Last week Karisia ran the Barcelona marathon, partly to celebrate her birthday and largely to raise money for the Lira Clinic. She did great, raising £1,500.
You can read more on her Justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/karisia.
Here’s her race report…
So last Saturday I set off on the much prepared for and anticipated marathon trip to Barcelona.
Nerves took over. What to eat what to drink, would the hotel make my oats, would I sleep ok, what would the weather be like, would I make it… and so on. What a day (and night) of jitters. Marathon day dawned early (birthday? what birthday?). Up at six, but I knew things were going my way when the hotel obligingly made up my porridge – a girl can run any amount of miles on that stuff. Mmm porridge…
Got to the start with but five mins to go and the crowds of runners raring for off. I felt most out of place, surrounded by furrin men, all leaping and stretching and high fiving each other with their various furrin languages. A magic feeling as the countdown began and Monserrat Caballe and Freddie Mercury belted out Barrrrcelllonnnaaaa and I realised at last that the culmination of those months (ok, only two, but still) of oh so cold and oh so very painful training was here. The race had finally arrived! I had a good bawl.
But no time to bawl, we were off! I decided to stick to the four hour pace setters until the half way point and let the second half dictate itself, so started the race following the balloons at a 10.5km pace. Far too speedy for me until I warmed up, got into the stride, remembered how much I love running.The gyppy hips started giving gyp about an hour in, but I told them to pipe down with a dose of vitamin I. I left the four hour balloons well behind and all was well. The first half passed in a flash; I enjoyed it so much.
Oh that this had continued; I should be so lucky. The need for a loo break left me running the streets looking for an obliging cafe. Once found and made use of, the four hour balloons had overtaken me and my attempts to catch them were in vain. I resigned myself to a 4.15/4.30 time, which seemed no bad thing, given the way my body had started crying for mercy.
Where the first half passed in a flash of enjoyment, the second passed with graphic and painfully crawling slowness. Each kilometre felt like a mile, and by 32km I was all for sitting down by the roadside with a nice cup of tea. I thought I would never manage the last 10km.
But the stubborn Kenyan in me had the last laugh, and the massive £50 per mile raised in sponsorship helped (see the great sum raised on www.justgiving.com/karisia hurrah!). Onwards I crawled, as those four hour balloons inched further and further away, but never quite going out of sight. ‘Never!’ I grunted with each breath out, ‘again!’ I grunted with each breath in. This kept me going as repeating this ballyhoo performance was simply out of the question. At 40km I realised a sub-4 time might still be possible and I tried to dredge up a 2nd (35th?) wind. Sadly ha ha ha none proffered itself, and those last two kilometres watching the seconds tick away my sporting glory were agony… Oh for an out of body experience at that juncture – I certainly felt woozy enough, but no such luck, I was all there, and body was very angry.
But at last we rounded the final corner, and tired Karisia shuffled over the finish line and nigh collapsed as bawling ensued and her body turned to quivering jelly. But not before stopping her stopwatch… at 3 hours, 59 minutes and 29 seconds!
I DID IT!
Thank you for helping me!
