2025 Mega-marathon wrap-up
Preparing for the 72-hour mega-marathon, which typically takes place directly after the new year and the long holiday season, can be a challenge. There was a nasty cold circulating among my family and friends throughout the whole season, that I had somehow managed to avoid.
My theme this year was vintage Ravensburger art puzzles from the 1970s, featuring some recent acquisitions from the highly recommended Rare Puzzles online marketplace. The plan was a "tower" - one each of 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 pieces - a feat I had achieved once before in 2018. This time, I expected it to be a tall order, simply because I was very limited in my choices, as there just aren't that many Ravensburger art puzzles from the 1970s to begin with, and few that have a straight-forward, colorful, easy image. I also decided to make all of the puzzles sans box reference, which I hadn't done the other time. My original plan was for the above puzzles, plus the 3k of Oriental Folk Scene from 1973 to complete the tower.
I didn't quite get there. The first evening, I really pushed myself, speeding through the 500 piece in 1 hr., 7 mins., and then immediately after, the 1000 in 2 hr., 54 mins., before taking a few minutes to post my results. Then, I started the 1530 piece Canaletto, putting in another 3 hours before going to bed after 1 a.m.
I woke up the next morning with a huge lump of nastiness in my throat, and realized that I was getting sick. The rest of the weekend went downhill from there.
I had a good start, so finished up the Canaletto (total time, 6:10) at around 11 on Friday morning, and got right into the 2000 piece Panini, which I could tell wouldn't be easy. I put another 5 hours in, before taking dinner roughly 24 hours into the whole event.
As the evening drew on, I felt lousy as the fatigue, headache and congestion worsened. I had to call it an early night, around 9, and doubted whether I could continue on much longer. I had a good night's sleep, and retuned to the table in the late morning, knowing there was no way I'd finish this and a 3000 piece after that. But the sleep seemed to help, and I got the Panini finished finally, in 12 hr. and 18 mins. It would have been wise to stop there, but I figured maybe I could find another 2k and get that done within the next 24 hours. I ended up settling on Peasant Wedding by Pieter Brueghel the Younger - partly because it fit thematically with this month's BCD meeting theme, Celebration - and I estimated it would be slightly easier than the Panini.
In 2010 I built the Ravensburger 5000 piece of Farm Wedding, the original painting by the elder Pieter Brueghel. I vaguely remembered that puzzle as being easy, but this version is quite a bit darker and more brown, with grainy, muddy pieces throughout close to half of the scene, whereas the foreground and background is easily separated in the 5k version. Yes, there were a few easy red, white and blue areas, but after those, it was a real slog. The repeat pattern didn't help, either, as I had to move around several misplaced pieces. I started the puzzle at 2:30 on Saturday and got 6 hours in before crashing at around 9:30; optimistically, I figured at worst there might be another 6 hours to go, so I could start back up Sunday morning at 9, and finish around 3, well before the 6 p.m. finish time.
But the puzzle proved more difficult than expected. I started at 8:45 a.m., and basically had to puzzle non-stop until 5 p.m. to finish. At midday, there were still so many pieces left that I considered stopping and not posting at all since I hate counting stray pieces on an unfinished puzzle. But I pushed through, and finally it sped up toward the end. The puzzle took more than 14 hours total.
Piece-wise, it was my lowest total since the failed attempt at a 5k in 2020, but overall I did well in the face of having a cold, not using box reference, and tackling some moderately challenging images. After it was over, I totally collapsed.
It took another week-plus to get over the cold and cough, and I'm still not 100 percent.
This year there were more participants than ever (80), and 2024's record of 340,127 total pieces was surpassed easily, with 361,260 the official tally. Maplewood Bob participated with several Beatles-themed puzzles, and David/son2307ic made a surprise appearance, finishing several Clementoni scenic puzzles. From Germany, a participant named Josh assembled 48 mostly Ravensburger 500 piece puzzles, basically without sleeping the whole weekend, for an amazing 24,000 pieces, a singular achievement in endurance puzzling.
In all, I assembled 7,038 pieces in 36 hr., 32 mins. of puzzling time.
I have an album with all of my Mega-marathon appearances in one place. I tallied up some totals from the past 12 years:
2014 First Taste - 5,500 pcs. 23:57 15.7 secs./piece
2015 The Power Outage - 6,505* pcs. 35:17 16.1 s/p
2016 First Pyramid - 9,344 pcs. 41:17 15.9 s/p
2017 Dali Challenge - 10,000 pcs. 40:31 14.6 s/p
2018 The Tower - 9,000 pcs. 42:11 16.9 s/p
2019 Vintage MB's - 8,110 pcs. 33:01 14.7 s/p
2020 5K Fiasco - 3,738 pcs.** 40:00 38.5 s/p
2021 Magnum Force - 10,558 pcs. 47:07 16.1 s/p
2022 Portraits/Art Nouveau - 8,500 pcs. 43:41 18.5 s/p
2023 Yanoman Scenes - 9,883 pcs. 44:23 16.2 s/p
2024 Abstract/Cubism - 9,269 pcs. 36:54 14.4 s/p
2025 Vintage Ravensburger - 7,038 pcs. 36:32 18.5 s/p
* Due to a power outage I could not post my last puzzle in time. 6,505 is my "official" total; actual pcs. was 7,900, for which speed was calculated.
** My first attempt at a BIG puzzle over the marathon ended in severe eyestrain. The silver lining: after this I went to the optometrist and got fitted for reading glasses.
2025 Mega-marathon wrap-up
Preparing for the 72-hour mega-marathon, which typically takes place directly after the new year and the long holiday season, can be a challenge. There was a nasty cold circulating among my family and friends throughout the whole season, that I had somehow managed to avoid.
My theme this year was vintage Ravensburger art puzzles from the 1970s, featuring some recent acquisitions from the highly recommended Rare Puzzles online marketplace. The plan was a "tower" - one each of 500, 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 pieces - a feat I had achieved once before in 2018. This time, I expected it to be a tall order, simply because I was very limited in my choices, as there just aren't that many Ravensburger art puzzles from the 1970s to begin with, and few that have a straight-forward, colorful, easy image. I also decided to make all of the puzzles sans box reference, which I hadn't done the other time. My original plan was for the above puzzles, plus the 3k of Oriental Folk Scene from 1973 to complete the tower.
I didn't quite get there. The first evening, I really pushed myself, speeding through the 500 piece in 1 hr., 7 mins., and then immediately after, the 1000 in 2 hr., 54 mins., before taking a few minutes to post my results. Then, I started the 1530 piece Canaletto, putting in another 3 hours before going to bed after 1 a.m.
I woke up the next morning with a huge lump of nastiness in my throat, and realized that I was getting sick. The rest of the weekend went downhill from there.
I had a good start, so finished up the Canaletto (total time, 6:10) at around 11 on Friday morning, and got right into the 2000 piece Panini, which I could tell wouldn't be easy. I put another 5 hours in, before taking dinner roughly 24 hours into the whole event.
As the evening drew on, I felt lousy as the fatigue, headache and congestion worsened. I had to call it an early night, around 9, and doubted whether I could continue on much longer. I had a good night's sleep, and retuned to the table in the late morning, knowing there was no way I'd finish this and a 3000 piece after that. But the sleep seemed to help, and I got the Panini finished finally, in 12 hr. and 18 mins. It would have been wise to stop there, but I figured maybe I could find another 2k and get that done within the next 24 hours. I ended up settling on Peasant Wedding by Pieter Brueghel the Younger - partly because it fit thematically with this month's BCD meeting theme, Celebration - and I estimated it would be slightly easier than the Panini.
In 2010 I built the Ravensburger 5000 piece of Farm Wedding, the original painting by the elder Pieter Brueghel. I vaguely remembered that puzzle as being easy, but this version is quite a bit darker and more brown, with grainy, muddy pieces throughout close to half of the scene, whereas the foreground and background is easily separated in the 5k version. Yes, there were a few easy red, white and blue areas, but after those, it was a real slog. The repeat pattern didn't help, either, as I had to move around several misplaced pieces. I started the puzzle at 2:30 on Saturday and got 6 hours in before crashing at around 9:30; optimistically, I figured at worst there might be another 6 hours to go, so I could start back up Sunday morning at 9, and finish around 3, well before the 6 p.m. finish time.
But the puzzle proved more difficult than expected. I started at 8:45 a.m., and basically had to puzzle non-stop until 5 p.m. to finish. At midday, there were still so many pieces left that I considered stopping and not posting at all since I hate counting stray pieces on an unfinished puzzle. But I pushed through, and finally it sped up toward the end. The puzzle took more than 14 hours total.
Piece-wise, it was my lowest total since the failed attempt at a 5k in 2020, but overall I did well in the face of having a cold, not using box reference, and tackling some moderately challenging images. After it was over, I totally collapsed.
It took another week-plus to get over the cold and cough, and I'm still not 100 percent.
This year there were more participants than ever (80), and 2024's record of 340,127 total pieces was surpassed easily, with 361,260 the official tally. Maplewood Bob participated with several Beatles-themed puzzles, and David/son2307ic made a surprise appearance, finishing several Clementoni scenic puzzles. From Germany, a participant named Josh assembled 48 mostly Ravensburger 500 piece puzzles, basically without sleeping the whole weekend, for an amazing 24,000 pieces, a singular achievement in endurance puzzling.
In all, I assembled 7,038 pieces in 36 hr., 32 mins. of puzzling time.
I have an album with all of my Mega-marathon appearances in one place. I tallied up some totals from the past 12 years:
2014 First Taste - 5,500 pcs. 23:57 15.7 secs./piece
2015 The Power Outage - 6,505* pcs. 35:17 16.1 s/p
2016 First Pyramid - 9,344 pcs. 41:17 15.9 s/p
2017 Dali Challenge - 10,000 pcs. 40:31 14.6 s/p
2018 The Tower - 9,000 pcs. 42:11 16.9 s/p
2019 Vintage MB's - 8,110 pcs. 33:01 14.7 s/p
2020 5K Fiasco - 3,738 pcs.** 40:00 38.5 s/p
2021 Magnum Force - 10,558 pcs. 47:07 16.1 s/p
2022 Portraits/Art Nouveau - 8,500 pcs. 43:41 18.5 s/p
2023 Yanoman Scenes - 9,883 pcs. 44:23 16.2 s/p
2024 Abstract/Cubism - 9,269 pcs. 36:54 14.4 s/p
2025 Vintage Ravensburger - 7,038 pcs. 36:32 18.5 s/p
* Due to a power outage I could not post my last puzzle in time. 6,505 is my "official" total; actual pcs. was 7,900, for which speed was calculated.
** My first attempt at a BIG puzzle over the marathon ended in severe eyestrain. The silver lining: after this I went to the optometrist and got fitted for reading glasses.