And I've realized that running is the easy part.
First, my apologies for the delay in updating you on the first race two weeks ago. Here are my dues.
Waking up at 4:30 am, in complete darkness, to be on the start line by 6 am, still in complete darkness with a speck of sunrise on the horizon, I felt that the whole "wake up early, in the dark and cold, why we need to start running so early" part of the race is worse than running 21 kilometres itself.
If you know me, you know I hate waking up early, so this was not an easy one.
But it was part of the deal, and once we were on the way, with my husband and son, it got better.
I knew I was not running for the prize money, but I was really curious how this run would compare to my only previous half-marathon I ran last year.
The first 10 kilometres were faster than I expected, hitting my personal record on 10k by 5 minutes, but you just do what you gotta do, having all the people running around you.
The hardest part was somewhere around kilometre 17, I felt if I stopped to walk for a bit, that would be the end of things (more about kilometre 17 below!), so I pushed through.
Luckily, the last stretch of the run was downhill, so that helped, as did the energy drink on kilometre 19.
Honestly, I was surprised when I learned that I ran the whole race 20 minutes faster than last year, being 6th (out of 36) in my age group, 33rd (out of 179) in women. Satisfaction and pride on my side!
Yay! So officially, I consider this a success and am excited to see what will happen on the second half-marathon in two weeks!
Now, the hard part...
As I said, I thought the two half-marathons would be the hardest part of this project. But I was wrong.
Seems the fundraising itself is harder than running two half-marathons within four weeks.
When I'm running, everything becomes simple. One foot in front of the other. Get to the next kilometre. Keep running.
I block out the people, I block out the competition, I focus on getting to the finish line even when my legs (and mind!) are strongly protesting at kilometre 17...
I wish I could do this with fundraising too, but
I feel the pressure to fundraise the stated goal.
I wonder what the people will think if this fundraising is a flop.
I question myself if this was a stretch and a crazy idea after all.
I wonder if I can really reach people who care and can support my journey.
At kilometre 17, I knew that if I stopped and started walking, it would be much harder to start running again. So I pushed through.
The fundraising feels like its own kilometre 17.
Now, even if I didn't receive any donations for the past 4 weeks, I choose to take the lesson from the first race.
I choose to keep running, even if my whole body wants to just stop, sit and drink water.
As with the race, seeing the race volunteers marking each kilometre with a signpost, whistling and cheering us up, every encouraging message, every reaction, every share and every contribution has reminded me that this isn't a race I'm running alone.
For that, I thank you.
If you'd like to help me get through this fundraising kilometre 17, I'd be incredibly grateful.