An exert from my 'Life Journal':
Sunday 28th August 2011
"I accomplished a real achievement today, something I had wanted to do for a while. A test of both physical capability and mental toughness. A Marathon. It was the annual Perth City to surf Marathon, that’s 42.2km or 26 miles. I had previously done the City to surf last year, though only the 12km course. This year I decided to give the marathon a go as my good friend Matt was planning on running it as well. Matt had the second round of his golf club championships the same afternoon, and the plan for him was to run in the morning, have a few hours rest and then play in the afternoon; I was so impressed he was going to do this, I offered to caddy for him! Matt had been training for this for a few months leading up to it; this included a 30km run 2 weeks before the event. My training was not so focused and never really happened apart from a session at Jacobs Ladder and some middle distance interval training. However, due to crossfit, I have never felt fitter or more capable physically and mentally in my life. It started at 6am, like usual Marshall/Lord style we got to the start line late and every athlete had already gone. The course took us from St Georges Tce towards the WACA, back down riverside drive, continued along Mounts Bay rd all the way to Tawarri, then back to the city through UWA. This was the first 21km, and we were feeling pretty good striding through the city as people cheered us on. From there we ran to Kings Park and through it, coming out we continued along Kings Park rd, through Subiaco, and then the final leg along Underwood Ave and down Oceanic drive (this was by far the most gruelling part). We had our arms around each other for the final 100m and stumbled through the finish line, both in a time of 4:44:00. Not bad for our first marathon. My body had never been that sore, I could barely walk. We both agreed there was no way we could walk 18 holes of a golf course and laughed at the naivety of the fact we thought we could. I had achieved something only a handful of the human population experience in their lifetime. Almost 5 hours of continuous running and discomfort; a lifetime of glory."
I swear I commented on this post already...
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'd love to hear more about this experience. You mentioned that the first 30km were fine but the last 12km were quite a struggle - a battle mentally and physically... it'd be cool if you could capture some of that emotion. I challenge you to give it a try! :)