It had been months since my longest run to date (10k) and weeks since my last run altogether. The last run I had done was in Battersea park with my dog, about 3.5k and was a total disaster.
The reason for the very few runs recently was due to a bad knee that wouldn't heal. As a personal trainer and spin Instructor, the number of spin classes I teach a week would explain why my knee wouldn't heal.
A few months back, when my friend Marek asked me to run a 15k in Istanbul with him, I absolutely loved the idea. So we both registered and we both had the best intention to start training for it.
Unfortunately, whilst my reasons for not being able to train were physical, Marek suddenly was dealing with a heartbreak and work kept him busy after hours so the idea of training no longer was appealing.
As a result, he slowly started piling up the pounds, knocking his confidence in the process.
As for me, my body fat also increased due to the lack of training and probably indulging a little too much as I felt sorry for myself.
My trip was booked, so off to Istanbul I went. Marek and I both decided to do the race anyway, even if we just walked it. I thought it could be an awesome way to do the Istanbul sightseeing.
The start line was packed with people of all nationalities. Marek and I were standing there thinking "what the heck are we doing here?"
The Turkish national anthem started playing and Turkish people sang along. This gave me serious goosebumps and suddenly I knew why we were here. Because this is what we do, this is who we are. We'd just lost ourselves a little lately.
And off we went. The adrenaline kicked in and we both had the widest smiles on our faces.
The race started on Bosphorus bridge. We jogged all the way across, taking silly selfies and looking at the outstanding view the bridge had to offer. Once we'd crossed the bridge, I took a look at my Garmin and at this point we'd ran 2k. Have you ever ran 2k that felt like 100m? Me neither. But I can tell you it's a damn good feeling.
At this point Marek decided to walk for a bit, but I carried on and we agreed to meet at the finish line.
The next 1000m were uphill. No, not fun indeed. But what an amazing surprise it was to realise the next 1.5 k was downhill. And by downhill I mean, seriously downhill.
People were flying through it, music was playing loud and people were cheering! At this very moment, there was no where else I had rather been. I felt alive.
However, I had to be reasonable and kept a slower pace compared to everyone else as my knee didn't quite like it as much.
The next few Kilometres went by fairly smoothly. I enjoyed looking around, and spotting rather random things like a man racing in jeans and inappropriate footwear, someone running with his dog, people trying to sell water to runners, or other people completely oblivious there was a race going on, crossing the road just in front of me and looking at me as if I was the one who shouldn't be here. I loved it all. Welcome to Istanbul.
Then Garmin said: 10k.
For a second I thought: "yes, I could walk now". But then I remembered the times I used to run 5k most mornings before work. I remembered how they felt. And even though I had not done one of these runs in a very long time, I tried to focus on how I used to easily do 5k and how 5k is all I had left to do. So I carried on.
At 12K, I felt like dying. But somehow pushed to 13k. When Garmin screamed 13k I wasn't sure whether it was good news or bad news. Because 2k is nothing, but boy was I tired.
The good news was, my knee still had not failed me. So I thought "your legs are still going, you don't have any excuse, you can't stop now."
I kept going.
And finally, the last 500m. I could see the finish line but the desire to walk was much too strong. The last 100m my vision blurred and I felt like I was going to collapse. I didn't care, as long as it was passed the line.
I crossed the line, stopped the Garmin, looked for water, picked up my medal and took a selfie within one minute of crossing the line.
I sat down and sent the selfie to my biggest fan, my mum.
At this point, I was still breathless but the emotion overtook me and my eyes filled with tears.
10 mins later, Marek crossed the line. Wish I had managed to capture him sprinting towards the finish line. Even though he'd not done any running and he wasn't in the best shape of his life, he certainly can run!
He's inspired me from the day I met him and despite the difficulties he is going through today, he still does massively. He ran countless marathons all over the world, and is now into triathlon. His knowledge when it comes to endurance and running technique is incredible.
The day of the race he said I inspire him. I can't explain how I felt.
INSPIRE - BE INSPIRED.
So shall you be running 15k without preparation? Hell yes! (If you're willing to deal with the physical consequences!)
Because it's cleared my mind, it's showed me what I am capable of, it made me proud and it boosted my confidence.
Both Marek and I are back on track now!
Next stop Warsaw half marathon.
