30days30years

The thing about statistics

Well, I finished! And not a moment too soon it seems! Official time 7.57.35.

Let me firstly say thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have sent well wishes over the past few days. It really did make a difference!

People keep telling me I should be so happy just to have completed this mammoth run given that under 4000 people in the world have ever successfully finished it, but WTF? How could it have possibly taken me so long?

It’s called THE GREAT WALL!

I have to start by saying my time is actually not a reflection of how I felt about the majority of the run. Past competitors had told me it was worse than child birth but without having that as a point of reference it’s hard to know. But it certainly didn’t break me. There wasn’t one point where I thought I wouldn’t finish but it certainly was tough going on that second pass of the wall.

So basically I’m going with the fact I came 35th in my age category. Sounds impressive for me, right? Perhaps not so much when I tell you I was 35th out of 35 – yes, I came last in my age group – bugga!

But out of both male and female competitors, two people finished after me so I didn’t come last! Whoop.!

My ranking overall was 551 of 582. Obviously there was a few DNFs in there – many of whom I saw vomiting or crying on the wall.

The first 15km was a complete blur with so much going on that it was only at that point that I noticed my first distance marker. Kilometres 15 to 21 were just as easy, and at one point I was tracking for a 5 ½ hr finish.
The body held up well between 21-31km, where I even managed to pass a couple of people. Wonders will never cease!

I had been so concerned about the 32km cut off in the lead up to this race (if you didn’t make it there within 6hrs they would stop you) that I lost a little focus once I skipped pass that marker with more than an hour to spare.

The wheels started to come off slightly between 32-35km which on reflection I think were the hardest of the lot. Although the road was flat, by that stage I was very much isolated from my fellow runners and there is only so many hours of iPod music you can listen to before you just zone that out too.

The cheers and screams from the Adelaide crew who had already finished and my hotel buddies were like rays of sunshine before my second stint on the wall but I was already getting to a dark place, having run out of gels and failing to take on board a banana before entering the wall again.

Things deteriorated rapidly when I realised the up track wasn’t the same as the one we’d come down. Running a marathon is all mind over matter and I wasn’t mentally prepared for the height of the steps. The steepness was fine – I had trained for that – but I was physically too short for a lot of them so I had to climb on all fours. Trying doing that while dodging vomit from fellow competitors! What took me 45 minutes the first time took me 2 ½ hrs the second time. Rubbish!

But I would not be defeated, no matter how delirious I became. I realise how much I’m struggling when I get to the 40km mark – just two kilometres from home. At the 1908 London Olympics, the marathon distance was extended to 42.2km so the race could finish in front of royal family’s viewing box. This added distance to the course is the origin of the marathon tradition of shouting “God save the Queen!” around the 40km mark. I decide to sing Advance Australia Fair instead but somehow manage to mesh two verses together in a jumbled mess. I was not just hitting the wall, I am plowing head first into it. So I took stock and thought about my fellow runners and the obstacles many have overcome just to be there. Like former South Australian footballer Julian Burton, who sustained life-threatening burn injuries during the Bali Bombings in October 2002. He finished just ahead of me in 7:25:40.

And American amputee runner Sarah Reinertsen, rival of Geelong’s Kelly Cartwright. She ran the race with a prosthetic foot as a warm up to the Hawaiian Ironman next month. Amazing.

Anyway the race has been run and done, so it’s time for some rest now! I’ll be back to rectify the time at some point though for sure!

Be well

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