Sunday, December 6. The first time I completed 42.195km in one shot. Wasn't that bad, though there were moments.
We woke at 3, and left 40minutes later. The lights weren't on, so I wasn't able to notice the colour of his bag. Took a cab down to the baggage deposit point at the War Memorial Park. Just after we were on our way, we were at the 37km mark of the race. It was kind of like a preview of what things would be like hour later. We were rather early, so we put our stuff down, deposited our bags, and he left his phone there in his bag. First thought. What's the best way to keep in contact should the worst case scenario occur(separation)?
The first 13km was breeze. We completed the first 10km in 47minutes! That's my new personal best. At 14km, I started to feel a minor symptom of heat exhaustion. I felt some numbness in my body. Immediately, I told him we had better stop at the next water point. We did, though that caused problems for him and myself later on. I took a mint to consume. It helped a great deal! Within minutes I was ready to go, but sadly, he started having cramps. 15km, the first runner was on his way out of East Coast Park. We were barely 100 meters into the park. That was the worst part of the run. The East Coast stretch covered 15kilometers alone,with lots of slopes, bends and turns. We started running again after that water point, but since he was pushing me on, I decided to just keep up with him. But, after we passed the 16km mark, it was his turn.
For us, the real challenge came prematurely. At the 22km mark, it was the start of the mental war. It was fine, until he felt really unwell at the 29km mark. Since there were 2 medics, 2 officials, and another 5 volunteers at the water point at Station 16. Dropped him off there, more than an hour after our walk. I continued running, and met a friend along the way, joined him for another 5 minutes, before carrying on the race against my own time. I was aiming to complete the run in under 6 hours, with the expected time to be between 4 hours 30 minutes and 6 hours.
Since my engines were rather cold after that long break, I started feeling pain in the chest after running 2km after the 30km mark. I stopped, walked a little, and carried on at the 35km mark.
This time, the stitch arrived. I walked another 2 kilometers, before I was back on form. The 37-kilometer mark. It was fine until after the 38km mark, when my left calf had a mild cramp that lasted for less than a second. It felt like a rubberband that hit me lightly. I started walking a little, before running again. Turning into the F1 Pit area, I started walking again as I felt the second warning sign of a cramp. This time, I felt two rubberbad-like hits on my left calf. Fearing the worst, I walked the next 2kilometers. Walking along the building, I had a sense of deja vu. Some time ago, I had a dream of being part of a tour group I was with, at some building where there were lots of shutters with numbers on top of them. One of the shutters was halfway down, similar to what I saw in the dream, along with some music. The atmosphere there was similar, minus the marathon event. I came back to the flier. It's the 41-kilometer mark! I made 2 calls, one to my dad, which happened to be diverted back home(and I found out my brother had just gotten his new bike), and one to my mum, who was already waiting at the finish line since an hour ago. Alright, the last 1.195, I'll give it a sprint. I saw the timer counting away, with the time being 6 hours, 50minutes and 15seconds. I increased my speed, completing the run in 6hours, 50minutes and 28seconds. Physicaly, I felt really bad after that, but mentally, it felt I was at some grand celebration.
Anyways, today was a really bad day. I had 3 near accidents owing to my slow reaction(I wanted very much to cancel the training, but as it was less than 48 hours prior to the training time when I logged into the system, I decided to just go ahead with it. $60 for a session. If they would refund me the cash on the spot, I wouldn't mind cancelling it), all similar to one another. Other vehicles were wanting to enter my lane, but I kept going at constant speed, not noticing them, forcing them to make dangerous moves that could cause a fatal accident. But it was a good experience, although it would be best I did not repeat it again.
School, was a nightmare, when we were informed last minute that part of our plans could not be approved owing to some communication breakdown. Today, my team and I found a class that had the exact opposite gender distribution of one of the classes in our course!
I just hope tomorrow could be a better day. And I still think, the guy who won himself a place in the finals, would be doing the country a great deed by giving it to the girl who was more deserving of the position, but was eliminated for the wrong reasons, though it proves that miracles do happen.
I had yet another weird dream the night before, but it's a little personal to be posted up here. One thing, if that could happen in real life, it would be a miracle.
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