26.2 reasons (My first marathon experience)
my first marathon story goes here…I am goal oriented. I push myself to test my limits and I see what I can achieve. I was not always like that. As child I was timid and quiet. I was taught that good girls behave and don’t talk out of turn. Good girls do as they are told and good girls do not aspire beyond what is in front of them. Be humble, be meek, be silent and unseen.
I never tried because I was not expected to succeed but I was also told I must not fail. That was the message. A losing proposition.
When I left home to go to university, I met others who were never given the cage I lived in. They dreamed big, pursued goals and lived their potential and failure was only a lesson, not the final exam. I marvelled at their bigness. Could I do that too? I started to set goals for myself but not having the mindset or experience of how to fail well, I failed miserably. I failed at sports (injuries), I failed at school (stopped trying when things got hard), and I failed at relationships (didn’t know my boundaries). I failed at life and was miserable.
When you fall hard you have two choices, stay down or get up. I chose to get up. I went back to do remedial courses, I signed up for exercise classes, I got better with making friends before boyfriends. And then I started setting goals. Study one more chapter, run one more km, try one more time. And when I failed, I failed well and recovered well.
By the time I was in my mid-thirties I had started running half marathons as a personal goal. I loved them. They challenged me and the only failure was not crossing the start line. Every finish was a goal achieved. I don’t even remember when or how I decided I wanted to train for a marathon. It popped into my head, this is the biggest challenge you have taken on. At this time the farthest I had run was 22 km and the thought of running 42 km was daunting. I started to research training programs and quickly realized I needed help. By this time I was already working with a personal trainer on weights and cardio but marathon training was not something he was ready to take on with me. I found a running coach (a friend who was a trainer) and she helped me break down drills and endurance runs and hill training. I was doing great! Runs three times a week, lifting weights twice a week, and everything was in place, until it wasn’t.
On my 30km I broke down. I doubted myself. How can I go another 12km? I can’ t even imagine going another 5 km. I struggled. I beat myself up for not being stronger and fitter. At that moment I thought about giving up and not showing up to the marathon. I wanted to quit. And sometimes when you are at your lowest, a guardian angel reaches out to you and reminds you of your potential.
So I post regularly on IG stories and had posted my run and how hard I struggled with it. And that is where the message popped up. “You are very much capable of achieving this goal.” There it was. A stranger, a follower reaching out to me. Someone who recognized the mental struggle that I was fighting. No doling out unsolicited advice on eating habits, losing weight, or running more or trying harder. The message was just simply, marathons are hard, why do you think few have done them? It’s going to suck at times but if you stick with it and cross that finish line you will feel amazing and YOU WILL ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL! I cried at reading the messages. In the online world where everyone is ego all day all night and judging me on my physique, here was an elite athlete reaching out to me sharing his personal experience with his marathon training and the mental toughness he learned. He understood exactly where I was mentally and believed in my physical ability where I doubted it. That was it. He believed in me, where I did not. I cried. I thanked him for his kind words of encouragement, and I cried. His message was what I needed to hear. You never know who is watching you and you never know who is inspired by you or who believes in you. You might be lucky enough for someone to tell you but if you don’t, still stick to your guns anyways. Goals are supposed to be hard, just like marathons. If they were not hard, we would not grow and learn to overcome them. Life is a marathon and you only get to the finish by taking one step at a time!