The Marathon

Things that I learned while running the marathon:

1) Labour (without drugs) is way harder than running 42.2 kilometres.

2) Labour (without drugs) still does not prepare you for the pain of running 42.2 kilometres.

3) Running for an hour, or even two, is fun. Running for four hours is not, no matter how many people are cheering or holding banners with ridiculous “motivational” phrases.

4) Running your first marathon while recovering from sickness and still on antibiotics will not result in a personal best. It may, however, result in several unscheduled pit stops.

5) Runners have memories like goldfish. One day after swearing they will never do something so stupid and painful again, they are planning the next one.

6) Accepting a time significantly longer than your goal time is a tough pill to swallow. (However, that pill goes down much easier with generous quantities of red wine.)

7) Pain in retrospect is funny. As in: “When I hit kilometre 40, I could barely move my legs, haha.” Or: “At kilometre 30, I almost threw up, haha.” At the time, these things were not funny. At all.

8) The original runner of the original marathon keeled over and died when he reached his destination. Yes, you read that correctly. He DIED. This should tell us something about the overall insanity of running such a distance.

9) The female body is incredible. A mere two hours after finishing my 42.2 kilometre run (which took me three hours and 59 minutes to complete) I was nursing my son. He was also using me as a salt lick (apparently my shoulder was pretty yummy).

10) I am stronger than I thought I was. I wanted to quit many times, but I didn’t.

So there you go. My marathon is over, I am almost walking like a normal person again, and I suddenly have way more free time than I used to. I didn’t achieve the time that I wanted, but that’s ok. Maybe someday I’ll run another one to redeem myself. Maybe.

But it certainly won’t be anytime soon.