And the final word...

Final Thoughts

By the time I reached the finish line I was too tired really to think and it is only now that I am home do I have time to gather my thoughts.
Running this race was a life changing event. There will always be pre-marathon and post-marathon times. Looking back I remember standing on the start line feeling nothing but fear. The whiteness stretched as far as the eye could see and all I could focus on was the vanishing-point of flags which slowly dissolved into the horizon. I remember the first few miles, the crunch of the ice underfoot, the fear slowly draining and the running taking over. We ran past a guy wearing a German flag, like Superman’s cape, and I seem to remember thinking: wow, I am out pacing super German.

I remember blistering through the half marathon finish, stuffing down some chocolate and gels and thinking: this is so pretty, to beautiful and I feel perfectly serene. I remember thinking, as the pack thinned and all I had for company was Trevor and the mountains, was that I had never felt so content, so happy or so at peace. For a few miles I was at one with my running, myself and the day – or as my yoga teacher says: be at peace with yourself…so you can be at peace with others…
And then it went downhill…

There were miles of pain and suffering. Shimmering mirages on the endless frozen sea that eventually turned into a food stop and where I downed hot sweet tea and wiped away frozen tears. There was sadness that my legs didn’t work, an endless resentment of the snow and ice and an overwhelming feeling of tiredness. Of course, now I am at home, with a beer in my hand, it is easy to realise that my mind went a long time before my body, but alone in that immense sea of ice, surrounded by nothingness it became very very easy to become unhinged and loose focus. My body may be conditioned to run a marathon but my mind is still a fair few runs from being ready.

At then the finish…

There were no crowds, no screaming family, just some lost looking Russian couple in tatty fur-lined boots, to see me across the line. As anti-climaxes go it was up there with the best of them. I wanted a brass band, girls with pom-poms and a press corp…instead I got a hand shake from Trevor and shouted at my some burley Russian bloke who wanted me to get into the hovercraft.

But perhaps this is most fitting…

This year has been about accepting change and that life cannot remain constant. It has been about paying my respects, in a somewhat bizarre and unintelligent way, to my father. It has been about sitting goals and planning and it has mostly been about my own personal growth. It now seems somewhat fitting that hardly anyone was there to see the end of this remarkable year and I probably wouldn’t have had it any another way. Trevor was even so kind as to let me finish a second ahead of him as we both know that if it hadn’t been for him I would still out there somewhere and also that he simply isn’t the kind of guy to take praise of hog the lime light. In this respect, again, he has been the perfect guide this year.

Siberia has changed me in a profound way. It has given me many things, not least the idea that anything is possible with good planning and a degree of intelligence. It has also taught me that real friends simply wont leave you to cry at 14 miles..