Da marathon recap..
I woke up at 6am, it was raining and looked pretty wet and cloudy outside. While I was guttered at that, I had had sooo many training runs in te rain that it was nothing new.
Had my breakfast, a shower and then waited till 730 when Debbie (half sister) took us to the start line. There were people everywhere. I kept getting all emotional and I had to stop myself from reading the supportive texts I had because I cried. Joel and I took a start line photo amounts the beautiful trees and we were off. I started sloowww and my legs felt heavy then. I thought It was a bad sign but then I knocked off 10km just like that. I felt like the kms were going down. It was raining for the first 10km and I was soaking wet.
15-21km was hard work on the knees.. It was around the lake and had quite a few hard up hills. It was muddy and slippery and up hills meant down too and my knees hated that. I tried to jog slowly up the hills because I didn’t want to walk and that’s just what I did. Here mum text me an told me to keep going and that Joel wasn’t too far ahead. It was my slowest half marathon (2h40) and I was like oh no, if I slow down for the second half I won’t make 5h30 but I just kept running.
Umm 21-25 my phone was starting to die and that was hard for me. I turned off my music hoping that would help it survive that little bit more. This was mainly flat along here (photo 4) and we were running to the snowy hills. I made a friend and ran with her and she told me about her New York marathon and now I would like to run that eventually too. I saw my sister and she took a photo of me and that was nice to see her!
26-35 Arghhh this was where the bad bad weather was. We were running along and up the river. It was just beautiful but Getting pretty high in unsheltered areas just meant the wind was hammering us and because it had rained we were still wet too. There was also some hail too and my eyes had sweat in them but I was still feeling good. Like I hadn’t hit my wall yet. Checked my phone “12km to go. You are doing great” from my mummy an such motivation!!
35-42. This is where it got hard. I heard some thunder too go with the wind and gail. We (I made a friend and she was a little slower but I stayed to help push her along) ran along the front of the lake and there was broken branches on the ground, the km signs had blown away, you could see people getting taken away in ambulances and being hit by branches and it was so bloody wet and cold that with 4kn left, I finally hit my wall. I was cold, really cold and the wind was just not calming down. My body was frozen numb so trying to bend my knees over the broken branches everywhere was proving hard. A lady on the side had a blanket and I was tempted to grab it and curl up in a bush. But 4km, might aswell run home, across the finish and get warm, right?
It was amazing to ran the last km. there were people outside shops, on the road just everywhere yelling out your name and saying we were sooo close. I ran faster to cross that finish line because, as always, I still had lots of energy. The finally grass area was muddy, wet and slippery but I made it without falling over.
42.2km, done, just like that! A whole marathon. A marathon. A marathoner. Without any huge huge struggle which is amazing. Without having to Walk other than drink stations just wow. I think I certainly deserved that medal. And with no slowing down for the second half. My slips were even!! The sights were beautiful and I can imagine on a lovely day it would b amazing to run that track! You guys are all so amazing an supportive and I am soooooo soooo thankful and grateful that.
Sooo now the hard part for me.. I dreamed of cross the finish line and seeing Joel and just crying because we did it. But no Joel. No idea where he was. Dreams of calling mum an telling her I finished but nope Phone had died after 30km so couldn’t do that or even take a photo of myself finished. So I walked off to get my bag, crying that I had finishe my marathon and also because Joel wasn’t there and I couldn’t call mum. A man grabbed me, asked me if I was cold, and then took me into this warm room where everyone was wrapped in blankets. I saw Joel and had a little cry but I could see he wasn’t well. He had purple lips, was wearing 3 tops (including one that was 3 sizes too small and another that was pink), and I sat down with him. Gave him the blanket I had because I wasn’t that cold. He was just zoned out and I knew we had to get home and warm. I was made to take all my wet clothes off so sat under a blanket naked. Joel asked me if I could shower with him when we got home and I knew that he was cold because he hates showering with me. There were some very unwell people there and I had to get out.. People whose heart was getting monitored, others getting there temp done, people lying down.. It was scary. Borrowed a phone and text Debbie to find us. She had missed us coming across the finish line because she had gone home to get us dry clothes. I’m guttered she wasn’t there but I think she’s really upset about it too.
An so we got home, had a long warm shower together, charged our phones and then got all the phone calls from everyone. Just ao guttered that the end wasn’t how I expected and I Spose all that scary after ness will always be how I remember crossing the finish line to my first marathon. But I did my first marathon, and personally I think I did it well despite the weather and 9 weeks of training.
Next goal is to drop my body fat, then train for either Berlin or New York for when I’m in my 30s hehe. My first marathon wasn’t as bad as I thought and it’s cool I’m keen to do another. Just, how do I stop my ankles and knees from hurting?!
Do I need to change my URL now? Haha
