Living the hard earned dream

When dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.  When dreams are lived, life is a bird where wings are flapped and you soar high and high in the fresh air and sees all the green underneath you.  Charmaine Mifsud realised all this for the second time as she finished another marathon, but while she were soaring she didn’t take her wings for granted.

Charmaine, another year, another marathon.  Do you foresee the marathon as an annual event for you?

Yes, for me it is the highlight of my athletic season.

You have had a slower marathon than last year but were still rightly very happy about your performance and overall experience.  Were you expecting from before a slower marathon than last year?

Yes, surely.  I have had some injuries which stopped from training for quite a while, and only started proper training in November.  I am very happy to have started, finished and achieved a respectable time.  42.2km are long and anything might have happened but under the training of our coach I was always in good hands.

During the marathon how much of a boost was it knowing that you’ve already conquered the whole distance before?

The will power and determination were there.  I was trained for such a distance, the next step was trying to keep a constant pace for all those kilometres, but when the body is tired then you don’t know how it will react to such stress. However, my mind was set and I knew at what point of the race I will feel in pieces so I focused on finishing to overcome that moment in the process.

You went through a crisis last year between the 33^rd and 37^th kilometre.  Was there any kind of similar crisis this year?

Yes, I had the same injury as last year.  But this time the timing was later as the pain started from the 37^th kilometre and even though I pushed myself the pace still went down drastically.  My determination of finishing was so high that through the last 100m I sprinted very fast.

Seeing pictures of you at the end you looked to be sprinting to the finishing line?  How much did the finishing line make you forget that you’ve been through 42 kilometres?

That race clock is such a view to behold.  I bet every runner feels over the moon as he sees it.  It means the journey is over and your goal is achieved!  I was in pain for the last 5 kilometres but kept pushing and seeing that finish line was amazing as at the same time I finally saw my son waiting for me to run last 20m together as is our ritual.  It gave me shivers down my spine and I naturally ran as fast as I could.

Now that you had time to analyse everything, what would you change?

There is always lessons to be learned if you want to keep on progressing.  I need to keep my pace more stable rather than fluctuating as was the case in the beginning of the race -  I was a bit too fast and this led me to slow down at the end.

The night of marathon day, as you were probably taking in your achievement, you learnt that you were part of the top Ladies Team in the Malta Marathon?  How much did that make it all even better?

I was extra happy as for the first time Mellieha AC won some kind of Women’s team award in the Malta Marathon.  We managed first place in the full…what more could I ask for?

Finally, how much do you feel Mellieha AC is part of your success?

Nowadays I feel close to these people more than ever.  They are part of my life and my family’s life too.  Our running passion is sky high and there is such a big bond between us all.  I used to run for self-satisfaction, but nowadays I run also for the love of my club as well cause that’s the least I can do to something that gave me so much.  Our coach made all the difference - his philosophy of how to manage our club is something extraordinary and we all believe in him and his strategy. I’m already visualizing next marathon.