Worth the wait!

Sit back, folks. I have a feeling that this is gunna be a long one :-)

Back in November, after weeks of internal debate, I put the peg in the ground and said I'd "do Canberra". The fight with myself was not because I though that it was particularly important, but because I don't like saying something and then not carrying it through. What I found as the months went by, though, was that I was putting more time & effort into the preparation for it than anything else that I've ever done. I mean, I've done bigger things, but they always seemed to happen while I sort of came along for the ride. This time, there was no free ride. Even up till Saturday night when I went for a 10 minute quick spin to turn my legs over, my calf was still hurting, though my back was pretty right. I just resigned myself to 42.2k's of pain and hoped that the pain killers would dull it a bit.

Saturday night was great. Wildthing and Mr WT came over and, together with Caro & Owl who were staying with us, we tucked into tiger angel's beautiful Pasta with Prawns. Mr WT and I were both almost dead on our feet (I wonder if he'd been sleeping as badly as I had for the previous few nights), so the party broke up by 10. The others went to bed while did all my final preparations - I'm not obsessive!! - and I got to bed before too long. To bed, yes; to sleep, HA! I got up at 3am, had breakfast and lay down again until 6. Things went quickly from there and it seemed like no time before we were in the starter's gate and the gun fired.

The first hour of the race was COLD! It seems dumb to think that we could be running and not warming up, but I remember feeling so happy each time we ran into the sunshine. Canberra was absolutely beautiful. Crystal clear, dead still and with 6 or 7 hot air balloons hovering overhead. A few times I found myself wishing I had my camera with me, it was so spectacular. I remember running along beside a park with one of the balloons coming down between the trees, and being ticked off by Easy Tiger on the sidelines for concentrating on them instead of the race :-)

I've been told often that a marathon is a race in two halves - the first 32k and the last 10. Well, for me the race really started as we ran on to the bridge across the lake for the first time (12k). Just at that point, I started to feel some tightness in my left hamstring. That was really suprising because I can run 12k at that pace standing on my head and I'd never had tight hammies before. (It was about this time that I realised that I wasn't feeling my calf pain at all! How can it linger so long, and then disappear overnight??). Anyhow, the tightness never became debilitating, but it gradually spread to all the leg muscles so that by the 20k mark, I was hurting evenly all over :-). I stopped for a brief toilet break around 15k, and used the opportunity to stretch for a moment, but it didn't make much difference, so that was the only time I bothered trying it.

I was watching my pace pretty carefully, and in spite of the leg issues, I remained otherwise very comfortable and spot-on steady. (Leaping ahead for a moment, my plan was to hit 32k at 2:50:00, and I actually got there at 2:49:57. Not bad, hey?). After the beauty of the early 10k and the support of the Cheer Squad at Cowbell Corner and Psychoma, Redback and BernieG out near the bridge, the run out to Black Mountain was a bit more drab. However, this was also the out-and-back section, so I contented myself with watching (and occasionally yelling to) the runners coming the other direction. It was good to see how the race was starting to shape up for all the runners I knew; who was in what train, and who was ahead or behind their expectations.

I don't recall much of the middle half of the race, except that

• the spectators around the entry to the return bridge were particularly supportive, considering that they didn't appear to be either CRs or Striders, which was really nice,
• Alrounder, on duty as a volunteer on the other side of the same bridge was also really encouraging, and
• the discomfort in my legs was absolutely unrelenting - sort of like having a 3 hour physio session. Recalling my last post before the race where I pondered whether there were Dragons at the edge of 32k, I decided that the discomfort was just the result of the Dragons gnawing away at my thighs. That reminded me of 2P's comment that I was "St Gnome, slayer of Dragons" and , I know that this is going to sound dumb, but that was exactly what I needed to know right then. Thanks, 2P! :-)

I remember hitting the 32k point and thinking "OK, we're in uncharted teritory now". Like I said, the plan was to get to 32k in 2:50, and then see what happened next. Essentially, I just stopped looking at my watch (it wouldn't have helped, as I had carefully chosen not to write down splits after 32k), and ran purely by feel. As it turned out, I kept going at exactly the same rate, all the way home.

At 36k, it occurred to me that I really was going to finish, and I immediately started to choke up (a sign of things to come). I pulled myself together quick smart and pronto, and by 39k I though that I had it in the bag. Pretty much right at the 39k sign, I started to breath really heavily, just like the last half of a 5k race. I wasn't going any faster or slower; I was just breathing harder. It was a mental struggle to pull myself together, because up to that point it had hurt a lot, but it had been easy (if that makes any sense). Now it hurt and it was hard. I concentrated on keeping good form (thanks Freespirit) and on catching the 3:45 pacer who had been way ahead of time for the whole race, but who was now rapidly falling back into view.

At this stage of the race, the ranks of spectators were rapidly thinning as the fast runners had already finished, so it was wonderful to round the corner near 40k and see my gorgeous tiger angel waiting there taking photos. Those last 2k were the longest I have ever run, without a shadow of a doubt. The crowd noise rose as we ran up the road towards the final stretch, and I had visions of running across the line, hands in the air in triumph, or jumping across the line like Uncle Dave in Hawaii. However, when I turned the corner and saw the clock at 3:43 and heard the cheer squad yelling for me and the announcer calling my name, I just burst into tears and ran the last 100m bawling my eyes out and gasping for breath at the same time. Hardly heroic, but entirely fitting! :-)

I know that I floated around for the rest of the day. Poor Johnny Dark came over to congratulate me while I was still in the finishing chute and got a hug for his efforts :-). Courtly Love interviewed me about 5 minutes after I had finished, and listening to it now, the excitement in my voice is amazing - it was just like being a kid again. After taking a bunch of photos (below are my favourite 3), we shot back to the apartment for a shower and pack up, then back to the finish to be there for when LuckyLegs finished (they haven't invented superlatives sufficient for LL :-), off to the pub for the afternoon get-together (met more CRs - fantastic) and finally hopped in the car to come home. Little gnome, you had a busy day...

Warriors :-)

Who says running isn't a team sport!

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