I Run, For Life!

My magic hat carried me for another 17 kilometers. I had 5 more to finish the race. 5 more that I didn’t run. Or walk.

I Hit the Wall

Oh yes, I hit it hard! I think my wall had started to materialize around the 25^th kilometer. At first it was a quite flexible wall which I could just push away if I focused hard enough. It was more like a veil than a brick wall. It slowed me down, but I could still pick up my pace and run. It was annoying, but manageable.

Not for long! Around the 27^th or the 28^th km I began to notice a horrifying trend: before I was running with walking breaks, and now I was walking with breaks for running. I started to get very frustrated  - I did not come here to walk!

So I turned to music as my savior. It’s Blitz!, the latest album by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, had just come up on my mp3 player with the first song Zero as a perfect piece of running music.

I was really moved by the beats, the words and Karen O’s energy to the point that I started to sing with her, out loud! Singing or even talking is not that easy when you’re out of breath and slightly nauseous from consuming too much apple flavoured energizing gel, but this time it was the perfect medicine for my lack of energy.

Can you climb, climb, climb higher?

The music, like the magic hat before, carried me through the next few kilometers. Then help came from the people I met in the villages on the route of the marathon. They were all cheering me on to run and that gave me the strength I was lacking. How can you not motivate yourself to run when little kids you meet are just dying to race you? You can’t - you just pick up your pace and let them win.

What else could I use? Nothing came to mind, there was no one else out there to pick me up. I felt that all my tricks were slowly losing their power.  I took of my headphones, started to shiver from being cold (sweat can do that) and slowed down to a stroll in front of the puzzled looks of my supporters. My magic hat, my power music and my resolve to show that even non-athletes like me can run this distance - all that - had run out.

The wall was a brick wall now, too high to climb, too thick to push through it. I just couldn’t walk anymore (yup, I was mainly walking at this point, passing the 35^th km). Even mentally, I did not have the strength to go on, as if someone had unplugged me from the energy source and left me with my battery running very low and, eventually, running out.

I did not have any knee pain, any muscle pain. But my feet felt like they were boiling inside my shoes. They felt swollen and hot and way too big for my shoes. Every step was uncomfortable if not outright painful.

(When I took my shoes off after the race, my toes resembled frankfurters, the super yucky kind - if any kind of frankfurters is less than super yucky - the one you can find packed into cans, short and chubby. They were also covered in blisters, and I scored another black toenail! Just in time for the sandal season.)

I was walking very slowly and really didn’t feel like walking for another hour and a half (uh, this is the time I needed to complete the marathon at this pace… It really was a stroll! The kind you do in a park on a sunny afternoon, not your usual marathon pace.) - so I stopped.

And I stopped a police car that was patrolling the route. I got in and chatted with the two officers and felt so relieved, and happy.

Why was I happy that I did not finish the marathon when I had only 5 km to go?

That Sunday morning I was determined to finish the marathon at any cost. I could not fail! I did my training and I was prepared to at least finish. I wasn’t aiming at any particular time, but finishing was the least I could do, right?!

Fast forward a few hours and I couldn’t feel more differently. Before I started to run the marathon distance I had no clue what to expect. I thought I would have run the majority of the route and then walked the remaining kilometers. Boy, was I wrong!

When my walking breaks exceeded my running intervals, I knew it was not what I signed up for. I did not want to finish at any cost any more. I wanted to finish the marathon running or at least jogging, or - well - walking, not strolling! This was not how I wanted to take part in my first marathon.

The decision was not easy and it took me about 2 kilometers to make it.

I knew I would have to tell everyone that I did not finish. I would have to explain and share all the details of my failed attempt at long distance running. I knew there would be many “I told you so’s” and “It’s not for you’s”.

Really, finishing would have been a less annoying option.

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How I Did Not Finish a Marathon - Part 1