The Balkan Yankee

Crossing the finish, originally uploaded by garthwalker.

On Sunday morning I woke up at 6:30am, dressed, and ate a light breakfast before stepping out into the rain and wind to walk 4 blocks from our hotel to Princes St. where the Marathon would begin. People were already gathering on the streets by 8am looking wirey and nervous like greyhounds an hour before the race began. Many where running back and forth up and down the street as if not knowing what else to do. Run. Run. I stood under a dry ledge and stretched.

The race started on time and the adrenaline was pumping immediately. The first 5 miles flew by, and by this time the race had reached the coast and the next 10 miles progressed head into the wind along the beach, complete with velocious sand biting at every exposed area of flesh.

By the 18th mile the sun was emerging from the clouds, and my feet had taken nearly 3 hours of pounding on the pavement. The course had made a U-turn and was now backtracking towards Edinburgh. The wind was now at my back at least, and it was encouraging to see the runners still coming in the other direction several miles behind me. I was well past the half way point, and I began feeling swells of emotion because I knew I was going to be able to finish.

Somewhere near mile 20 a man in front of me stopped and hunched himself over to vomit several times. Many people were struggling, some almost flailing their limbs in desperate struggle to continue and still more beginning to walk. It was clearly a struggle for everyone me included, and I just tried to stay focused on keeping my pace. The course was scattered with spectators cheering encouragement and there were more and more of them as each mile marker passed, and I could feel myself lifting my knees higher and running faster as they clapped. It was a huge rush.

The last 3 miles were emotionally overwhelming, as I KNEW that my body wasn’t going to give up on me. I crossed the finish line with the clock at under 4:30:00, and my official race time was published here.

4:22:53, #2305 out of 3562 runners who completed the full course.

I also managed to raise over $500.00 for breast cancer research, and you can still donate by visiting http://www.justinggiving.com/garthwalker.

24km route, originally uploaded by garthwalker.

This is the route we took for our sunday run.

Damn, my feet hurt., originally uploaded by garthwalker.

I just passed the 300 kilometer mark with my training last Sunday with a 24km run out in the country side surrounding Sofia with my roomate, who is not running the marathon, but happily torturing himself at my side in my preparation. It was just under 2 and a half hours of continuous running, and it is now at the point where I can say that it is becoming a true test of will. The last 4 kilometers of this run were just beating on my bruised and blistered feet. Its also highlighting how careful and refined nutrition are extremely important. I’m running a 32km run this weekend, the longest my training regime calls for prior to the 43km marathon. Click on my justgiving.com link on the sidebar to the right if you’d like to support my run. My charity is in support of breast cancer research.

all runs, originally uploaded by garthwalker.

I’ve been using Nike+ with my iPod to keep track of my training distances and running times. So far, I’ve logged over 100km (which should probably be more) but it is still an important milestone. This chart shows all my workouts with the Nike+ and their distances up to date.

There are some really neat graphing tools you can use to evaluate your training when you use the system, and as I get furthur along I’ll share some more of them here.

A few months ago I started thinking about running a marathon. As I slowly became more serious about the idea, I began looking into different events and charities that I could get behind.

My mother and her two sisters are all fortunate survivors of breast cancer, and I decided that I wanted to run for a charity that was involved in breast cancer research.

Breast Cancer Campaign is a UK based medical research charity which funds research into better treatment and diagnosis of breast cancer. This type of research aims to find new breakthroughs in preventing the disease, and may even lead to eventually finding a cure.

I am now officially on the ballot for the Edinburgh Marathon in May of 2007. My goal is to finish the marathon in 4 hours, so that gives me almost 4 months to train and raise as much money as I can to help fight breast cancer.

I owe tremendous gratitude to everyone who digs deep and supports me in what I know is going to be a great challenge. Knowing that you are behind me will certainly help me to make it through the last painful miles.

You can click here to make a secure donation online. I’ll also start start including updates here on my training as it progresses for anyone who is interested in following along.