RSS

28 Jun 2009

Moonshuffling to the end

Where was I? Ahh yes temporarily I had buoyed my spirits with freeze spray, painkillers and tunes! Thus making miles 13 - 17 my fastest to date.  During this time the sun also came up, glistening over the water and twas a lovely site to behold. I was seriously tempted to run into the sea and drown myself stick my toes in the water, but decided that would be a bad idea. So I used my camera phone to snap a few shots and plodded on.
Well I should say it was lovely at first, then it started to get bloody warm! Where was the rain? the clouds? a bloody breeze? Hot, lovely sunshine is all well and good for larking about in the park, but not when one is shuffling power walking like they have never power walked before! Thank goodness I have a sunny disposition, otherwise it would appear that I was a total miserable sod. Sunny disposition in my case was plenty of water, fresh orange slices at mile markers and happy smiling faces (not mine). On approaching mile marker 19, I met up with some girls that I know from the walk the walk forum, so plodded on with them. They were decidedly in better shape than I and were excited to be approaching mile marker 20.

 Supposedly at Mile Marker Twenty a sense of uber calmness and elatedness descends upon you like a thousand angel wings providing a cool breeze. I may of ever so slightly exagerated the wonderment that is mile marker twenty, but it was definitely a woop woop moment for a lot of people. Why not for me? The pain and tiredness due to severe lack of training was screaming in my ear. My nasty inner voice was whispering "You still have 6.2 miles to go! still not just! you lazy sod!", my nasty inner voice is a right sod. Luckily for me,from deep within my being a competitive streak was sparked just ever so slightly at the prospect of keeping up with people.
The last 6.2 miles seem to take an age, heading back into the city of Edinburgh with the sun blazing and seeing all the sights that had been shrouded in darkness hours before. Edinburgh is truly a lovely city surrounded by greeness and beautiful architecture. Of course I was not really paying attention at the time because I was concentraing on putting one foot in front of the other. The cheeriness and enthusiam of the volunteers that are spreadout throughout the course is really a nice boost when you are flagging, even though they lie about how close you are to the next mile marker (cheeky buggers). They might not of actually been lying but boy did one mile feel like ten towrds the end! Oh and the curbs! Stepping up and down curbs is like torture towards the end.
Not sure when it dawned on me that I was actually going to finish the challenge, I think it was only as I recieved my medal, sat on the floor and took off my trainers!

As I sat on the grass with my medal and bare hobbit like feet, I felt like shedding a tear or two but was not sure why. I felt emotional because I had finsihed it , but also because I hadn't had enough faith in myself that I would finish it. My fears were not unfounded, because I had been so poorly prepared for it, with excuses abound from the mumborg to college work.  So after a moment of melancholy I popped my blisters, squirted blister juice in my face (yuck), used the glorious freeze spray and felt at one with the world. Then I tried to stand up.......

13 comments:

  1. I am so very proud of you Claire!!!!! I have never ever done anything like this.. it reminds me of the movie "Run Fatass Run"... ha ha lol.. just saw that movie yesterday to funny.. Good job girl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations on completing the walk and for making me want to vomit with your description of blister juice ;0))

    ReplyDelete
  3. What - pray tell - is this wonderful freeze spray of which you speak? I may have to get me some!

    A big, big, big congratulations to you on finishing the walk! That is a major accomplishment of which you should be proud, especially considering that you didn't think you could do it! Just goes to show that when you put your mind to something, you can tackle it and overcome the obstacles - like blisters!

    Of course, as I'm writing this I'm nursing a blister or two of my own but that's from walking home the other day in my EMS boots which were not made for walking! I'm such a silly sod sometimes!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Congratulations on your walk but also congratulations on a beautiful blog. I remember when you first started and I am really impressed with your blog. I love you header. I wish I could doodle because it really adds something. Wishing you all the best in your counselling career.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Whoop whoop! Well done you! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. You are so incredibly clever! I really admire your moxie because I don't ever remember reaching that far down into myself for anything. You deserve a gold medal!
    ~~~Blessings~~~

    ReplyDelete
  7. Congratulations for finishing! I did a 14km funrun once when I hadn't trained... walked for much of it and BOY was I exhausted at the other end... so I can kinda empathise. You popped your blisters? Ouch!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. My cups runneth over with pride for you Claire....this is a huge accomplishment! But what I wanna know is....how many swear words did you utter under your breath?...

    Are you gonna do it again next year?...if so, I wanna do it with you!

    XOXOXOXO!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. We are celebrating our annual extravaganza of giving the British the boot. Would you consider taking us back if we promise to behave a little better?

    ReplyDelete
  10. My dear, you are to be highly commended indeed! What an astonishing accomplishment!

    My hat is well and truly doffed at you, m'dear.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well done, Claire..a super accomplishment

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congrats Claire.

    Am sure you have got over it now and feet are make on mend

    ReplyDelete