All I can say is OMG and man does my feet totally hurts.
The day started off cold and grey as I arrived at my friends Blaine’s house. We have work really hard in preparing for this run, we got up to running 18km in our training hoping that will be enough to finish the 21km in good time. I don’t think I was able to sleep that much, anticipating what lies ahead. The last half marathon I ran was in German up in the Bavarian Forest in the mountains and I surely wasn’t prepared for that one. I’m sure I will post about it later on, the views were amazing but my time was embarrassing. lol
When we got there the road were filled with runners it was truly amazing to see. We were all there for a reason and the reason is to battle our bodies and push them pass their limits, the energy was wonderful. My nerves were just tingling with excitement and nervousness. We got lost in crowd looking for our start position, as soon as we got their I couldn’t wait to get started. I kept telling myself to ignore the crown and focus on my pace. You can easily be thrown off your game with the hasty start of the others around you making you tire quickly. As the gun goes off I start counting in my head and pacing myself, the crowd pushes a head and I make my way to small opening where I can comfortably disappear in my own little world.
I was glad my friend Blaine was there to point out the moment where the energy of the crowd was creeping into me and pushing me faster and faster. I would hear him yelling above my music “Slow down!”, lol. He was like an alarm every time I picked up the pace. As soon as we got to 2.5km you can start feeling the cramps and your lungs gasping for air, this is the first battle you go through with your body. The only way to get passed this phase is to suck in as much air and force is deep within your lungs, it’s a form of deep breathing. One activity that I feel really help me with this was swimming because breathing is everything, if you don’t breath efficiently you don’t get enough air, no air means your muscles can perform. It’s the same with running, you don’t breath your muscle tire and cramp up. The one skill you learn form swimming is forcing air into your lungs in rhythm to ensure you have enough for each stoke. At this moment in your run you feel like you need to force that air into your lungs cause your body refuses to take it in. At 5km your body changes, breathing becomes easier and you feel more relaxed. Your muscles feel stronger and you almost want to increase your speed but you continue to fight the urge cause you know you will need your energy for the second half of the run.
We managed to get passed the halfway point and are still feeling good. The crowd has slowly slimmed down as we pass the runners that sped up in front of us at the beginning of the run. We continued pushing one another to keep going and not slow down. It was all going well until we hit our maximum distance in our training, 18km and we start feeling the fight within our bodies. This is point where everything is hurting, every step is like you’re slapping your foot into concrete. Every word of encouragement makes you feel angry and snappy almost like you want hit the person who was giving it to you. Sorry Blaine I’m sure I wasn’t such good company towards the end of the race. I wanted to throw the towel in, but you know how close you are and how far you’ve gotten.
As soon as you see that finish line your adrenaline kicks in and you start pushing and increasing your speed to what feels like a sprint, but most likely a toddler can run pass you at any moment. Then the moment you pass that finish line your body goes numb and look over at your friend with disbelief of what you just gone through. It’s finally over and you can finally stop, your body is quivering as it holds itself up from collapsing. Then pain starts to creep up again and you slowly walk it off and receive your medal. This medal becomes the symbol of the perseverance you needed to get through to the end.
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Toronto Waterfront Marathon: http://www.torontowaterfrontmarathon.com
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