Musings 1.6

“Keep going! You’re almost there!” - Sydney Marathon Support Crew

As you may or may not have gathered, I ran the Sydney Marathon over the weekend which was quite the experience! Any marathon is going to be a pretty big ordeal for anyone who chooses to participate but this year the Sydney Marathon was made far more difficult with the addition of 30+ degree weather.

It’s often said that the hardest part of running a marathon is just making it to the start line but I think this is one of the rare cases where the elements on the day made it a more difficult proposition than the 3+ months of training leading up to it. So it’s safe to say that a vast majority of the 17,000 starters would have needed their fair share of encouragement and motivation along the way.

I was originally going to write this short piece on the numerous signs that supporters and volunteers were holding that would provide this motivation and the humour I found in the first 5km where we saw multiple signs with the words “Keep going! You’re almost there!”. I personally appreciated the energy that all of these people had but the words on the signs seemed to lack a bit of recognition of the 37km remaining. I found it particularly funny when I saw a girl at kilometre 10 who had decided to fold her sign in half so it just said “Keep going!”.

Whether these signs helped all 17 thousand or not remains to be calculated but the more I thought about it, the more I began to appreciate the strength and resilience that so many people possess. No one forced these people to sign up or run this event but there are a huge amount of people who wanted to test themselves and what is evident is the sheer determination that so many showed to make it to the finish line.

I can guarantee there’s not a single person who found it easy and while some may have pushed too hard and were unable to complete the course, it would not have been through lack of trying. As someone who advocates for attempting difficult things like this, I absolutely love seeing people challenge themselves and I can guarantee each one of them is stronger and more resilient as a result.

Marathon #2 complete! Big runs coming next!

Canon G12. ISO 250 | f4 | 1/500