My Journey With Weight Loss – I Friggin’ Did It!

The alarm went off at 4:20 this morning. I wanted to be up early so that I could have a good breakfast as it was race day. We left the house at 5:45am to drive to UBC giving ourselves a lot of time to get to the race and for me to get settled in before it started at 7:30am. It was a good thing we did that since many of the roads were closed to allow for the race.

The first thing I noticed as runners started arriving was the diversity of the crowd. There were people of all ages and sizes, there were people representing pretty much every cultural group however, the one thing we had in common was that we were going to run. I spent my warm up time walking around and looking at all the different people including things like how they were dressed or what they were doing to warm up. Many people I saw recognized others in the crowd of about 3,000 as this is a community of runners. For me, just figuring out where I need to be to start the race and my ability to finish it made me nervous.

I learned that you are placed in coloured ‘corrals’ based on your estimated finish time. The first corral was of course for the elite athletes, I, naturally, was in the last corral because I had registered with no hopes of finishing in under 3 hours. For my group we ended up starting the race at the 5 minute mark meaning all the other corrals had left before us.

As I started I quickly fell to the very back of the pack. I was ok with this as I was determined to run at a pace that was comfortable for me. I had long since settle on the fact that I may finish last but that finishing was the most important part of the race. By time we hit the 5k mark which is where you looped back along the route there were tons of people who had already dropped back to a walk as they did fall into the trap of trying to run at a pace they weren’t used to. That is when I started passing a few people.

I have to say one of the things I enjoyed most was throughout the route were the words of encouragement from volunteers or even just bystanders watching the race. My husband started off encouraging me by being just past the start of the race holding a sign saying ‘you got this’ while ringing a cow bell. Some of my favourite comments include a volunteer shouting out ‘if this was easy everyone would be doing it’ or as I was running up an incline in kilometer 15 a volunteer at the peak shouting ‘this is the hardest part, it gets better from here.’ Other favourites include the pipe band and the nice lady at kilometer 14 shouting out ‘you’re 2/3 of the way there and you look beautiful’. All of those words of encouragement kept me going.

When I hit kilometer 18 I realized that I was about to run farther than I ever had. I had told people along the route that what I lack in speed I make up for with endurance and determination and I really did mean that. But, hitting the 18 mark I was getting tired. Interestingly those last 3 kilometers provided the most amount of encouragement not just from the volunteers but also from other runners who had finished the race shouting you ‘you’re almost there, you’ve got this. Still, I was labouring at this point but I just so wanted to be able to say I had run the entire course without stopping.

Finally I saw it, the kilometer 20 sign and I realized I was so close to the finish. Eventually I got to the point where you turned for the last little bit before crossing the finish line and a volunteer ran beside me saying turn at that top pylon and then sprint to the finish. What? are you flippin’ nuts? He told me I just had to do it, show them how strong you are. So I made that last turn and pushed it for all I had in me. Very quickly I knew I could do it because there he was, my husband so excited to see me cross that finish line. Even now as I am typing this I am crying a little because it meant so much to me to see the pride on his face. Then I heard the announcer, Gwenne Farrell has crossed the finish line while the next thing I knew they were putting a medal on me.

I did it! 21.1k in a time of 3 hours 18 minutes. Best of all for me is I was not the last person to finish this race (though I acknowledge there were not a lot of people coming in behind me). Who would have thought 18 months ago when I just wanted to be able to run 10k that today I would more than double that.

I do want to note that yes, I am moving a bit slowly right now but that is ok. I have hydrated quite a bit and had a big lunch. Now I plan on sitting on my deck for the rest of the afternoon perhaps enjoying some wine and just reflecting on how this formerly short, fat chick just ran a 1/2 marathon.