21 kilometres

In long distances you can’t just think about the goal.  You have to live the moment, run one kilometre after another.  You let the sweat toil with neither the goal nor the towel anywhere to be seen.  There are no immediate indulgences, and you have to save up for later.  In the urban life you get indebted if you live beyond your means.  In your running life you get lactic acid.

I was getting absorbed by the occasion, the day was finally arriving.  It’s a Catch-22 situation, you’re happy you’ve got the chance in your hands, but you’re equally aware that you don’t want to squander it.  As dreams, apart from a reason to live, bring with them responsibility.

Mdina.  In my world today all roads lead to the old city.  We start at the place the Order of St John and then we finish to get a medal reminding us of the same order.  But admittedly, while there, the Order was the last thing on my mind.  And silent the city was not as much.  Inside my head, there were so many voices.

The gun went off.  21 kilometres started.

The first kilometre went as planned.  But then, the downward slopes of Rabat to Mtarfa were too shiny not to blind me and just get carried away.  I was feeling good.  As much as a lad just getting his first pay, with notes burning a hole in his pocket.  My mantra of control slipped me when it mattered.

Kilometre after kilometre, feeling fine, rolling down the hills and flat roads.  I forgot, or was confused.  The mind played tricks, and I wasn’t strong enough.

Running is a lifestyle.  And today was a celebration of that life.  But the dj puts on the anthems only when it hots up.

The fifteenth kilometre came.  And with it the very serious hill.  It was time for payback.  The legs were feeling heavy, the breath equally so.  The average pace on my clock was climbing up more than the elevation metre.

Thus, the last kilometres were spent. I had to dig.  I was expecting to have to dig.  But this time I had to dig with my hands rather than my shovel, as I’ve left it behind me in the first part of the race.

There were the last two kilometres.  I should have been now happy that it‘s almost done, but the toll was clouding it all, it was more a case of survival now.

And then in the last hundreds of metres, I finally found something and rushed to the finishing line, salvaging a personal best in the process, stopping the clock at 1:41:19.

The medal was worn, the coach greeted.

I was depleted but then I finally composed myself, with a bitter-sweet feeling of missing the target time but still getting a pb and thus having just finished the best race of my life so far.  And today part of me wants to kick myself.  But then again, while on the day control was lost, my love for running never did, and I feel a better man having completed another 21 kilometres.

Roll over the next training sessions and 10k race.