Me and running, running and me

We returned back home, I found a position in bed where none of my muscles were hurting, I put the medal on the bedside table, and I fell asleep while touching it, with a big smile. That feeling the last three years, the emotions of that exact moment, is what keeps me going...

I had never been an active person in my life. I was the kind of child that always had some problem to avoid athletics and anything else at school that required getting off your chair and move. Maybe I got a little bit hooked with basketball at some point in my life but that was mainly because the clothes and attitude was cool. Oh and because I was the tallest in class and I felt they needed me…until other girls grew taller or taller girls came from other schools. I will blame hence the environment and conditions for never being active (nonsense, utter nonsense, only me to blame for but anyway…). Later, I came to South Africa, and I was “accused” of not being active as if that was a crucial negative aspect of my character (am I the only one that prefer to sit on the couch to watch movies on a Sunday afternoon instead of mountain biking?).

And then I met the Prince. Not only an active person, but one of these crazies that state “I ONLY ran 21 kms the other day”, run marathons, and ultra marathons, and Comrades marathons (between 86 and 89 kms on foot, not by bus or car!!). THAT crazy! And not only that but he comes from a family of crazies: tens of medals between him and his father and his brothers. “If we have kids one day, the genes are very strong here…I might have to change my attitude”. But not even that convinced me to change my behaviour towards exercising. Yes, I started going to the gym, and walk every now and then but still. Then I met more of his crazy friends; and I just wanted to go for breakfasts with them ( koiliodoulos in Greek means a slave of the stomach… I did not admit anything, but you thought of the connection, right?). So, I started to run 5km races here and there and waiting of them to finish torturing..hmm, enjoying themselves to go have breakfast.

After having the second precious boy of my life, I knew I had to do something to live a healthier lifestyle. The 30s had hit me and I have heard horror stories on how your metabolism changes and now the cupcake you had for breakfast will return viciously as a nice extra on the hips.

But there were two factors that switched my mind to start tackling the long distances, both of them related to peer pressure and pride. The worse thing one can do to a person with my personality is to keep them out of a conversation “because you don’t know”. Well, worse or best, it is the greatest challenge I can hear in my mind, when someone tells me “you can’t” or “you haven’t”. So, when I was excluded from discussions in my new family, my stubborn self said “I can” and “I will” and then I will have an opinion based on experience. The other decisive moment was my friends’ decision to make an effort to run a half-marathon. Well, it was more of a “lets have an excuse to go on a weekend together, and do something special for a friend’s 30^th birthday!”. My character would not allow me to be the one that “can’t”. And that’s how my long-distance experience started…

Fast forward to yesterday and the emotions of a half-marathon…

There is one crucially important moment in every race. No, it is not the finish! It is the 1 minute before the start, where your heart pumps, where all the training sessions you did or you missed pass through your mind. That is when the muscles are getting ready! When you can almost touch the tension around you, and then 5, 4,3, 2, 1…boom…. All this energy released, the passion, the excitement and the fear all together is what keeps you going the first few kilometres.

I posted early in the morning before the race, that a half marathon has the following phases for me:

• why…why am I here? Why am I doing this to myself? Why am I not in my bed sleeping?

• why not… hey this is not as bad as I thought so, why not doing it? Why not me?

• oh yeah… I feel good now, I have a good rhythm, my legs feel fine. (Phases a and b many times change places and repeat themselves a couple of times within a race).

• when again… this is the feeling that comes only at the end, when I stop my watch, and I look at the time, and I am happy and content (and ready for a beer…).

Many times, non-runners ask us (oops, did I qualify myself as a runner?? Oops) why we run. There are many different reasons that get different weight and importance depending on the specific race, and time period of our lives. Firstly, the one reason I run is my kids. It sounds as an oxymoron that I leave them alone almost every Saturday morning and Easter weekends but I do it for them. Well, kids do not understand lectures and talks, they understand examples and role models. If we as parents show them that the normal life is the one that we go outdoors and enjoy time with family and friends, keeping our body in a good health, then they might want to follow the example, or more importantly, they will think this is the norm and adopt the lifestyle. I feel content when my boytjies proudly announce that their parents are running a race or when we get back home and they proudly wear the medals around their necks.

But the most important motivation is the feeling of setting a target and achieving it. That sense of achievement. I read somewhere that we should all make our beds every morning when we get up. It is a trick to tell yourself “see? We had a task and did it- let’s start our day on positive thoughts”. It is the same with running long distance. You start with a target “I want to finish a or the specific half-marathon in April” and then you make all the necessary steps to reach it. What I love about this is that every single race – or step towards this big target – provides an individual sense of achievement. Every time I reach the finish line… and even more every time I stand at the Start, I feel stronger as a person. I feel I can do anything I put in my mind, especially knowing in advance that it involves pain and tears and frustrations. But my wise mother-in-law taught me the “te” rule in Afrikaans. Nothing “te” is good…. “te” is too much. So the moment one feels that it is “te”, I feel I need to stop. Having said that of course, at the same time, some pushing of the limits is healthy. It is proof that we can do more, we can achieve more, and we can strive for more. And THAT exactly is long-distance running for me: the evidence that I am capable to do whatever my heart desires, that I have the strength in body and in mind, and that mountains are there to be climbed: the road up is steep and difficult, but the view is always amazing!