Lessons…

Cands / 3 Comments / April 29th, 2008 / Subscribe via RSS

On Saturday morning, after coughing the whole of Friday night, I scraped myself out of bed heading off to run the Langebaan Marathon in the West Coast National Park.  Taking provisions for the snotty nose and tight chest, I was all set for my 4 hours and 20 minute marathon – or so I thought!!

 

5km’s into the race I knew it was going to be a tough run, not so much with regards to the route which was beautiful, taking you around the Langebaan Lagoon with spectacular views in all directions, but physically my body was just not responding as usual.

 

At 21km’s my iPod died, leaving me in a bit of a panic as to how I was going to drown out the protesting from my body, for another 21km’s.

 

At 30km’s I decided to listen to reason, and pull out the race. 

With my voice on the verge of disappearing and my claustrophobic heart trying to thump its way out of my chest, I walked up to the first car that came past and (quite obnoxiously I might add) asked the driver to turn around and take me to the park gate, and let me use his phone to call my friends to fetch me.

Lucky for me the kind stranger obliged (or he saw my chin quiver and decided he couldn’t do crying, sweaty females at that time of the morning) not only driving me back to the gate, but all the way back to Langebaan where my friends were waiting.

 

This is what I learned from this race:

 

Lesson 1:  Listen to your body when it is shouting NO! (Don’t just turn up the music)

Lesson 2:  Don’t be shy to ask for help when you need it (thanks again Cobus)

Lesson 3:  NEVER, under any circumstance, run when you are not well

Lesson 4:  Don’t lie about how you are feeling, just to get out of any flack from your friends

 

Humbled by the restrictions of my body I promise to listen in the future, and perhaps NOT take 30km’s to decide that I’m not feeling well…

 

 

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