by Vanessa Harris 

About six weeks ago I agreed to run a half-marathon. The conversation went more or less like this,
“Hey Vanessa, how are you? I like to run,” friend says.
“Me, too,” I reply.
“Well, there is a half-marathon in a few weeks that I plan to run in.”
“Oooooh, that sounds fun. I would like to do that, too,” I say, off-handedly.
“Okay, I will sign you up and we can start training.”

I should preface the rest of my account by saying that I am not the athlete in the family. I am the smart one and my sister the athletic one. Of course, there is some overlap, my sister is pretty sharp, and I do think curling is exciting. One of my dad’s favourite ‘Vanessa quote’ is from when I was seven- or eight-years-old and my dad was at one of my soccer games. I usually played keeper because I did not like to chase the ball, but this day I was playing forward. From the sidelines, my dad shouts, “Vanessa! Get in the game!” Genuinely puzzled, I shouted back, “I am in the game!” as if my dad did not know where I was. All the parents buckled over in laughter at my dad’s attempt to encourage me.

Fast forward sixteen or seventeen years later, I live in Madrid. Between teaching myself Spanish and maintaining a healthy appetite for all-night house music sessions, I decided to take up running. Just to break up the monotony in my boring, stale life, you know. In the past year and a half of Spanish living, I started to consider myself somewhat of a runner. I run 60 minutes to two hours, four or five days per week. I realized shortly after collapsing at the finish line that my 60-minute sessions were more akin to leisurely strolls in the (Retiro) park watching couples make out in the grass or chatting with the camerero when I get a glass of water. My training in the run-up to the half-marathon included many days like the one mentioned and two “proofs” my friend translated from Spanish, to mean “tests”. These two tests were 10 kilometers each and we ran them in 52 minutes and 48 minutes. My friend assured me that I would be able to run the half-marathon distance. I shrugged and said, “Okay”. I had no idea. I hear most people train at least three months before undertaking the challenge.

A half-marathon is 21,097.5 metres, or 13.1 miles. All the “real” runners out there are sneering at this right now because they know that a half marathon is merely 21,097.5 metres short of a “real” marathon. My marathon started out in much the way most Spanish events begin: very festive with plenty of whooping, hollering, singing, and shouting. The only difference was that I supposed none of the revellers were drunk. Myself, I was a bit hung over. My roommate told me not to sabotage my performance but I couldn’t resist a couple of gin and tonics on a beautiful Saturday evening on a La Latina terraza the night before. I thought, just a little to calm my nerves. At the 17th kilometre, around Charmartín, I could feel the alcohol burning a hole in my stomach. A pre-run night-out-on-the-town is not recommended.

Back at the start, as we moved along Calle Santa Engracia, the revelry continued through the first and second kilometres until the ‘get-the-hell-out-of-my-way-slowpoke!’ runners started to separate themselves from the ‘what-the-hell-I-am-doing-here?’ runners. I was, of course, of the latter mentality. My elation at having begun my first half-marathon was beginning to fade and I was looking around at older women and overweight men whose pace I was joining. Good for them I thought. They’re out here, they’re getting some exercise. But why can’t I go faster!

Still, the entire race was exciting. It is something else to push your body to the limits: to feel aches and pains in your body that you never knew could be felt. I never stopped. I wanted to, very badly, but if I did, I knew the adrenaline would cease to flow and I might succumb to the serious pains I was starting to feel creep up my right leg as we rounded Plaza de Castilla. If there were highs points during the course, they were surely grabbing the water from the volunteers’ hands. I always liked that when I watched it on television. The runner coming toward the water station, taking the cup, drinking the water, throwing the cup, all while trying to maintain his pace.

The same goes for Formula One. The driver enters the pit, the guys scramble to change the tires, the flag is raised and the car shoots off. I watch carefully, secretly hoping that the car will lurch ahead before the flag is fully raised and someone will get clipped. Seconds count, man!

Possibly feeling guilty for having gotten me into this mess, my running partner (a far, far better runner than me) was trying to make the race as easy as possible. He told me at which kilometre we were and what sort of elevation increase or decrease to expect in order to pace myself. He did this by tilting his hand up or down. I usually had my headphones on so I did not hear. But I knew he was there, looking out. At the first station, he told me he was going to get my water. Grabbing water was my thing. Apart from finishing, it was something I was looking forward to doing. I said, “No, no, I want to grab the water!” Anyway, the volunteer looked so eager to give this water away, I could not wait to oblige.

Finally, after three watering stations at the 5th, 10th, and 15th kilometre I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I knew we were getting closer to the end because those who had already finished were beginning to dot the sidewalks in thicker upon thicker crowds. I tried to let the cheering and clapping motivate me to pick up the pace but my legs felt like lead weights were holding them down. And, two toes had gone numb around the 19th kilometre so ever third step was a double-step because I could not put pressure on the toes of my left foot. My goal was to finish without stopping. I accomplished that. The second, which will have to wait until the next half-marathon, was to run a sub-two-hour race.

Around 2:19:20 I begin to cruise down Calle Bravo Murillo at high speed because I can see the inflated yellow tube that had marked the beginning of the journey blowing in the wind. I kick up my pace. I hurtle my upper body over the line as if I were an Olympic champion in the 100-meter dash and seven one-thousandths of a second are really going to count. The man next to me does not stop; it is not the finish. I still had about another 200 or 300 hundred meters. The organizers had tucked the “real” finish around the corner, out of sight. Casi I whispered to myself, crushed. I remembered DJ Tiesto’s “High Glow” had begun to play a few minutes back when I was thinking about Rock in Rio and the closing Tiesto set I was going to witness at the end of the festival. But at 2:19:40—20 seconds shy of finishing—I couldn’t hear, feel or think anything. One last sprint that came from who knows where and it was over. “High Glow” came back into my ear, adrenaline surging.

It was my first half-marathon–my first race for that matter, and I can’t wait to do it again.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Features, Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.