Story by Laura Lovett

 

A solid 6 month training block in the lead up to the Marathon had me feeling like I had done the hard work. Week in week out the sessions were completed, I followed everything to a tee. Since I started running two years ago a goal of mine was to complete a Marathon. The distance scared the absolute crap out of me, but I knew that if I wanted it bad enough I would make it happen. So that is what we did.

Walking to that start line on Marathon morning was such a surreal feeling, I could not believe that 42.2 km stood before me and I honestly had no idea of how it was going to feel, how I would go or how my nutrition would go down.

 

Once I got past 33 km I knew it was all unknown territory. I was super eager to just start the Marathon I knew that it would all be okay once I got moving, the atmosphere was absolutely insane, standing in my corral alongside the Priority Runners this alone was honestly a pinch me moment.

 

The gun went and off I went. The first 20 km was absolutely incredible, legs felt phenomenal, electrolytes going down perfectly. It was at about 23km where I felt my first little dip, legs started to fatigue which I knew was okay, positive talk was massive for me and i knew I just had to mentally switch on and just go with it. Which is what I did. I kept the legs ticking over.

 

30 km my gels were not going down easily at all, I started to bring up what was going down, which was not ideal. So basically, from 33 km onwards I had no nutrition. I suffered a major quad cramp that would not disappear but I just had to keep moving, pace was dropping and I knew that from this point on I just wanted to finish and that alone would be a PB as it was my first marathon.

 

I remember thinking just get to that home stretch, so I kept just picking people off, and there I saw the finish chute, tears ran down my face, so many emotions I could not believe that I had just completed the marathon in 3hrs 16 mins.

It wasn’t the time I had in mind but honestly it was such a huge achievement. This race taught me that I am strong and capable of absolutely anything that I set my mind to. And that I am not one to give up when things get hard. I am not done yet. Watch this space, she will be back!!!