The marathon!

Well I finished it in around 4:20. I don't know my official time yet, but will try to find out.



Sunday at 8:44am I'm standing on the Champs elysses along with 35000 other people, stretched hundreds of metres back to the Arc de Triomphe and hundreds of metres in front of me. The Chariots of Fire music is playing over the loud speakers. Looking ahead I can see wave after wave of clothing being tossed to the sidelines, no longer needed to keep the runner warm. I choose to keep mine as it's bitterly cold. According to a Mexican I met today who did the race it was about 2degrees. Fortunately there was no rain, hail or snow. The time ticks over to 8:45 and the people at the front start. Eventually us in the middle begin to move. At first a slow walk, then we slowly gather speed into a slow jog.



At this point I am going to go back in time to Friday night. The day I arrived in Paris. The day it almost all came off the rails.



I caught up with Kae Martin the other person I knew who was doing the marathon and her friend Heather. I was feeling absolutely buggered from the jet lag. We decided to go for a bit of a stroll along the Champs elysees (I've got no idea how to spell). At around the Grand Palace (Grand is an understatement, the thing is massive) I start to feel a bit queezy at this stage, so I get a drink from a road side stall. We continue on and reach Place de La Concorde, it's an awesome sight if you haven't seen it.



At this stage I begin to feel even more queezy and find a nice spot next to the fountain when I can puke my guts up. Needless to say, we decided to head back at this point. Walking back along the Champs elysees I throw up another time.



I finally make it back to my hotel and drink a lot of water and hit the sack at around 8pm without dinner (not good if you've got a marathon coming up).



Queue the night of hell:

It's 2am, I turn on the light again and head to the bathroom to throw up for somewhere between the 15th and 20th time. I start to think that I might not be able to do the marathon. Then I start to think that I have no fat reserves and if I get sick I'll need to go to hospital and probably on a drip.



On Saturday, the day before the marathon, I only managed to keep down a banana and a bread roll. I was severely dehydrated.



On Sunday at 4am when I woke up (gotta love jet-lag), I felt good and decided to do the marathon.



Fast forward to the marathon again. This will be brief as I've only got 7 mins of internet left.



I knew I wouldn't be able to make my target time. At around the 2km mark I couldn't see the 3:45 pace maker any more. This didn't bother me.



Every 5km they had a food station. I had a banana and a bottle of water at each. by the time I got to the next station I was getting hungry again at around the 15km mark. The first 30km were relatively easy. Other than the bitter cold.




The cold was something else. It managed to cut right through you. Every muscle in the body ached, but not because of the running. It was miserable!



At around 31-33km I hit the wall. It is difficult to describe the wall. Let's just say you stop. You find yourself walking rather than running even though you didn't make a concious decision to do it. There is no energy left in your system to propel you forward any more. Somehow you dig down, find some courage, and manage to push forward for another few hundred metres. Then you hit it again. This time harder. So you dig deeper and go another few hundred metres. Then you hit it again, much harder.

At around the 35km mark, my skins were no longer skin tight due to the reduction in size of my thighs. I think this was due to dehydration because I was extremely thirsty.

At around the 36km mark my spirit was broken. I was cold and shivering. I had no energy. I could only shuffle around 100m at a time. The masses were starting to overtake me. I no longer cared.

Around the 37km mark a girl from Perth saw me and yelled out come on Australia. I managed to run with her until the 38km mark when I cramped up.

I walked to around the 40km mark and bumped into a Perth bloke who had just been to the medical tent. He has done the Hawaii Ironman twice and said that this was much much harder due to the cold weather. This made me feel a bit better. We walked and chatted for a while.

At this stage I noticed the ambulances. They must have been picking up the people who couldn't quite make it. The sound of an ambulance siren can really cut deep into your soul when you realise it is probably picking up someone that you have been running next to.

Some time after the 41km mark I joined a bunch of around six Melbournians until the end. I managed to run the last km or so.

Eventually I managed to cross the finish line.

They say you're meant to get a rush of endorphines when you finish a marathon. I didn't. I wasn't happy about what I had achieved, I was glad it was over. I found it a hellful experience. No doubt this was a combination of the very cold weather and the food poisoning.

I've also heard that the 30km mark is the half way point in a marathon. Don't get me wrong the first 30km were difficult, but the last 12km were something else. For lack of a better term I found it soul destroying.

Lesson of the day: don't do a marathon while recovering from food poisoning!