The day is here.. After spending the whole of Friday and Saturday
trying to find a place to stay (everyone that I knew from Notre Dame
were back in South Bend for the last Game between the Irish and
Michigan!) Got to sleep at 11 due to a few “complications” with the
house we were supposed to be staying at, and got up at 4.30! Not
great running on 5 hours sleep and Chipotle for gas. But strong
positive attitude is all that’s needed!
Warming up in the land of the free is something else.. Runs like
this are basically conventions for the most positive Americans to
come and mingle with each other and do a run by the side of it.
Pre match routine:
1. Eat left overs of chipotle.
2. Drink 5 gallons of water.
3. Eat 2 glucose tablets.
4. Make 4 trips to the “rest rooms”.
5. Pump myself up by beating my chest like a bear and screaming like
a coyote.
6. That last one I didn’t do, just thought that as every american
around me was doing it, it’d work.
THE RACE
The first 7 miles were really relaxing, just got into a steady pace
and kept it going.
The next three miles were where the going got a bit tougher, started
to push harder to keep up with the pace I needed to keep up for a
1.45 time. At the 10 mile point, this is what separates the boys
from the men. The frequency of people stopping around me increased
hugely from the 7th mile to the 10th, with 3 people fainting near
the 10 mile mark.
At the 10th mile, I ate 2 glucose tablets and chucked a cup of
water over me. This was when the tough got going. My pace was still
close to doing a 1.50, but as I reached the 11 mile mark, my calves
started to cramp a bit. At the 12th mile, the cramp got more
frequent and worsened. The pace had dropped to over 9 minutes a
mile.
As the 13th mile came up, the 10th of a mile left seemed like the
longest 160m of my life! Round the corner, into the home straight.
50m to the line, Kit and Ellie were screaming at me and I just about
recognised them aha. When the finish line came, I couldn’t stand,
kept bumping into people cos my legs kept buckling. But what a
feeling to have done it!
Fitness wise, I was still relatively fresh but my legs were dead. I
was thinking I could have put in a bit more effort, a girl in front
of me was being sick as she ran over the line. Now that’s
commitment.
