I haven’t had the words to write how I felt after running the Johnson Crane Marathon. This is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. With so much going on in my life. Following my eating plan, losing 7.3kg since the 1st January (29 days) and not wanting any of the race food required mess up my eating plan, I was in such a dilemma. Also being ill after running The Wonderful Run and not getting much time on the road I was undertrained for the race. But as my first attempt to Qualify for Comrades Marathon 2018 I was positive to run this race.
In the first 10km of the race, I ran my personal best of 1h12 and I was so excited as I was on track to qualify for comrades. At 20km I was flat, I had to sit down and stretch out my legs and will myself to do what I had just done a second time. At 25km the race organizers told us that there weren’t many people behind us and if we were still wanting to go on. We would miss the cutoff of 6 hours. I started to hyperventilate and have a mild panic attack. I was scared frustrated overwhelmed all in one emotion. Also just having passed my furthest distance of 24km that I did in my first attempt at a marathon in 2016. At about 28km we missed a turn and landed up doing a detour. And with this most of the people passed us. I think the frustration of not being able to qualify for Comrades and being in extreme pain I just thought to myself what the hell am I doing? Why do I even think I have what it takes to even finish the race never mind running the Comrades. It was at about 39km that I hated running. That was me finished, I didn’t want to run ever again. But I was going to finish the damn race. Crossing the finish line was the most joy I felt in a long time, I am done running. I don’t think I am able to do that ever again.
Oh, my word, I have done it I finished my first Marathon. My time sucked, my feet hurt, my knees hurt and my pride hurt. But the joy of getting that medal was worth it.
My PB on the Johnson Crane Marathon: