April 9th 2017
Rain falls lightly in the darkness as I shiver in the cold. My mind and heart flooded with emotions. I stand close to the start line eager to begin this challenge I have set for myself. The sun is yet to rise as I share smiles with Jaran and Kim, two friends who left the warmth of their home to support me on this momentous day.
My watch ticks closer and closer to 6:00am, my starting time. The announcer booms over the loudspeakers, urging all runners to make their way to the starting chute. I give Jaran and Kim a hug goodbye and weave my way through the crowd into the front half of the 50km runners.
A little backstory… I had never run a marathon prior to this race, let alone an ultra marathon. My longest distance prior to this race was 30km, yet I dove in with 110% confidence of crossing the finish line. The only way I was stopping was serious injury or death… I know this might sound farfetched, ridiculous, hardcore, plain stupid, or whatever else. Nonetheless, my determination was unshaken because the date of this race holds significant meaning to me.
It symbolised new beginnings and new memories. Similar to a hard reset or a phoenix dying by fire and rising again.
I digress…
As the announcer counted down from ten I slid my earphones in and hit play. Next thing I knew everyone was moving forward including me. This was it, the start of a new life.
The shared energy from all the runners took over me, making my feet and my legs feel like clouds. Consequently my 4:30/km pace felt effortless, leading me into a false sense of security to run outside my comfort zone. We run up and around Parliament House to loop closely back to where we started, many people stood on the side lines cheering and clapping as we all ran past. With 5km down I slid into a pack of runners and quietly ran along in my own head, mentally going through my list of reasons for running this race.
I continue running past the Lennox Gardens and turn onto Alexandrina Drive, the roads had thankfully been closed earlier today to allow all the runners to pass interrupted. I hit the 9km mark, a turn around point to run back towards the start/finish line. I run through race headquarters and turn abruptly onto Parkes Place Way and turn again to run along the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin. The sun brightly shined through the parts the clouds for a short while.
It was merely a calm before the storm…
Caught up in my own headspace I brake away from the group I was with and run solo for a while. I start running next to a lady named Kelly-Ann Varey around the 15km mark. We run side by side for several minutes before she strikes up a conversation introducing herself and we start chatting. I explain this is my first marathon and ultra marathon, and then we also figure out she’s coincidently friends with my mum. Continuing on my starting pace of 4:30/km Kelly and I run together chatting away until 21km, the half-marathon point. When unexpectedly my right knee experiences a sheering pain on the outer right side, I wince in pain and shrug it off.
With the pain gradually increasing in my right knee I manage another 2km at the 4:30km pace until saying farewell to Kelly and dropping back the pace. I slide my earphones back in and mentally go through my list of reasons for running.
One, to take back control of my life.
Two, to conquer the emotional turmoil life had thrown at me.
Three, to make new memories.
I mentioned previously the significance for the date of the race.
Flashback twelve months ago I experienced a world shattering heartbreak, I discovered my wife at the time was having an affair and was in love with a young sixteen year old boy. This left me broken, distraught and lost…
I’ll avoid adding the messy details here.
Despite situation I found myself in I set out on a journey of healing and self discovery which led me to this race, which coincidently fell on my now ex-wife’s and I wedding anniversary. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to replace a now tainted memory with one of such epic proportions. Now you know why I have zero doubts in me crossing that finish line.
Now back to the race…
At this point in the race I am running on Parkes Way where the roads had been closed off, something I had never seen before. My watch pings for 25km which means I am half way completed. My right knee is hurting even more now, so I drop the pace further to do anything resembling running. But all I can think is that this physical pain is no where near the emotional pain I felt twelve months ago, so I grit my teeth and suppress the writhing pain from my knee.
At 28km we make a U-turn on Parkes Way to run onto Lady Denman Drive and up to the Black Mountain Peninsula. Continuing back onto Lady Denman Drive the rain is setting in and I am now wet from head to toe. I reach the Rock Garden near the Canberra Arboretum at 36km where I spot an aid station manned with a bunch of volunteers, I shuffle up to one and request they pull something out of the camelback I was carrying. I greedily grab the clif blocks they had found, thanked him and continued running along Lady Denman Drive.
I wiped my eyes clean about a hundred times as the rain continued to pelt down. It made my camelback and clothes feel much heavier than they actually were. I gulp down a couple of clif blocks and also leave one in my mouth, hoping to regain some resemblance of energy. The mixture of the rain and the sore knee made things miserable, but there was not going to quit. I continued to remind myself of the reasons why I was running.
My watch ticks over to 40km turning onto Cotter Road, the longest I had ever run by 10km and I still had another 10km left to go. Weirdly I felt a spark of energy begin to rise so I turn up the music in my earphones, put my head down and push forward. I had no mental space to analyse why I was feeling this additional energy, I just knew I needed to continue running and make new memories.
The marathon, 42km, mark ticks over and my left knee now joins in the chorus of pain led by my right knee. I keep telling myself this physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional pain, so I continue on. We turn off Cotter Road to run through Yarralumla and onto Weston Park, the watch beeps 44km.
6km to go. I notice another runner struggling as I run past, I ask if he is going ok and mentioned he ran out of food. I promptly shoved the remaining clif blocks into his hands, told him to eat them and continued on.
5km, 4km to go as I run the out and back at the Weston Park. My body is screaming in pain like I have never experienced, I am also soaked to the bone and am weighed down by this annoying but thankful camelback. My watch beeps 47km and I am now moving much slower than I was at the beginning of the race.
I spot someone in the distance as I run along Alexandrina Drive. It is Jaran! My eyes immediately begin to well up in tears streaming down my face, making no difference how soaked I already was. I quickly rub them away, as there is time for this once I cross that finish line. Jaran greets me in the rain with a big smile hiding from the rain under his umbrella. I hardly said a word to Jaran as I ran past, but he could tell how hard I was suffering. I merely threw him my rain and sweat soaked camelback which in turn felt like an overwhelming weight had just been lifted off my shoulders, not just physically but emotionally as well. I knew at this moment I had won the battle within myself and now the only thing remaining was to finish the race. 48km on the watch, 2km remaining.
I reach the Lennox Gardens at 49km and turn onto Flynn Drive where I reach down into the depths of my soul for whatever remaining energy my body allowed me to use. I push forward praying to see that finish line and cross underneath the Commonwealth Avenue bridge, my watch ticks over to 50km…
I can see the finish line, I can hear the spectators, but I still have more to run. Digging even deeper to find any source of energy, I turn onto King Edward Terrace. Spectators are cheering on me and every other runner, my pace quickens from the previous 7:00/km to 6:00/km then to 5:00/km. I make a final U-turn to run into the finish chute, my pace clocking up to 4:30/km, my knees no longer caring about the consequences of my actions.
I crossed the finish line in 4:37:54.
Upon crossing the finish line my body rapidly froze and stopped working to the point where I couldn’t walk without assistance. I thanked Jaran and Kim for their support with rain soaked hugs, and then made my way home with some help.
Fast forward six months…
I could barely run from all the damage I had inflicted to my body during this race, which consequently made me learn how to run again from zero.
That was only possible with the help of Gary from the Canberra Body Clinic, where we were able to work through my body issues.
My new memories are now cemented into my mind and nothing will tarnish these ones. Now I begin running towards my future.
Instead of wasting your energy on feeling sorry for yourself…
Use it as fuel to drive you to do things you want to do.
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