Marathon

A few months ago the other volunteer in my site started training for the Guayaquil Marathon, a vigorous 42 kilometer race. Now, I know my limits enough to know I could never train for that. But I did decide since we run together anyways I would train for my first 10k. The Guayaquil race had a 10km, a half marathon (21km), and a marathon.
So for about two months I was running between 7 and 14 km about 5 days a week. Leading up to the race I felt confident I could run the 10k without a problem. Then one of my friends who was running the half marathon suggested we all go big and run the half marathon. So I tossed the idea of ´go big or go home´ for a few days leading up to the race. Then the day before the race the other volunteer in my site and I set off to Guayaquil early in the morning. While on the bus, I finally make up my mind, tomorrow I am going to run the half marathon, I think I´m ready and well, if not I´ll just suffer afterwards.
When we got to Guayaquil we went to register and get our chips. They gave each of us a ticket to a free pasta dinner at the gran chef. Now we all had to wonder two things… first how good can a pasta dinner be in Ecuador? Second, who gave this guy the title of gran chef?
When we got to this restaurant and walked in, we screamed attention to ourselves as being way out of place. And no not just because we were the only Americans there. But this place was nice: white table cloths, way too much silverware around every plate (I mean all you ever really need is a spoon, right?), wine glasses to put water in, and 5 big buffet stations, with every type of salad, starch, meat, and fruit you could imagine. A peace corps volunteers dream. And the funny thing is they actually had very little pasta on that buffet, not sure where they copied the ´pasta dinner´ invitation from.
We rolled out of the restaurant onto a bus, slowly climbed up the 5 stories of stairs to the apartment, and rolled into beds full as can be. But being I was so nervous about the race I didn’t sleep a wink for a second night. That Sunday the whole group of volunteers running (three brave souls running the full marathon, and 5 of us running the half marathon) set off at 4 am to get to the race, which was set to start at 5am. It actually was not too badly on Ecuadorian time, being it started at 5:20.
About 700 racers were gathered at the start line behind the giant Gatorade blowups waiting for some sign the race was going to start. We were really expecting someone on the microphone to announce the beginning of the race or give a thanks for coming kind of speech, but then all of a sudden we heard a faint countdown tres, dos, uno… and all of a sudden the massive herd of runners were off!
Running 21km really wasn’t too bad (at the moment at least, I did feel it for the next two days though). At around kilometer 18 I started getting feeling pain around my toes but I just blocked that out and kept going. I knew that by making it to that finish line, I was earning my Subway chicken teriyaki on whole wheat bread. I finished the race in 2 hours and 16 minutes, not too bad for my first race. But man was I excited to see those two giant Gatorade blowups at the end. Upon finishing the race we got chocolate milk, bananas, a fancy medallion, a nice jersey shirt, and best of all a certificate of completion. AND we got to treat ourselves to the 30 minute taxi ride (only $5 here!) to a mall in a suburb of Guayaquil, where there is the one and only subway restaurant in Ecuador. And these were real subway sandwiches, they even had diet coke and the fresh subway cookies. Let’s just say I ate my cookie before the lady even gave me my change back and savored every bite of that sub. I think I would run a race any day if it means getting to treat myself to that afterwards.