Life is a marathon

Viewpoint Amie Richardson

It was a Sunday night in October when I decided to run my first marathon. I’d eaten too much chocolate, hadn’t run for a week and from the safety of my bed, 42km of off-road high-country terrain between Wanaka and Arrowtown sounded like a doddle. I needed a new challenge and what better way to peel off those last stubborn kilos I’d been wanting to ditch?

I grabbed my credit card, entered the Motatapu Off-Road Marathon online and went back to watching Netflix.

I come from good running stock. My uncle Bill has run hundreds of marathons around the world – some 461 to be exact – to say nothing of the unofficial ones he runs most weekends. My brother Simon came third place in his first-ever marathon and it was he who got my grief-stricken ass out of the house and onto the road three years ago, so surely I’ve picked up something of his skill over those early kilometres.

I also follow a lot of really good runners on Strava, including Kiwi elite runner Mel Aitken, who’ll even respond kindly to my ‘‘fan’’ comments. But sadly, none of this is making my training any easier.

Running a marathon is a mindf .... Uncle Bill, who loves to convert the world to running, once told me that if I could run 5km, I could run 10km and if I could run 10km, I could run a half marathon and then, miraculously, yes, if I could run a half, I could run a full.

While these stirring words have been retold to various people in various ways, it’s only now that I realise that the last time Uncle Bill ran 5km was likely 60 years ago and those leaps between milestones are a little harder than they sound.

Last weekend I ran 37km. It was hard. And it took a really long time. My feet were concrete. I wanted to cry. The endorphins were gone and I spent the last 10km wondering why I was doing it when I hadn’t managed to move any extra kilos and no one really cared about it except me.

I was not built for running, I told myself. I’m probably doing more bad than good. I’ll be the slowest runner on the course. It’ll take me all day. I’ll probably have to get air lifted out. Blah blah blah. Negative. Sore. Exhausted.

Then I saw the boyfriend. Standing at the bottom of the hill opposite our driveway holding a smoothie. He’d probably been there for some time, as I hobbled my final ks to home. He started cheering as though I’d won a race and at that moment, stumbling down the hill towards him, I realised I had.