and clutch caught a streak to go all the way to #38 with 40 minutes left :D

original: “Don't Panic Kitty” by Experiment 33, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

at that point i felt i had top 50 on lock and, sure enough, that's how it was :D
just went with the motions to finish at #34!

the aftermath

as the result came in, the main thing i felt was peace.

original: Roy K

i took a moment to actually take note of my surroundings. and the adrenaline crash landed reeeeal hard.
soooo much exhaustion, head hurts, thoughts feel like lagging, and so much more x/
in that strange state, i did my best to thank my supporters (and i would like to take this opportunity to do so again!! thank you :D) and then proceeded to scroll social media mindlessly for no actual discernible reason.

it was also then i had the idea to write this, so i'm writing this after a nap of also not particularly great quality. was that a bad idea too? i hope not :D
thank you for reading!!

i'm still feeling the post-marathon hangover

legal: all cat photos should be on permissive free licenses unless otherwise specified or i made a mistake, in which case please do tell me :o
no generative AI was used for any part of the content