ahm

Someone told me last week that the last 3 km of the army half-marathon are the hardest. He was right.

The run started at 6, and it was enjoyable enough at the start. I was feeling pretty fine, just pounding the pavement and the road, inching my way to the finish line. It was all very comfortable, being part of a crowd, having a nice long jog this sunday morning.

I remember thinking, when I reached the 16km marker,'Man, this is the furthest I've ever run in my life. And I'm still doing fine. I'm still overtaking people, more than getting overtaken.'

But at the 18km mark I began to feel hungry. And tired. It wasn't a gradual thing; no, it was a sudden realization that there was a gnawing emptiness in me, that I was literally running out of fuel. And as soon as I realised this my leg muscles started calling in to complain about being overworked. From enjoying a carefree run, I began to face a mounting pile of problems.

If you've seen the gatorade advert, the one where an athlete is running with a parachute in tow, then you roughly know my situation. When your muscles get fatigued, it may seem that you're doing the same work, but somehow, there just isn't as much performance. Only more fatigue. That's when your physical ability no longer matters, and all that counts is your mental strength (I may not have a lot of that, but in this case it was enough).

Eventually I finished the whole run in about 2hr 10 mins. Not exactly stellar, but not too bad considering the amount of training I had for it (almost nil). It was a pretty fun learning experience, when I look back. After all, I didn't even get cramps. That's always something to be happy about, isn't it?