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Marathon : The Debut Experience

by Margaret Gee

I'm walking like Gandhi, talking like Kermit, and thinking like mashed potato. That's how it is when a 41 year old, under-trained, post-modern hippie 'comes down' after completing a 42 kilometre run on the wild side, my first marathon.

Although numerous sedentary friends were saying 'why?' I was saying 'why not?', when less than a year ago my partner and some other veteran mad joggers said 'think about the marathon, you've got what it takes.' Talk's cheap, but a marathon is the toughest thing I've ever done, although I'm sure childbirth, and round the world solo sailing is up there with the pain and pleasure of conquering what was my mini Mount Everest.

In this era of webs, nets, information superhighways, glass ceilings, and sticky floors it's almost organically comforting to pit your body and soul against the road, out there where nature's hand can choose to stroke your face with a balmy breeze, or lash you with bullets of rain, and windy knives. The buzz of being self-propelled, or was it hunting with the pack and running with the wolves, became a new high I hungrily embraced.

I am lucky to count Bryce Courtenay as one of the authors I've published in non-fiction land at least, and he is renowned for saying: 'Dare your genius to walk the wildest unknown way.' Walk, run, hop, skip or crawl, across the line, I was determined to arrive, alive. It was 'death before dishonour' in bitterly cold Canberra on April 14, as my twin sister Christine, and beaming mother cheered me down the home straight.

Bryce, veteran of 30 marathons, with the historic 100th Boston marathon now under his belt, is the golden not so oldie at 62, who runs between 20-32km with our running group each Saturday. We are a mixed bag of about 20 lawyers, doctors, nurses, housewives, and advertising whiz kids, who are driven to turn up at 6am and charge along the Bondi Beach coastline in all weathers, grinning like Labradors with the Sunday roast. I affectionately call it the running mafia. The sense of family, camaraderie, and Nike Networking, or in our case Asics Associating is incredible. Along the way we chat about everything from Proust to pesto, Leningrad to lattes.

And it is the ultimate sense of egalitarianism which is so heartening. Everybody's equal when you're out there in the eye of the storm, or marvelling as Bryce puts it 'at the fingers of God' painting another Turneresque sunrise. Political correctness, and gender gentility hits the dust when a - what is it, a gaggle, brace, herd or skein of runners - takes off to face the dawn.

I live with Brent Waters who's up to his 15th. marathon and is wait-listed for the endorphin methadone program. When he used to blast through the door on Saturday morning and say he'd just run 25-30 kms, I'd sneer and say: 'You’re crazy'. I now realise that repudiating response was undoubtedly envy, resentment and awe.

Sitting there swathed in weekend newspapers, cushioned by cellulite, and onto my third coffee and buttery croissant I secretly wanted to discover the inner amazon, and shed the Vittadini-suited career image, and hot foot my way into a natural and spiritual high. If this all sounds rather blokey, it pays to remember that at least ten percent of long distance runners are women, and each year more are joining in. To date the best marathon time ever recorded for a woman stands at 2.21 run by Norwegian Grete Waitz. The best marathon time for a man is 2.06. Deek's best time was 2.08.13.

But, what is curious is the X factor which makes you go from being a recreational jogger, puttering along doing 5k-10k runs, to the quantum leap of over 70kms a week, and ending up doing the big daddy of running events, the marathon.

For me, obsessed from adolescence with first passing exams then the endless heady goals - journalism, publishing and writing projects, but never anything which could specifically be called a physical challenge, running a marathon became an irresistible wannabe.

Perhaps this flighty dream was triggered by being lucky enough to meet one of the great, sadly late running gurus James F. Fixx, author of the blockbuster, 'The Complete Book Of Running'. In 1980 I was his publicist when he toured Australia for three weeks. The book sold a record breaking 65,000 copies in hardcover, a statistic beaten only by Paul Barry's bestselling biography of Kerry Packer. I was in awe of this marathon man with his ropey legs, gleaming eyes, and a body which belied his middle aged years. He is justifiably credited as playing a serious role in founding the phenomenal running boom which saw thousands of slothful souls hit the streets, engineering the designer running shoe billion dollar business, and spawning dozens of running books, boutiques, everything except a musical.

But just what was it like for me when the big day dawned, and the moment of truth arrived. At seven oclock that inhospitable frosty Canberra morning I had every reason to believe the Gods were angry. I felt as if I had a brick in each lung from a lingering cold, my tummy had B-52's flying around, and my cosy Hyatt kingsize bed beckoned like a hot new lover. I'd coughed like Thomas the Tank Engine all night, slept like a guard dog with one eye cocked to the clock and I wondered for a moment how Gary Gilmore felt before he faced the firing squad all those years ago.

No time for histrionics, running is essentially a basic business, so it was down the hatch with steaming coffee and toast and out the door, geared up and ready for action. At the start the adrenalin was pumping like the space shuttle, anxious female spouses clung to their Michelin men, and lean mean machines darted around gulping Gatorade.

Suddenly a year's intensive training had come to this. Months and months of dawn raids on Bondi beach, multiple massages for aching muscles, carbohydrate loading diets, swatting up marathon books, early nights and interrogating old marathon hands - all behind me now. Now was the hour, as never before. Clustered amongst this motley group of fabulous fitness fanatics I felt as if I had somehow, almost fraudulently, made it into the Olympics. I glowed with pride, and my heart was beating like an operetta as the gun went off. I felt like Pharlap in his first Melbourne Cup, thundering down the straight, nostrils flared, eyes streaming in the cold morning air.

Along with Brent Waters I was with a good natured bunch of running mates, Wayne McCarthy, Matt McCarthy, Roger Rigby, and Graham Butler. We bantered as we bopped along, enjoying our familiar corny conversations, quips and quotes, a necessary distraction from pounding the endless, unforgiving bitumen.

Although long distance running is very much a solo sport, 'real runners' genuinely keep an eye on their running buddies, gently saying 'how's it going?', 'are you okay?', 'don't push yourself too hard' - so you never feel 'left for dead'.

I was tagging along with this elite A team of guys ranging in ages from late 30's to late 50's - men built like water buffalos, with more than 100 marathons between them, including the unimaginably tough South African 'Comrades', the ultimate ultra marathon, hardly a doddle, of 90 kilometres. Roger and Wayne went for it, again, in June. (They both did a very healthy sub ten hours!). They were charging along doing just over 5 minute kilometres, and as the trees and drink stations flashed by I could feel my lungs whistling, and my legs flagging. Just before the 15km mark like a retreating army they disappeared around the bend and out of sight.

Suddenly I was alone staring down the barrel of another 27 kilometres, with lungs like bags of kitty litter, and feeling about as tenacious as a Pomeranian pup. "Deek, Lisa Ondieki, Steve Moneghetti, the Kenyan Kings, the running Gods I had worshipped for a year, they are made of different stuff," I moaned. Mentally I started todive like a submarine questioning how the hell a five foot two, 47 kilo bibliophile came to be slogging along this long and winding road, when I really should have stayed home with another good book, a strong earl grey tea and a doting tortoiseshell cat.

Curse, cringe, whimper and whine was the tantrum tune I danced to, knowing I still had many more marathon mountains to climb before I reached the magical 42km line.

The next thing I did was conjure up a big fat rationalisation as to how I was going to explain to my friends, family and 'the Comrades Commissars' why I had chucked in the run. "I would’ve finished except for my cold, lack of sleep, hadn't trained enough, stomach cramps etc.' These lame excuses had all the impact of cold coffee on my pitiful state, so I thought I'd better 'straighten up and fly right, or regret not giving it another shot forever.

I switched gears and got into what I called 'the running of the bulls' mode, a maniacal full-on charge at the horizon, oblivious to the pain and the enormity of the task, crash or crash through, do or die. Knock the bastard off, isn't that what Ed Hillary said as he reached the summit of Everest? At 20 kms, I was starting to plummet back into the quit zone, and I thought, 'well the rugger bugger strategy didn't work so how about zen and the art of finishing a marathon.'

Years ago I had been a rather evangelical meditator so I conjured up my rusty mantra, blissed out on the autumnal vista of Canberra in it's pre-winter glory, communed with nature, and hoped the chariots of the Gods would wing me to nirvana - the finish line. That cosmic concoction lasted for a good ten kilometres, so with a million blessings to the Maharishi, Buddha and Krishna I mentally ticked the 30km mark, and thought, 'And for your next trick, Margaret!'

At this point I knew I needed more than mantras and a Mars bar to get me home as I had never crossed into 'no man's land', 30 kilometres being the farthest distance I had ever run.

Bryce, my marathon mentor's words rang in my ears like a cracked didgeridoo. "You can always run double whatever you've run'. If you can run ten, you can go to 20, run 20 you're a cinch for 40". 'Hmm, Bryce you know what you can do with your advice," I thought as I strained and stumbled, mystified as to how the hell I was going to crank out another 12 endless, boring, pounding, punishing kilometres. I felt like Scott forging the Antarctic wastelands, Bonington clawing up the summit of Everest, Thesiger staggering across the Empty Quarter, Amelia Earhart beating her wings across the Pacific.

Strangely enough, at that point of no return in the marathon, I realised that I had finally hit upon the WHY of running, and the 'where' no longer mattered. The truly inspiring, sensational 'runner's high' is not just about being stoked on endorphins, it is about feeling deliciously 'insignificant'.

When you run long distances you can actually savour the thrilling anonymity of feeling like an ant tottering across the Gobi desert, a butterfly hovering in the Amazon, or an anemone wafting in the Great Barrier Reef. You feel connected to nature and if you'll pardon the 'new age' palaver, part of the bigger picture. How much you earn, who wins or loses, who's got what and whom, it all seems rather peripheral out there when the wind's in your hair, the sun's in your smile, and your freedom tastes like fresh vanilla icecream.

After this bout of profundity I only had a few kilometres to go, and although my battery was pretty flat, and I felt as if I had a bean bag attached to each foot I ploughed on. On the horizon the War memorial shimmered like the Taj Mahal and I pondered on how my father had slaved on the Burma railway and returned home 4 years later, only 26, bashed, broken and blind, and I thought: "After what he went through, this is child's play."

At this 11th hour, actually it was a rather plodding four hours a guardian angel in the form of 'iron man', and Australian champion masters triathlete, John Turner materialised on the horizon like a mirage on a bicycle. I think he could see that I was 'on the edge' and he became a welcome 'minder' for the last few crucifying kilometres.

As I tried not to be swallowed up by the black snake which yawned at me like an empty elevator shaft, every time I looked down at the road, John hummed 'Summertime', talked about life, love and the universe in a wise and witty way, and before I could say 'Help!' the finish line loomed.

The last thing I heard John whisper to me was: "You did it kid, you're home.' I had a lump in my chest like Ayers Rock and I took off as if I was on fire for the last half kilometre. In minutes I wept across the line and dissolved into the pastiche of faces, and clapping hands. I had finished the task, and lived the dream.