Berita Basi: THE DAY I RAN MY FIRST FULL MARATHON

Believe it or not, it took me almost 9 months trying to finish summarizing my experience of running my first ever full marathon.

Okay, maybe the first 8.5 months were just filled with pure procrastination.

Which is why I’ve decided to just sit here, nail this damn blogpost down and spill whatever comes to my mind about that day, regardless of whether it makes much sense or not. I just wanted a record of it, for my own sake, even if I can’t translate my feelings into words in any language. Just assume that whatever you get from what I write, it is like one of those sachets of powdered juice that have had way too much water added to it. The reality is an undetermined number of times stronger than what I can describe.


Well this particular race certainly went right up to the list of the biggest achievements in Eliana Anuar's life. (Oh shut up, it was kind of like a big deal to me).

My Lucky Number

I’ve been asked “how’d it go?” a lot for weeks after I completed the race. Possibly the hardest question I’ve been asked in a long time (since I no longer have to solve trigonometric equations after high school, probably). I don’t know lah guys. I wanted to say “it went great” because I finished but I also want to tell you about how I had moments of pain (physical and mental) that I thought would be beyond my abilities to overcome (so, in that sense, not so great). It was horrible and amazing and painful and joyful and brilliant and terrifying and exhausting and energising and every other adjective in the Oxford English Dictionary. It was like a whole lot of emotions that you’re supposed to feel over a long period of time (days, months, years) all condensed in a few hours. I laughed, I cried, I felt worried, relaxed, tired, distracted, focused, happy, sad, and all the other emotions in between. I took my body and my mind to a limit that I wasn’t sure they could take it and I crushed the voice in my head that kept telling me to stop. That I didn’t have to do that. That no one needed to choose to be in pain. That I could just go to a bakery and go sit in a nice cafe with a book while having coffee and a slice of cake. That’s what I wanted, a slice of cake. Why the hell was I not sitting down enjoying my cake? Because I wanted to be a marathoner more than I wanted to have a cake (and that’s saying something because I really freaking love cakes).

I won’t lie to you: I was scared shitless that morning. Just freaking terrified. Thank goodness for the support from experienced marathoner friends who were also there with me that morning.

From L-R: Hatta, Ezra and Yusnor

There we were at the starting line of the Penang Bridge International Marathon....

As I was anxiously waiting for the Women's Open category flag-off at 1.45am, the sky was still pitch black (duh, obviously) and the chilly midnight breeze topped with the nerve-wrecking thought of the 42km ahead certainly didn't help at all. That was it right there – the culmination of months and months of training, hours of running in the middle of nowhere, long group chats about what the hell we were getting ourselves into.

We counted down from 10 and, just like that.... we were off onto running the World's Longest Bridge Marathon!

A couple of hours into the run, I gradually switched from taking it one step at a time to one kilometer at a time. I told myself to re-assess the knee pain at every kilometer marker and gave myself permission to give up if I thought I was causing permanent damage. “There’ll be more marathons,” I thought. But there was also this one, right now, and I was mentally strong like I hadn’t been before and I didn’t want to waste that. 

So every kilometer marked the decision to run one more. And then one more. And then one more. At 35km, I had 7km to go. I told myself that 7km was something I could do before breakfast so there would be really no excuse to give up now. I bargained with myself “5km to go and we can worry about the knee again”. And then there were 5km to go. I kept switching between running and walking and making quick stops to stretch my legs along the way. The extra pressure caused by the knee pain was getting the rest of my body extra tired too. During one of my walking intervals, I decided to record a video of myself, just to see how retarded do I look like after running 30+ kilometres:

"Ummm.. we're at kilometre 35, i don't know if you can see that. Yeah? Umm, as you can see the sun is already upppp! Soooo yeahhh... I am.. umm.. pretty much dying here.."

I was exhausted, drained out. I wanted it done. I started thinking about the things I’d been told by people who’d done this before. But boy, I was completely knackered. And not the “that was a tough day at work” kind of knackered, more like the “I just want to sit here and not move forever” kind. I needed something to motivate me to keep going. So I took the tough love approach with myself and thought about how I really shouldn’t be such a wuss. I got emotional in a sappy gooey way. I thought about my life and how truly wonderful it is; like how I have a job, got offered to continue my postgraduate study, have my health and my family and friends, and how I get to travel and explore the world and do the things I had always wished for... yadda yadda yadda. And so I kept moving, my brain in a puddle, thinking about how I could have it so much harder and this was nothing compared to what other people go through. “Smile through the pain” got replaced with “stop being such a freaking baby”, which I said out loud a couple of times.

As I was busy working my way out of those bad thoughts, I spotted the 40km marker. That was all I needed to see. For some reason, 40 seems like a much bigger number than 39. I had run 20+ kilometers before this race but I had never reached 40 in my life. I had a “holy shit, these legs just did 40 kilometres on their own!” moment right away. Only 2 tiny little kilometers to go. I was happy.

And so I ran. And ran. And ran. I turned down the final bend at the end of the Penang Bridge to see the finish line, right at the end. I wanted to walk a few steps, my knee was complaining again. I walked maybe five steps and a girl came up from behind and told me to keep pushing through. So I did.

Not too long after that, I looked ahead and there it was, in the distance: “FINISH” in big bold font. There’s no giving up now. I ran with the happiest strides in my life towards that finish line, could not have stopped smiling if I had tried, my mind in a mess of emotions, barely able to believe I was going to be allowed to stop.

Maybe one day I’ll get to a point where marathons aren’t such a huge deal. This one was my very first one, though, and it’ll forever have a special place in my heart. It was the first time I realised I could do it. The girl who hated track running in school, had just become a marathoner.

A friend told me a couple of days before, that completing the distance will take me on to discover an overwhelming sense of possibility, like nothing could stop me from doing whatever I wanted. That stupid knee couldn’t stop me and neither could exhaustion... so I guess he may very well have a point. Ever since I crossed that finish line many many months ago, I’ve been the happiest runner I’d been in a long time. Feeling proud of myself is sort of a rare thing for me, because I’m one of those “too hard on myself” types and always think I could have done better. On that day, however, I left my heart on those roads and now I’m just enjoying this weird feeling of complete satisfaction.

Le medal. (And boy, that Pace-Tat thing is the shiznit!)

 It’s been over half a year now and I’m still in that state of wonder about it. It still amazes me that I managed to run that far in about 6 hours, since I’ve been surviving on a diet of cheese cake, nasi lemak and iced coffee.

Since that moment on, I can officially call myself a MARATHONER, part of one of the most special tribes in the world. And no matter what I do with myself in the future, I’ll always be one of them. I think this is what they call life-changing.

And no, no Ultra Marathons for me.

OKBYE.

Post race. Happy smiles, positive vibes all around! #KVRC