Blog followers from the good old days of my earlier blogging would be familiar with my style of bragging about everything and nothing. I suppose they were addicted to this woman and her daily rants, occasional wisdom and all those nonsense that pop out of my mind daily.
So, yesterday on Mac 6, I ran my first half marathon (HM). All TWENTY ONE KM of it. It was just an insane idea that I signed up one day, sometime in October last year. In fact, I signed up a few more after that eventhough I had not done my first HM.
As usual, when Lilian puts her mind into anything, she will carry it out. And I did. With dignity, lots of endurance and courage. Just imagine at the last few KM my calves where twitching like mad and the legs didnt allow me to run or walk to fast. At every few steps, I had to hang on to the highway rail and stretched.
However, the pain did not deter me and I kept going. All the while cursing and wondering what is the possible worst scenario. You see, I never prepared to get cramps and did not read what I should do. I even smack my leg and said to it, stupid leg, just stop it, will you?
Oh well, during that 3 hours and 30 minutes, I did talk a lot to myself, in my head. I mean, what else can you do beside looking at the tar road, the rails, the lamp posts and etc?
I am not sure what propel me into this crazy world of running lah, zumba la, cycling lah and soon, swimming as well. Maybe it is because I am tired of the mundane life. Maybe I am part man, part woman. Maybe I enjoy fear and pain.
Whatever, I am into it now. With half marathons scheduled even up to November this year, I wont change my life to shopping, taichi and yoga, I suppose. So it will be more cycling, swimming, running and zumba.
Just thinking how lucky I am to have that one person who actually FORCED me into cycling. OK, maybe two of them. The evil one who put the bicycle in front of me, and the other one who kicked my butt to move it, move it.
In the beginning, I was all part of the mob. The Zumba mob who went everywhere together, run Fun Run together and never step out of the boundary. I guess when I was pushed into cycling, where there were no friends, I began to step out of my own.
I recalled when there was a MACC 6KM run, I did not join the Zumba gang but instead ran 6KM around George Town on my own. Then, there was one time when I was doing an 8-KM peace run and I enjoyed cutting thru all the stragglers and want to be ahead of my own time. Some stupid aunty later on bitched behind my back that I kiasu and did not follow the pack but instead overtook everyone. Anti-social wor….
That too I was glad because I would suffocate if I have to be running beside bitchy aunty for the rest of my life. So all these made me take my legs and go further.
Today, I told someone that he has been my greatest motivator. I think one good point about me is I am very generous with my lashing. If I hate you, I will make you know so that you can go play far far and don’t let me see your face. World peace.
But when I appreciate people, I do tell them as well. So yeah, for the rest of this year, I have set my eyes on doing more half marathons. In fact, in this March alone, I have a cycling event on 19 Mac, a triathlon on 27 Mac and another half marathon on 2 April.
My mind is too full of accomplishing all these, I have little space for other things. Including Godly stuffs. But then, like I always assured myself, I make sure I live longer to do Godly works. And like my friend said, Jesus will prefer a fit body at resurrection. Oh well, when I run or do anything extreme, Jesus is my bestie. The night before, the moment before the flag off, the time when I was struggling, Jesus got to run with me because that’s when I would go calling His name.
Like yesterday, at the beginning of the marathon, I did a quick signing of the cross and did my prayers. In the dark. Later on, as I was struggling in the first 2 KM when everyone was chasing the pacers non-stop, I took out a date (kurma) and at that moment, we were passing by a mosque with the azan subuh. LOL, as if on instinct, when you hear such loud azan, so close by, I asked Allah to bless me and my kurma cos I know Nabi Muhammad SAW promoted the kurma (somewhere in the Quran or Hadith or whatever). So yeah, running keeps me close to god, however I see the Divine.