Last night, I went out to a Clare Bowditch concert with a couple of friends. CB was supported by Lanie Lane, a rockabilly/blues singer. It was awesome.
I got home rather late. I enjoyed the concert, but felt shitola afterwards.
I cried so much I was almost howling to the moon.
I nearly pulled out of Run Melbourne, was nearly a DNS. However, I had my professor of medicine/PhD supervisor to meet up with. My sprightly, fit 62 year old supervisor, who I had invited out to run. His (similarly aged) wife was doing the half marathon.
We had a chat. I looked at his iPod. A person’s playlist is very telling.
I asked him about his music preferences. He said, oh, I like to run to music. I like rock’n’roll. He told me about an iPhone app called Shazam, which tells a person what a song is when they play a bite of it into the iPhone.
I had a look at his music.
He had some Brahms, some other classical. Some Santana. Some 70’s rock.
Then- Pink. Then Taylor Swift. GOLD.
I ran. I started out really well, about 6:45 kms. Not ducking and weaving. I did the first 5km in 34 minutes.
During this first 5 km, I distracted myself by thinking about all the events of the last few months. Then I just concentrated on my breathing, the loud collective footfall of the other runners, the semi-decent weather that Melbourne had put on.
The first 6km were fine. After that, I started to seriously slow. I felt hungry. I wanted to take a nap on the side of the track. Many people were walking. The 7th km was slow. I got to what I thought was the 8km mark, but it was the 7km mark.
I hit the wall a bit, mentally, at that point.
I decided to walk. I went for a pee.
At the (actual) 8km mark, I started running. This was the bit up the bridge near the tennis centre. My legs were jelly-like, but I kept going. I was sloooooow.
At the Wellington st hill, I started walking again. A girl said to me “don’t stop, you are nearly there”. So I opened it up. I found out that it was her first 10km.
I ran like a bat out of hell for the last half a km. I finished in 74ish minutes. Not my finest hour. However, I trained yesterday with a new group, probably did not have enough glycogen in the system, and not to put too fine a point on it, I have been having a shit time generally.
A lesson was learned – if I have feel tired and want to slow down, then all is not lost. This is important for the marathon, but also for life in general.
Oh please don’t judge me on my playlist! Nice run Cilla- I am glad you made it out when you a.had a big night out beforehand, and b. couldn’t be bothered! Good work.
Well done Doc – great effort
Your PW is still better than my DNS! Well done!
Well done – even a shit run is still a run and so what if you could have done it faster… you are just learning what NOT to do next time.
I have to agree with Andrew. A PW rocks over a DNS. Good on you for getting out there after a tough night. You know you can stop, regroup and keep going, this will put you in good stead for the future.
I’m also a DNS-er. You’re running 5 times more distance than I’m doing, so that is a win in my book. Don’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t do, celebrate what you did do!