For the past 24 hours, I have been on such a high! I completed my first marathon! What an amazing feeling. I have spent the better part of six months preparing for this and to actually be able to cross that finish line in the MCG was such an amazing feeling.
To put my increase in fitness in perspective, in 2012, I walked the Upstream Foundation 50km challenge, and that was at one of my most unhealthiest points. That took me 10.5 hours to complete. To be able to do a 42.2km marathon in 4:39:48 is such an amazing turnaround from one of the lowest points I have had, just under a year ago.
Some of the most memorable points of the marathon for me were:
-At around km 15, I had a pain in my left quad. It felt quite tight but I was able to run through it. However, there were a couple of times during the marathon that I stopped on the side of the road for a minute to stretch. This really helped.
-The run from Bay Street to Elwood was the most tedious part of the marathon. I found this stretch to be a it boring (not sure why, it's a lovely part of Melbourne).
-My PT, Casey and another Fernwood instructor, Emma were at the 30km point giving out snakes. It was so great to see a couple of familiar faces at that point of the run and although I quickly ran past them and only exchanged a couple of words, it did give me a lift.
- At 32km, Melbourne decided to open the heavens and it poured! And it did not stop for the rest of the marathon. Whilst the rain itself did not bother me, the effect it had on my clothes was annoying. My t-shirt started to rub and this caused some chaffing on my arms. Also my socks quickly got wet and the rubbing caused some blisters which I was not expecting. Ouch!
-From the 38km point onwards, I felt a real lift. I actually stared to realised I was going to finish the marathon and in a decent time. I think at that point some adrenalin had kicked in and I no longer felt any pain.
-Just past 41km, me and this other guy were keeping pace with each other. I found it helped me keep to a speed I wanted to. After a couple of minutes he started to pull up. I am not such if it was injury or pain. I turned around and said 'Come on mate, we are so close.' He managed to run with me for another 400m and then he had to stop and walk. He encouraged me to go on. I realised I love the running community, everyone is so encouraging of each other and we all want everyone to do well. I really hope that guy was able to cross that line and I hoped my little encouragement did help him.
-Seeing The Boy in the stands when I was running on the MCG was fantastic. He was screaming my name and it was great to see him there.
-After the race, The Boy, my Dad and brother were in the stands. It was great to see them after the marathon and their words of congratulations were so great to hear.
-My 1.5 hour bath after the marathon was amazing! Seriously, I think that helped in my recovery so much because today I work up feeling good with only slight stiffness in my legs and some mild pain from blisters. I even managed to do a spin class and some foam rolling this morning at the gym.
For me, completing the Melbourne Marathon has been a turning point for me. In the past year, I have managed to come so far and honestly, I am a completely different person. I have lost 1/4 of my weight and I am much more confident with myself and being able to buy clothes from any shop I like is an amazing feeling. The detail of the split times is in the I Wanna Run tab.
What's next for me?
I am still not sure if I want to do another marathon. It was an amazing feeling to finish, but the amount of time I had to put into training for it... there are a lot of Saturday mornings I spent doing long runs and early mornings I would have to catch a train at 5.30am to run The Tan. On the other hand, I wanted to run sub 4:30. Whilst I only missed this by less than 10 minutes, I still have the desire to beat this time. I have discussed with The Boy about completing the Gold Coast Marathon (that way we get a bit of a holiday at the same time!) That is in May next year. Whilst that could work, I am going to be on my honeymoon for a month, so my preparation might not be ideal. However, it is something to think about over the next couple of months. I would need to also complete some serious base training but that is another blog post.
There are a couple of shorter runs I want to complete, the main one being the City to Surf so I will try and sign up for that this week. The 14km distance will be a lovely change from what I have been doing in the past few weeks!
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