Sunday, October 30, 2011

Energy in a sea of green

The alarm went off at 4:30am...no, not the Kien alarm...the iPhone telling me it was time to get up and moving. It was very hard to fathom that this morning I was going to run 21km when the most I have done during my 5 training runs was 7.85km. This was going to be an exercise in mental toughness, and 72% of me was ready for the challenge.

We got the 6am ferry and was over in Devonport for a spectacular sunrise.


7am - the gun went off and I was still queuing for the port-a-loo. Minutes later I was amongst the wave through Devonport.

The sun streamed from behind us as we made our way toward the city.

As we headed toward the bridge various people were out cheering and motivating and energizing us to move forward.

It's always so special to run across the Auckland Harbour Bridge - 1km to get to the other side. The silly shuffle I did to get up to the top must have looked ridiculous.

No sooner do we get off the bridge and we are doing a climb up Curran St. But once we are coming down it was 5km to the finish.

On Westhaven Drive was the 18km marker, and at this point I needed to summon up every ounce of courage and scrape anything that as left from an already empty tank. I kept telling myself the finish line was just around the corner...just one last stretch around the tank farm and we were home (I always talk in plural to myself when I'm hurting).

I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry at the finish line, but I was afraid I would create a trend. Besides, I had several bananas to eat and a litre of Powerade to drink.

Two hours and thirty minutes - not a blistering pace by anyone's standards, however with all things considered I am just glad I FINISHED.

It is a big ask to have babysitters turn up at 5am, so I am very appreciative Mum & Rod did this for us.

I'm linking this post with other bloggers who have been inspired this week by energy

4 comments:

Sarah @ Catching the Magic said...

Oh wow! Amazing! Well done! I really like the awesome photos combined with your fast paced writing. Thanks for joining in and it sounds like you are quite an inspiration!

Lien H said...

Thanks, Sarah. I'm just glad I made it, and also that I had my trusty iPhone to capture the journey.

LatteJunkie said...

I loved this post! The energy in it was tangible and I am super impressed that you had the extra energy to take photos on the way :)

Thanks for linking up :)

Lien H said...

Thanks, LatteJunkie. It's a cool theme and totally appropriate since the RWC final and the annual Auckland running event.

Since I had my son I've found that if I want to remember anything I have to photograph it ;-)

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