Blink and you'll miss it

It is cold as hell when I wake up after 5 hours sleep on Sunday morning. I had to drag myself out form under the toasty warm quilt to change into my running gear. Breakfast was Weetbix, honey, full cream milk and strawberries, chased by a grumpy cigarette.

The road going into the city was packed. So much so that we decided to pull over on the road shoulder and strip down to our running gear, shivering in the cold air. We chucked our stuff in the car and walked to the start point, bitching about the cold every single step of the way. It was about 12 degrees and all I was wearing were little black FBTs and the Campbell’s Soup tee that Miss J had given me. Hungover from too much Diablo and two dinners the night before, the carnival atmosphere nevertheless managed to penetrate the cold, the sleepiness and the general I-am-not-a-morning-person-ness of my mood.

It was a massive crowd. Apparently over 38,000 people had turned up for the run, about 8000 of which were in my category. El, Prata Boy 2 and I fiddled with our laces in the midst of the heaving crowd, nervous energy bleeding through everyone like it was a rock concert. When the signal was given to head off for the start point, we started jogging lightly, following the pack up the hill, warming up, adrenalin starting a slow trickle in our blood. Then we crossed it and the transponders kicked in and we were off.

Everyone told me about the hills. I didn't want to know about the route in advance. I figured it out be too disheartening. The most I’d ever run was 6km at an easy pace. This was 12km on hilly terrain and I was going in cold after zero training and the weight loss from April still showing on my frame. The Raj had pointed out that I had crossed into the underweight category of the BMI the day before. I honestly had doubts about being able to finish the race.

I'll be the one on the stretcher, I told a friend when he asked how he'd find me. Somewhere around the 10km mark. There was a hill right at the start, in the middle, just before the end and right at the end. Whoever planned the race route was the sort of person that kicks puppies and sets fire to churches.

The first 3km went easier than I expected, hill or no hill. It went on forever but we didn't stop, El and I paced each other like we'd done it before. We dodged and weaved and gasped and breathed easier when the incline finally changed to a downslope. We made the first kilometre in about a minute and a half, hill be damned.

My bad ankle started sending pointed messages to my brain around the 3km mark, but I ignored it and tried to focus on the novelty of running through the streets of the city. And by some miracle, maybe because of the sheer energy given off by all the other crazy mad people who got up at the crack of dawn to run 12km just because, you feel like you could do this forever. The running feels like how I imagine horses feel when they run, effortless and natural, like I could do it forever.

Somewhere around the 5km mark, the soles of my feet started to tingle, then hurt as blisters formed. Wrong socks. Soon my entire soles were tingling and urgent telegraphs being sent from my nerves. It was uncomfortable enough that I contemplated stopping, sure which each step that the blisters were tearing open. But stopping so early was unthinkable. I ignored it and then it was another never-ending hill and all I could think about was putting one foot in front of the other. We snarled our way up the second hill through gritted teeth, sheer bloody-mindedness winning out over the incline.

The second-to-worst part is around the 8km mark, when you know you're sort of near the end but far enough so that you're apt to lose that mental struggle against giving up and walking 'just for a breather'. ‘Thank god for El. I probably would have stopped if I was running on my own, but it's amazing how far personal pride can push you. She wouldn't stop because I wouldn't stop because she wouldn't stop.

The worst part is the last 2km. The final hill was almost beyond endurance. By that time, something in my lower right hip felt like it was seizing up and I had to convince my brain that my entire right leg wouldn’t fall off if I kept running. Then the downhill comes but you've still got a kilometre more to go and you feel like you can't suck in enough oxygen and your legs feel like lead and things HURT. And you have to keep running because it's just too damned embarrassing to stop in the final kilmoetre but it's so damn hard to keep going and you feel like you might fall over simply because your legs won't hold you up any more and there are people lining the roads on the final stretch cheering on the runners but you can't really see faces, you're hearing drums and music and you know the finish line has to be somewhere up ahead so in the last 600m you’re sprinting, putting every last ounce of energy into it, and you have eyes for nothing else but the finish.

I crossed it at a full sprint, my muscles screaming, my eyes fixed straight ahead, the muscle in my right hip burning like a brand. When I stopped, suddenly, it felt strange, the cessation of movement. And then I realized that I couldn't walk without limping. It hurt, quite a bit. But I did the whole dammed thing without stopping, without training. And somehow, getting a little dog tag to commemorate participation in a completely pointless exercise in self-torture made me ludicrously happy.

I ran 12km in 1 hour 17 minutes, placed 1074th out of the 2008 people who ran the same route as me in my category. I’m still limping, I still have blisters the size of my thumb and I’m making the most godawful noises when I have to get up from a seated position because something still hurts in my hip. But the rush was worth it.