When I toyed with the idea of running Melbourne
back in June, honestly it stemmed from the slight bummerama aftertaste from
missing my second sweet n’ sublime sub-5 finish by a mere, cruel 29 seconds at
the immensely gorgeous Vancouver Marathon in May.
Started training using a brand-new 18-week
programme in late June, which had me doing 4 runs—Tuesday intervals,
Thursday tempos, and a mix of a shorter LSD plus a longer one on Saturday and
Sunday—and 2 CrossFit sessions weekly with only one day of rest on Wednesdays.
This may sound like a LOT on paper, but two
weeks into it I got into the groove and really enjoyed training even though
some days felt like I was dragging a dead body along in my running gear.
Anyway, the weekend before Ramadhan I did a
hilly 12K night race with a fever in my system and whaddya know… This stressed
my muscles so much that I somehow picked up an injury on my upper left leg.
 |
| That's what my weekly running log looked like—absolutely zero runs from 1st to 24th August |
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| My monthly totals. I logged 147K in September (not visible in this shot) + 185K in October 2011, the two months leading up to NYC'11 in November. And earlier this year, I did 107K in March + 185K in April, the two months leading up to Vancouver'12 in May. A very sad contrast to August and September this year, before Melbourne'12 in October. |
Rested for three days before cramming three
runs in three days after that, my version of a big bang before welcoming the
first day of the fasting month. The pain in my adductor and hamstring had, by
this time, moved to my left quads and I decided to rest further.
But us runners can never be held down, not even
with an injury. I continued my training the following week, just running
through the pain. This was a-okay at first, but after two weeks the soreness
had intensified and my physio demanded me to cease my running.
What was supposed to be a week-long rest eventually
became a three-week hiatus just two months before the marathon and I was
crushed. Bummerama slowly crept back into my mental, and my morale hit rock
bottom.
There goes my dream of a 4:30-ish finish.
Heck, I wasn’t even sure that I could even complete
the whole 26.2 miles.
At this point, I was cursing at myself for
signing up.
~*~
It was the eve of the Melbourne Marathon. As I
gathered all my chosen ammunitions for the impending “battle” the following
day, I thought to myself, “What the heck am I doing? My head is heavy, my nose
is runny, my body temperature is higher than normal.
Gee, as if the three-week absence from running in August wasn’t challenge enough. Hmm, let’s bring along the spare 21K bib
that I have… just in case.”
 |
| Still can't believe I managed to brainwash Azhar aka Superhuman to do an on-the-spot registration for the Full Marathon during racepack collection ;) |
 |
| My acclimatisation run in Melbourne at the gorgeous Koonung Creek Trail. Little did I know that I was gonna pick up a flu bug that night, just 50 hours before flagoff :/ |
After everything was all packed, I downed some
flu meds with Berocca and went to bed. Not unlike other nights before a race, I
could not get a decent shut-eye and the next thing I knew, it was time to get
up.
It was a chilly morning, and slight drizzles
greeted us outside the door. Thankfully, the sky cleared up once we approached
the Melbourne Cricket Ground aka The ‘G, the location of bag dropoff and, more
importantly, our finishing gantry.
I felt surprisingly calm that morning, and
tried my best to reassure Mini that she’d do alright in her very first
cold-weather race. Made sure I went to the loo en route to the starting line—always
good to get this out of the way before flagoff. While waiting for the start I did my stretches
thoroughly from head to toe, making sure that all the muscles in my body were thoroughly warmed up; something I had never done properly in my last five
Marathons.
Before we knew it, “Advance Australia Fair” was
being sung and off we went shortly after, along with about 7,000 other 42K
contenders (turns out that Mini and I were part of history; with 6,218
finishers, the 2012 Medibank Melbourne Marathon is the largest in Australia to
date!)
~*~
Coming up:
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