My very first marathon - the Red Hill Marathon

Holy Moly... Saturday I was trying to think of all the hashtags I could possibly use (if I was actually active on twitter) - #worldofpain, #worstideaever, #conqueredredhill, #slowpainfuldeath, #whydowedothistoourselves, #notforants, #notevenforelephants etc.  And then of course on Sunday morning, in a whole new world of pain and blisters, all conversations revolved around when and where the next race is and what we are going to do to improve our times.  Suckers for punishment I tell you!

It was actually an awesome weekend, and considering all factors, I never cramped, passed out, got picked up by the ambulance or the sweeper bus, and made it to the end in one piece.  But it was a long, winding and painful 42.2 km road to get there.

We headed through to Fish Hoek on Friday after work, picked up our race numbers, checked into our little guest cottage (up the side of the mountain, spectacular sea views, the owners actually use a venicular instead of the stairs from the garage to the house) and headed down to the beach for a bite to eat.  I woke up a couple of times during the night, with dreams of oversleeping, missing the start and a bunch of other such things.  

I had a slice of low GI bread and bovril for breakfast which I actually thing did me well, the boys only had energy bars and said they were so hungry on the race.  I ran so well (by my personal standards, 6:30 - 6:40 min/km) on the first half, thinking I've really found my rhythm, it is such a beautiful run, thoroughly enjoying it... and then I crashed and burnt!
Check out the route profile below -

That dip in the middle - the hill right after that was what broke me, it just never ended, I actually think it was worse than the actual Red Hill stretch (the last big hill).   I almost burst out crying 5 or 6 times going up and down the other side of Red Hill, almost gave up and just sat down on the side of the road at least 10 times, the only things keeping me going were the fact that I couldn't face arriving at work on Monday and admitting I bailed out and, I told a few friends and my husband (E) "I don't give up".   So I kept going, with a few "come one, I can do this" patches every now and then.  

When I got to the bottom of the last hill, I had somehow convinced myself I was going to make it to the end and then, I saw my husband waiting.  Confused, I thought there is no way he could have finished and already be back!  No, he said, he was done, "divorcing running", "this sucks, we are finding a ride home".  I told him there was no way I was stopping, its single digits home (9km), lets get our shuffle on and finish this thing!  And so we shuffled, jogged and walked the last 9km.  Thank goodness we found each other there, I might have got him back on the road, but he carried (not literally) me to the finish.  The family were also cheering us on with about 4km to go, my two year old nephew shouting "go boy go" to the guys and "woo woo" to the ladies.  

So we made it, about five and half hours later, but we got our medals and we didn't come last (even a few 36km runners came in after us) and that's all that counts.  It can only get better from here!  In hindsight, a category 4 marathon (1 being easy and 5 being painfully difficult) was probably not the smartest choice for a first time. 

Sunday was a bit painful, but we headed to the beach anyway and tried to keeping moving the legs every now and then.  Thankfully, because today I'm not hurting nearly as much.  My whole core ached yesterday, half from the jarring on the long downhill and the other half I think from bearing the brunt of the home stretch.  The GUs I had a the 12km, half way and 33km spots really helped me with a boost, the water was so awful smelling and tasting, but I took two sachets every time anyway and a coke every second water table after the half way mark.  My husband says the GUs actually make him cramp more, he said it felt like someone shot him in the calf it was so painful, we're thinking he needs to carry salt tablets or slow-mag or something with him.  Just shows how different all of our bodies are.  
My brother-in-law (A) was the star of the day, the only one who actually finished in a reasonable 4 and half-sh hours with not too much complaining - well flipping done!



Now we rest, and plan out the map leading to the next one.


Week's kms            - 45.2km
Month's kms          - 91.2km
2014 year's kms     - 91.2km