Four questions for Peter Herzog

High guest at the SportMall@Salzburg Marathon. Salzburg's currently best marathon runner, Peter Herzog, who qualified for the European Championships in the summer in Berlin at the Vienna City Marathon, was the star guest at a discussion as part of the Sparkasse running forum on Friday at the Salzburg Congress. We then spoke to the Pinzgauer about his passion and looked at the marathon from a different perspective.

Salzburg Marathon: Do you have a ritual before the start?

Peter Herzog: I don't really have a ritual. Only my breakfast is always quite similar. Usually a roll with a little jam. And a coffee is always part of it. You could say coffee is my ritual!

What do you think about during a marathon?

In a marathon, you always have to make sure that you don't get too carried away by the atmosphere and that you don't tend to run too fast. Because you will lose that at the end. A marathon has very different phases. There will never be a marathon where you don't feel bad. There are times when you think 'I'm not going to do this to myself anymore'. Then, however, there will be periods when the crowd is in a good mood again, which pushes you on. That's when the happiness hormones come into play again, awakening strengths that you no longer thought you had.

How do you keep yourself motivated when the run gets tough?

Once you've managed to finish a marathon, that feeling is so impressive. The joy of the experience of reaching the finish line and having mastered the route motivates me during the run.

What do you treat yourself to as a reward after a marathon?

After my last marathon in Vienna, I said to myself 'Today I'm going to treat myself to a pizza and a beer'. After a marathon, you can have a good reward.

Thank you for the interview!