Hello.
It has been a very long time since I have posted anything here. No good excuses really. I just haven’t.
But since there also aren’t any actual readers here, its all good. The force is still in balance.
Last year, I wrote in my own personal journal about running my first marathon. It was a remarkable experience for me, so I wanted to document my journey. Then I thought, hey, this could be something nice to put on my blog. Soon, it became really long and was also just some badly written ramblings on a page. So, I did the only sensible thing in this situation, procrastinate. Finally, after some of cleaning up, I decided it might work better as a series of blog posts.
So here’s goes. Hope you (my non existent reader) like it!
The Beginning
I still remember when it all began. I was running late. Like really late. Our meeting was all the way across campus. There was only one way make it. Panting and wheezing on what was actually a very short sprint, I realised, ok, all those burgers had taken a worrying toll on me. I was really unfit.
Ever since then, I took up running, first as ‘eye of the tiger’ moment, but as I enjoyed it more, it became my go to for my relaxation. There was no better way to live than going for some fresh air, exploring my surroundings while breaking a sweat.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to run the SMH Half Marathon. On my first attempt, I finished in 2hrs and 1 minute. Next year, I thought, I’m gonna really put in effort and finish under 2 hours.
The next year my time was 2:05. Not quite what I had hoped for, but I also hadn’t ‘put in the effort’ I rationalised. Then the next year after that my time was 2:10. Alarmed with my gradual decline, I resolved it was the moment for some of that ‘eye of the tiger’ again. I’m really gonna get this 2 hour mark next time. For the first time, I had a goal and I wanted to meet it.
As the race approached, I started my training with regular runs, mostly after work, gradually increasing my distance while maintaining or increasing my pace. However, it wasn’t always easy to squeeze in the time to keep my routine up. Then I had an idea: why don’t I simply run home from work. Two birds: I’d get my training in and I will arrive home. At first this seemed a bit cray cray, I didn’t exactly live close by and my normal train commute would take around an hour door to door. But what did I have to lose? After mapping out a route and leaving all my belongings at the office, I braced myself and took to the streets.
My first attempt was hard, hobbling through the dark, I was exhausted, spent, yet it also felt fantastic when I wobbled through the door at home through the pain all on my own two legs. It felt like a momentous achievement, if I could do that, what couldn’t I do? Yet despite the distance, I was still pretty slow. I knew, if I was going to make sub 2hrs, I really needed to up my training and push myself even harder. Over the next few weeks, I continued to run home once a week, pushing as fast as I could and I could see my time slightly improving with every run. I mixed in some interval runs to increase my power and I felt confident that if I could keep this momentum up, I may just reach my goal this year.
On race day, with my stomach full of guilt free carbs, I was ready. Huddled at the start line, with my running friend Harshi, we took in the buzzing energy of our fellow runners. The gun went off and so were we. As I heard our feet rhythmically hitting the asphalt disrupting the morning dew, I felt it was such a joy and privilege to be there. The cold air, however, was not kind to my asthmatic lungs, unaccustomed to such an early start, I had to take a few extra squeezes of my puffer as we twisted round the corner towards the Rocks. Around 5kms in, on the overpass towards Pyrmont, with the splendid view of sunlit Darling Harbour glittering to my right, I felt I had finally found my rhythm.
I knew the route well, the same every year, but this time it was also different, I pushed myself unrelentingly through every corner, incline and step with a fierce vigor towards my goal. As we climbed the hill past the observatory, the slope was the source of my exhaustion and pain. Yet somehow, this also fueled my fire further. In a cruel joke only the organisers could find amusing, as the end approaches and you are wanting nothing more but for it all to be over, the route directs you past the finish line, with its cheering crowds and all, but does not let you cross it. It then redirects you to do a full lap of the Royal Botanical Gardens before letting you circle back. The last few kilometers were just hell. When I finally reached the finish line in an exhausted bliss, I looked at my time: 1 hr 53 minutes. I had beaten my goal by an entire 7 minutes! I was stoked.
After munching on some free fruit that was offered for recovery, a thought welled up. If I could do this, what else could I achieve. Whats next, I thought? “It’s time you did a full marathon”, Harshi, said to me as we stretched out our beaten legs on the grass. I had just been thinking the same thing…
In the following months, the warmth of Autumn slowly faded along with exuberance of my half marathon achievement. The chilly weather provided me the perfect cover to lazily rug up under my safe blankets and ignore the cruel pavement. My wife had a spare flight ticket we needed to use. Having once romanticised about the idea of a destination marathon, I considered how awesome it would be to see a city and run a marathon while doing so, like some sort of masochistic tourist. I googled upcoming marathons around the country and they were all too soon or far into the future. I found one in Hobart sponsored by Cadbury and wondered what sort of disconcerting relationship they must have in place. The next one I found was in Melbourne, who would be hosting their marathon in October, perfect.
With my tickets booked, Melbourne, here I come.
I will try and get theses posts up every few weeks, so stay tuned for the rest!