where i do a surprising thing

Today saw me celebrate my 26th (!!!) mother’s day with my first fun run – 8km in the Mother’s Day Classic.

My goals were to:

  • run the entire route (no walking / stopping)
  • finish in under an hour
  • finish in the top 3/4 of the field – or at least not finish last


the course – the 8km was two laps

I’d been ridiculously, horribly nervous about doing this, though I cannot even begin to understand why – it is not like I have not run that distance before and it is supposed to be fun. Friday and Saturday night featured nightmares about forgetting my number / arriving late / forgetting how to run / falling down &etc.

Woke up this morning to the city blanketed by fog. Quickly showered, dressed, scoffed down coffee and a yoghurt and Don dropped me off. Once there I oriented myself, checked in my stuff and joined the hideously long queue for the porta-loos.

Then it was off to the starting line. I have no idea how many people were in the 8km run – but there were quite a lot of us (at least a few thousand). I was in the second group to start and once over the start line we quickly sorted ourselves out (this was good because one of my nightmares involved tripping over people).

The route was relatively flat and for the first couple of kilometres I was running at a pace slightly faster than I was accustomed to (usually I get quicker in kilometre 3). By faster than usual, we’re still talking about turtle-pace, I’m nowhere above anything but plodding! I considered easing back, but everything felt pretty good, so I just went with it.

I made sure to check my elapsed time at the 5km point because I was pretty confident I was going to finally break the elusive 35min mark and I let out a little yelp of delight when I saw it was 31:34! The ipod shuffle was playing mid life crisis at the time which I thought quite appropriate.

And on we went. It was interesting to see how many people walk/ran the course and there were a number of us overtaking each other back and forth as they would walk and then sprint past me.

Fortunately most of the course was shaded because the most difficult parts by far were when we were in full sun with no harbour breeze – urk. I really am not made for the heat.

And I plodded and plodded and plodded some more – and then it was the end and I sprinted (such as I am able) the last 50m to the finish line. I looked up to the timer as I crossed and it read 56min – which I was well pleased with (though I knew it would be a little faster because I started later).

Then I hobbled off to grab my medal (yay!) and walked about a bit to ensure I didn’t seize up. After a time, I realised I had not turned my device off when I crossed the line, so had no idea of my actual time.

I collected my bag and then affixed my tribute card, which I’d worn on my back through the run, to the tribute wall.


running for Mom. she is a lesson to make sure I have a health and that I do living life things

I was so chock-full of endorphins aftward that I could have easily run home, but that way injury lies – so I walked to the bus.


a runner is me!


medal!

In the middle of writing this I got a text with my time – under 53min! Which is when I had to stop and have a cry because I never, ever thought I was capable of doing anything like this.

I also discovered I came in the 2,000s, but I won’t have any idea of the field until Tuesday when the results are available on the website. I know at least, that I did not come last!

The morning was super-fun, the atmosphere was great and I am definitely going to seek out more events like this. Running with others really pushed me along and made such a difference to my pace.

And I have set a little (enormous!) goal for myself for next year – I want to run in this race. There is much to be done before then!

4 thoughts on “where i do a surprising thing

  1. Massive congratulations. I have only ran in one race and I was a bag of nerves beforehand so I can empathise with you. My route was nowhere near as beautiful as the one you have just done.

    • Thank you! It’s a big relief to have actually done it and hopefully will not be so nervous for the next one (am hoping to get in a couple more this year).

      Unfortunately the fog was still pretty heavy over the harbour so I could not fully enjoy the beautifulness, though I was so focussed on my plodding I probably wouldn’t have been able to delight in it. Seems like pretty much every run here features the harbour at some point!

    • Harriet!!

      Thank you! I was certainly brought back to reality this morning with a perfectly awful 5km run – need to keep reminding myself that it is a process.

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