It was a freezing morning. As we lined up in the starting shoot it actually started to hail. "Eye of the Tiger" was playing quite loudly over the speakers. But then it started to rain, and the music changed down in tempo to "Chariots of Fire".Now hail is exciting. Do you remember running outside to play in it as a child? Hail bounces off you leaving you unscathed, especially as most us were wearing sufficient clothing to avoid the little red stings it will leave on bare flesh (I was very glad to be wearing my trusty running visor). The crowd reacted to the hail with an almost frenzied excitement. Perfect strangers turned to each other and shared nervous grins and said "We must be mad!". The crowd bobbed up and down to the music, bouncily jogging on the spot to keep warm.
But rain is not exciting. It does not bounce cheerily off you. It seeps into your clothing, dribbles into your ears and makes your gloves useless at keeping your fingers warm. The mood of the crowd dampened and the bouncing changed to shuffling. Fortunately some perceptive organizer changed to music back to "Eye of the Tiger" just before the starting time but that elated feeling was gone - at least for me.
The first 17 minute where dreadful. I was cold, my breathing labored and my fingers numb. I felt disproportionately cross at having to dodge the cheeky walkers who had started too far forward in the line up. It all seemed too much. Impossible. I felt a bit disorientated and had no idea how far we had run.
Then suddenly, I kid you not, the drizzle stopped, the sun emerged, glorious in its winter yellow, and ahead I noticed the 3km mark as if highlighted by a sun ray! As we whizzed past it, at just a few seconds over 18 minutes, I finally realized "I can do this"! I felt 10kg lighter, my breathing settled and I started to look around and notice the other runners padding along with me.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend and I fell into a nice and easy 10kmph pace together. We had never jogged together, and I had expected her to be way ahead.
I said "No matter what time we do this in, we will have done better than all the people who slept in this morning". She heartily agreed. As did another runner who fell into step with us for a short while and was our 3rd musketeer for a few hundred meters. And we started to feel like we were not mad. In fact, surely we were the sane ones and those missing out on this exhilarating run where the crazy ones.
5km: the drink station was manned by the Kaiapoi Neighborhood watch crew. So I go to say hi and be cheered on by a few familiar faces.
10km: we pulled out our energy gels (fortunately brought along - considering the 10km drink station was out of Leppin!)
12km: ipod on, not too loud, so that I could still hear the occasional remarks from my friend and reply appropriately. (She had her headphones in already so I was not breaking any running-mates-codes).
A few songs of Gavin Degraw, and a bit of Britney helped me keep to good form for a while, but soon after the 15km mark I started to feel heavy, some hip-pain and quite tired. A quick switch to Greydon Square, and ahh, that feels better. A beat I can run to and words I can think to. The next 4km slid past without me hardly noticing.
19km: a quick sip at the drink station, I turned up the volume on the ipod and spurted ahead.
I finished feeling strong and very, very pleased with myself. Friends cheering from the sidelines gave an extra boost.
Yes I still had some unburnt energy which would be unthinkable to a more competitive runner. But really for me, an enjoyable run with a friend (and avoiding too much post race stiffness) is much more important than shaving a few minutes of my personal best.
