Well, we did it! Megan and I ran the Twilight half marathon.
Now, I need to add here that I am not an evening exercise person. When the sun goes down, so do I, and Sunday nights are no exception. In fact, Sunday nights are meant for lolling about on the couch and staring at the television with a glazed expression - recharging for the week ahead. Sunday nights are not for galloping around a half marathon route.
Megan and I arrived at the start (after a usual immense queue for the loo) and were met by many many people in their twilight half marathon t-shirts. Megan would easily be able to find me in the crowd (orange AND pink tutu - hello!) but she just blended in along with the rest of them, so I knew that when I lose her, it would be for good.
It was overcast but still light when we started, about 5 minutes late. And off we went, with me wondering why the hell I had embarked on this. At the 3km mark I was seriously contemplating turning around and going home - my legs felt like I was dragging them through concrete and just could not get into any kind of rhythm. At 6km I felt no better and was debating whether to finish at 10km.
Now a little about the route: the race is at the University of Queensland St Lucia Campus and starts on their sports arena. It then heads along the river turning back on oneself and over "the green bridge" (no idea why it's called the green bridge - looked pretty silverish to me). Running over the bridge sounds like a herd of elephant and their is definitely a hollowish feel to ones stride - which gets very strange when you hit the other side and it feels really solid underfoot again! You then head along the river on the other side for a ways, and then turn back and retrace your steps all the way back to the sports arena. At this point the 10km runners head into the arena and the half marathon runners head up a hill - cruelty at its best!
At the 9.9km mark I'm still debating - should I stay or should I go! And what's even more off-putting is that the whole world seems to be going, and it was just me left heading up the hill, with not much ahead or behind me! But up the hill I went.
By now I was feeling reasonably good. I had developed some sense of rhythm and my heart rate and breathing were pretty good - from that point of view I felt as if I could run forever. The hips, however, were another thing entirely. I was considering stopping off at the Wesley hospital for a double hip replacement - pure agony!
And now the debate ragging in my head was: do I walk or run? Which will hurt less? Discovered while walking to drink at the watering tables (it's impossible to run and drink out of a plastic cup) that walking made no difference to the hip replacement scenario, and so I figured that the only way to stop the pain was to run faster and get it all over with, and so off I went!
A word about the plastic cups: an enigma that an effectively third world country like South Africa delivers water at races in sealed sachets (they're great because you can grab a few and keep them on you and use as required), but a first world country like Australia fills plastic cups out of a big tub of water. The cup fillers start out very orderly, wearing gloves and doing it all right, but after about 10km the wheels clearly fall off with gloves out the window, and someone stealthily collecting used cups for reuse? More about the results of that later.....
By 10km it was dark and we headed off along the same route again. I must say here that I am all for not knowing where I am going - I don't like anticipating every hill and obstacle! Bring on the element of surprise. And so running a repeat route doesn't do it for me. Running night blind in the dark, with very little street lighting is just plain terrifying. To top it all, the street lights that were on kept flickering off whenever I approached! Freaky!
But I persevered, and finished in a rather sad time of 2:28, but finish I did and am now the proud owner of a Twilight Half marathon keyring.
The water cups did, however, come back to bite me - I spent the night on the loo! Note to self: carry own water supply in future!
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