83 minutes and 52 seconds is how long it took me to run the 14 kilometres from the City of Sydney out to the Surf at Bondi on the 13th August, 2006.
….
As I stripped off my jeans and shirt that were both 5 sizes larger, I couldn’t help but laugh while concurrently almost crying in front of a friend as I realised that my jeans painlessly slipped off over my shoes with zero effort. To say that this was a year(plus)-long battle would be understimating the influence of my own decision to get serious about getting back into shape and getting my body back to a respectable level.
It was also to teach me a hell of a lot about myself, my friends and the things that are dear to me.
….
My desire to complete the City 2 Surf was borne from a commitment that I made to myself last year when I told myself that I was going to get fit and lose weight. And on this weekend gone past I achieved that goal. It certainly wasn’t a goal easily reached. It was a goal reached by completing changing the way that I look at food, at me as a person, at my training, at my commitments, at my family and at my desire to just be a better man, and to one day be a man that will be there for both his partner and his family.
So 1 year ago I made a commitment to run the City 2 Surf. I made a commitment to get fit. And get fit I did.
What it takes to get fit is to commit mentally to it. To want it, to breathe it and to live it.
Make no mistakes, there are no shortcuts, there are no easy ways out and there is no person who will make you take your sorry ass to that gym when your legs are burning and you’re tired from the long day at work. There’s only you.
There’s only you, the bike, the weights, the sweat, the breathing and that pounding voice in your head that tells you to shut the fuck up and keep moving.
Make no mistake, there’s not a single moment of it that’s easy.
And that’s the part that hurts on your body. I won’t begin to explain the mental anguish of giving up my entire life as I knew it and redirecting that energy to a singular, self-focused, unwavering commitment to anything and everything fitness. For more than 6 months of this journey my friends, family and anything that wasn’t assisting me in losing weight was seen as a detriment.
And pay the price for some of those choices, I have and will only realise as time passes.
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It is the greatest sense of achievement to reach your goals, and I had internally told myself that I could do this run in the 80 minute mark with a fair bit of hard work. After completing it in just under 84 minutes I realise that I took every inch of my mental energy to keep me running up the infamous ‘Heartbreak Hill’, and it takes a shitload more commitment to then turn the final corner of the hill and realise that you have 5 more small hills taunting you to start walking, begging you to give up and not make the final climax before you are greeted by the beauty and serenity of seeing the beach another 2 kilometres away, but so close you can touch it.
It is with the deepest sense in my heart that I give endless thanks to the (literally) thousands of volunteers my thanks for smiling, laughing and generally hard-working individuals giving of their time so generously and so selflessly so that 63,542 men, women and children could get their body mass across that fateful line. One reflects on terrorism, greed, war and hatred yet one can only realise how good this world can be, and how luck we are when 60,000 of us can take our sorry asses outside in the most beautiful of days and punish ourselves in the most idyllic place in the world and call it fun. The sole reason that 63,542 enjoy their day so much is because of the thankless task that those volunteers undertake to make it happen.
But back to it….
How does it feel? It hurts, it really does. Make no mistake, I laboured through the entire run and enjoyed probably 10 minutes where every part of my anatomy wasn’t burning. Your lungs sear and you can literally count the blisters accumulating on your feet while your brain vigilantly tells you that only a fool continues to push themselves while their heartrate is up at the 80% of peak for sustained periods with no other goal than the feeling that you made it, you committed to it and you achieved what millions of other people didn’t do on that day.
I was humbled by the mid-70’s man who ran past me up heartbreak hill (while I was continuing to run and therefore passing a truckload of other runners) like I was standing still, I was further humbled when I made it to 2 kilometres out and I was behind a father and daughter team with dad voraciously encouraging his beautiful girl that the finish line was only 10 minutes away…. she was 9 years old….
To say that those minutes were tough would seriously underestimate the painful, sweat-laden, feet-blistered, mentally and physically exhausted journey that every man, woman and child makes to get their body mass across that finish line. To say that the moment when I crossed the line with my friend wasn’t one of the most enjoyable i’ve had in a long time and reconciled all of that pain, suffering, commitment, sweat, early mornings, late nights, constant dirty clothes, heartache and heavy breathing wouldn’t do it justice.
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To say that my friends who are only very cautiously accepting me back after I essentially disappeared off the face of the earth and are still pissed at me wouldn’t give appropriate justice to how robbed they feel and how much they have been letting me know that being as selfish as I was isn’t always in your best interests. To say that the impact hasn’t been strong on my girlfriend who has tirelessly put up with me while I have pushed my body to dangerously hardworking levels, for the missed dates, missed dinners and missedd drinking opportunities, I have only 80 mins to thank for them.
To understand why I have chosen to punish myself in this fashion will probably be a secret only kept with me….
But sometimes that’s all you have…
