All The Pain and None of the Glory

2 October - Woke up today after a good sleep and was given a good high protein, high fat breakfast by Irina before we headed down to Kosice for the marathon. We first met with the Sestaks including Aunty Maria before I headed into the holding pen for the start. It was a very bright and sunny day, stark contrast to the grey weather we’ve had thus far. We were given what I presume must have been an inspriing speech by the PM (who was also running). The first off the ranks were the inline skaters at 957 before we had our count down and we were off. There was some very inspiring classical music as we headed through the start and made our tour through the city. I was feeling pretty good for the first half (i had a very good time when I passed the 21k mark of about 89m), helped by my large following who I saw at various intervals throughout the race - as I reached the 30k mark I was starting to really feel the impact on my legs as well as the heat (as is pretty normal if Sydney was anything to go by as a yardstick) - I passed my supporters at the 36k mark and was feeling a little delirious but around 37.5 I had a disaster - I was running at a good speed when I fainted, collapsing on the road - I crawled over to a tree and pulled myself up then collapsed again. As I was trying to get up a couple of officials ran up to me and forced me to sit down on a park bench and gave me something to drink. I tried to stand and keep on going but they wouldn't let me - I begged them to at least let me walk but before I knew it an ambulance had arrived and I was being bundled up into it - when I was lying down my head became completely messed up and I think I started to hallucinate a bit - sweat started to pour into my eyes (with contacts) and I was desperate to go to the toilet (no 2 unfortunately) but I had a lot of trouble communicating with the paramedics who didn't speak much English. They blasted the sirens and took me to Kosice hospital (first time in an ambulance so I suppose that was a plus). Whilst I was lying down my legs started to cramp up severely and I had to lift them to try to stretch them out, the nurses and paramedics mistook this for me trying to escape (which, admittedly I wanted to do) and they tried to restrain me. Eventually managed to get them to realise my dire need to go to the toilet (only distance runners actually know how awful going to the toilet is after a long run - everything gets shaken around and it's very painful). I had a slight gash on one knee from my initial fall and they dealt with that pretty early on and I was also given an ECG (in my mental state I thought that they were going to give me electro-shock therapy and it was pretty scary) and a few other tests. Nobody spoke any English and it took a while before they realised I was Australian (for some reason they were convinced I was german). I kept on trying to tell them that my family were waiting for me (indeed they'd ended up going to the polce) but eventually I got them to call irina (which they didn't tell me). They also tried to get me to sign a statement confrming that i'd pay for the ambulance and treatment, I wanted to talk to my insurers first but there was little chance of that. However, someone from the Marathon came so I went with them (also, no english); he took me back towards the finishing line and as we were coming back I recognised Viktor's unruly head in a car leaving - ii managed to stop the car and was reuinited with the fams. They already knew the basics of the story but I had to go to the finish line to drop off my chip so I ended up doing the last few hundred metres of the marathon in my bare feet (my feet were a bit swollen for wearing shoes) and I crossed the line a bit under five hours (admittedly only having run 38k). I didn't want to accept the finishing medal but they insisted and I was approached by one ammazed looking man asking me if i''d done the marathon without shoes, I had to dispel his awe reluctantly. Very disappointing about the run because I couldn't even claim that 'at least I finished' AND I fell over, breaking one of the three cardinal rules. The one thing that made my bruised ego feel better was that I never stopped running (short of one brief toilet break early on) - even when I felt like death I never walked and I ran until I dropped which is a sign that i'd reached my limit that day. And there's no shame in not completing a marathon. However, it also means that i'll have to come back in 2007 because i'm not going to let this track beat me.
Had some pep-talks by everyone around me (including dad - twice!) but pep-talks only ever make one feel worse because they come from pity and afterwds we had a nice late lunch at a Slovak restaurant with the family - was also given a wonderful Siberian pasta dish from Irina that night (am really getting over over-eating so much though by now).
In hindsight i've no idea why I collapsed - i'd done enough training and i'd not had a bender the night before - on the TV the guy who came second said it was the hardest the Kosice Marathon had been for him (the guy who came first was a Kenyan and probably didn't speak slovak) but I don't think there were many others who didn't finish so ... FUCK.