The Day Before...
The suspense and exciting began when we went to pick up our race numbers. Everyone else was late, and I was early, as usual, so I spent some time examining the race route and strategising. The event was being organised by the Youth Sports Centre in La Marsa, and as a waited, a big group of boys came out from registering and we talked a bit about target times, and laughed when we realised that my amazement at their predicted times was because they were actually doing the 5km Fun Run and not the half-marathon.
A nice French man, who was collecting a running number for his daughter also came over. When I told him that I was hoping to finish in 2:30, he laughed and said I would be under two hours. It was then that I put a bit more effort into translating the poster and came to realise that the half marathon was targetted at more "professional runners"... crikey...
My race number was 283, and instead of being given a big pre-race goodie bag full of promotional treats, energy gels, dried pasta, magazines, energy bars, we got 4 safety-pins and a map - nice. Infact this was one of the most charming things about the day - the total no-frills approach to running. And the theme would continue, as you shall see.
So that afternoon I spent some time painting my nails with go-fast tiger stripes, before heading to Penny's for the Pasta Party extravaganza. I ate meatball and pasta until it hurt, and then, feeling confident and sipping water constantly to maintain extreme hydration, I headed home to bed.
Superfast Tiger stripes - who knew I could be so girlie?
All of that hydration and the nerves had me up in the night with frequent bathroom stops, but as a measure of my extreme determination, warrior-like prowess and ninja-style readiness, I can report that on one trip in those early morning hours, I encountered a big-fat cockroach and rather than scream and panic, I stamped on him - crushing his golden brown shell, and went about my business. I run long distance buddy, you really wanna cross me?
Yes, Mum, I was wearing slippers.
Race Morning
I woke up excitedly - adrenaline was kicking in already. I'd made some oats overnight in the fridge, whoffed them down, got my running gear on and went to meet the other girlies. The race organisers had recommended that we arrive 2 hours before the race, we rolled up half an hour before, but that was still plenty of time to get a slight headache from the marching band and catch the end of the hour-long Zumba class that was going on for competitors and their families up on the La Marsa Corniche (serious Tunisia, you out-do yourself daily!).
Pre-race nerves and excitement...
9am loomed, suddenly we were counting down (in Arabic) and I could not believe it when we set off on time! It was a bit weird to be alongside so many other people. I had decided with my homegirls to stick together until 10km, then we would all see how we were doing.
The first 5km were a bit tough, I was so nervous, usually I'm a total chatterbox, but the nerves had my mind all over the place. I kept doing little body checks:
How are my legs? - yep, my legs are okay
How is my tummy? - tummy fine down here, keep going.
Toes? toes? how are you guys? - yep, we're alright, feeling good.
Okay, let's just keep going then.
The first 5k came in a bit slow, none of us have fancy running watches (yet) so we were just relying on watches and timers on iPods and alike, but it was a bit dis-heartening.
From 5-10km the route was easy, we had praticed it many times before, the problem was it was just dull. It was alongside a highway, which was nice because the millions of marshals had stopped all the traffic and lots of families came out and waved to us. At 10km we had a pit-stop. The pit-stops were brilliant, none of the Western energy drinks or sports gels, here we had segments of blood oranges, sugar cubes and raisins.
From 10km we decided to break off a bit, to run at our own paces. I'm running without music. This is because the full Marathon that I want to do in September bans the use of headphones and so I need to practice without them. I don't really mind, but it takes the distraction away a bit and means that you are pretty much in-it the whole way through. 10-15km felt good. I had lots of little mantras that I had been working on. Tunisia has a very special cheesecake shop called Barista which is unlike anything you would ever find in my United Kingdom, and is more on a par with the mighty US with shelves and shelves of different flavoured cheesecakes to help Tunisia along in her majestic quest for a type II diabetes epidemic. We had already been to the cheesecake shop and stocked up - slices and slices of banana & walnut, raspberry, malteasers and salted caramel flavoured cheesecake lay waiting in my friend Lucy's fridge for our triumphant return. So for the hills, my mantra of choice was:
"I am fit and I am strong,
Eating cheesecake later on"
It worked extremely well.
15km was my "happy place". It was marked by a refreshment stand and Le Cap restaurant where I had had my birthday eve dinner, I knew then that there were just 6km to go and that was about 35mins more running and so I told myself, "I can do anything for 35 minutes... 35 minutes is nothing". The 15th km began with a gigantic hill, that as a highway engineer, I do believe must have required a number of departures. Every time I stand at the bottom of it expletives explode for my chest in sheer terror. I don't know where they even come from. I'm sure I don't usually use words like that...
Hill done, I had intended to think of my family and especially my Mum from kilometers 15-20. They were hard, but drawing on my biggest inspirations made it all so much easier. Long distance running is such a headgame your body is screaming at you:
"what are you doing?!! err.. can we stop please?"
And my head would say, "what is it? what do you want? you want water?"
"Nah, I don't need water, feeling pretty hydrated"
"well what then? you need fuel? I can give you a jelly baby?"
"Nah, I'm okay, my tummy kinda hurts, I just wanna stop really"
"sorry team, we can't stop, we're almost there... keep going, I will give you anything"
"I want a gold Berber chain necklace"
"and you shall have one."
"...and matching earrings"
"don't push it now."
At 18km with just 3 to go, I grabbed a cup of water at one of the stops (it was so hot by now) and was delighted to find a big hung of orange inside the cup, lovingly placed by the race marshal. Grateful for the extra sugars, I shoved it in my mouth before checking for pips and choked my way to the 20km mark.
The last km was all through the suburb in which I live. Running past the pharmacy, the external clock was displaying 11:03am and I panicked that my typically British humility at telling everyone "don't even bother showing up until 11:30 - you'll be waiting round for ages", might mean that there was no-one there to cheer us in. Of course my friends knew that I had completely underestimated myself and were there screaming, cheering and complaining about the sun as I rounded the corner to the Corniche and the finish line.
Time was checked in, and I was bundled from person to person, someone put a medal on my neck, I got a t-shirt and a bag of dates, and some water. And it was over, 2:13 minutes by my stopwatch. Wow.
The experience taught me so much. Here are my key outcomes:
- Running is hard. That was hard. The full marathon is going to be hard. But I am harder.
- Don't carry so much stuff - there is loads of support at the stations so you don't need so much fuel.
- Have post-run refreshments ready. We really messed up here - our post run nutrition was all over the place in all the excitement.
- Support is amazing - I saw lots of families out cheering for their runners and it made me so so excited for my full marathon in September when I'm hoping some friends and family will come along. What a boost!
- Pride is intoxicating.
So afterwards we had some gorgeous massages and then had an extremely rich supper of Cumberland sausages and mash, and the gorgeous and well deserved cheesecake, and everyone felt proud and happy and wonderful.
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