Marion Burrows

"A marathoner is a marathoner regardless of time. Virtually everyone who tries the marathon has put in training over months, and it is that exercise and that commitment, physical and mental, that gives meaning to the medal, not just the day’s effort, be i

Time! It's all about the Time!

So lucky and so blessed to be given a second opportunity to run a marathon, again, in the city of love/light,  (I'll do anything to get to Paris), training started in July 2016 from zero km's.

Yep, I got this, I know what this is about. I've trained for and run a few marathons before.  But for a woman of a certain age, that certain age was going against her.  That's not supposed to happen, exercise is supposed to keep you young, supple, wrinkle free, restore grey hair and keep your boobs and bum perky and upright. Slight exaggeration there, but you get the drift. Why does it get harder not easier? It would seem these days lying horizontal with a the soft flutter of a palm frond and a well-oiled muscular gladiator dropping grapes in my mouth is a far more attractive option.   The body and mind protested so much, I had to resort to mind trickery to get up.  Once upon a time I loved running, now I hated it. I had lost the simple joy of going for a run, it was all too hard. Yeah sure I have tendinopathys old ladies stuff, frozen shoulder, elbow, fingers,  but really? As Annie Crawford once said to me, you're still breathing right? tiredness, stiffness, joint problems, wretched menopause, go to hell, NOW.

In my attempt to go faster, and run better, I tried new gels, specifically, the supersonic Concorde of gels, Cliff shots double expresso, amped up with 100g of caffeine, yeah, bring it baby. Unfortunately, these new gels had me running for emergency toilet stops instead of 5 mins k's, and worse still, had me hitting the wall on all but 2 of the 20k plus long runs. With no carbohydrate fuel absorbed, dehydrated, nauseous and running in 26 degrees in the full sun, it's no wonder I was walking sideways and everything was swimming in front of me. But being a marathon runner you have this ridiculous thing of not giving up. Damn you, it transcends into all aspects of life, too. Such a glutton for punishment I went back for a second attempt of double express Cliff shots, blaming that day on a "bad run".   I had exactly the same result, except this time add vomiting and dry reaching. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.   In the long training runs that count, 20k to 35k, I had 2 solid runs, not enough to build a PB on, and the reality was slowly dawning upon me. The magical PB time was drifting further and further away. 

There are 2 more crazies training for the Paris Marathon, Andrea Garrett and Alex Honey, previous Can Too-ers who felt that running half marathons wasn't enough, eagerly searching for a bigger challenge to raise money for Can Too, stepped up to the challenge of a Can Too Beyond program. Unable to garner any more Can Too crazies to run the marathon (gee wonder why?) there was no shortage of willing supporters and crew to tag along and give the familiar cry of "Go Can Too" from the sidelines. Our coach, Emily, determined not to miss the opportunity of taking a team to compete in an international event in Paris, will be there to yell at us when we need it. Leigh Elliot another Can Tooer, her son, Diana Can Tooer extraordinaire, Andrew Marion's long suffering husband, Marion's 2 Aunties from Scotland, will all be waving the orange banner.

But now we are at the end of the program and in the wonderful world of TAPER! No more early morning starts, dragging yourself out of bed stumbling around in the twilight zone, forcing breakfast down at 2.30am for a 4am running start,  to run through the sleepy streets of Brisbane. Next week we will board the big silver jetliner and fly across to the other side of the world to run a marathon. What an exciting time in all our lives. All of a sudden, with the word, TAPER, the stresses and strains of training are starting to fade, as the reason for all that nonsense, is around the corner.

Paris is beckoning

Wish us all luck!!