Impossible is Nothing.. Angkor Wat done!

I heard a lot about that moment, the 15 seconds of insane, stupid, bravery that it takes to make a change, to embark on something you thought you couldn't, to do what everyone thinks is impossible.
As i was crossing the start line of the marathon last weekend i smiled to myself that this whole experience was based on a moment just like that. A moment where you just say forget practicality, forget whether its the 'right' time and just do it.  
The team arrived on Thursday after a 13 -15 hour plan ride from our respective countries. One team member down and a new warrior added,we landed into the 38 degree heat of beautiful Siem Reap. Eager, nervous and just dying to get to the start line and channel all these nerves and hard work into the big day.
Dinners were spent carb loading on divine Cambodian food and frozen mocktails whilst trying to hide our ' ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh what have we done???!!!!' thoughts that were dashing through our minds. Mainly around the time the heat intensity hits you and you realized you weren't here to enjoy it by the pool...

Collecting our race kit..

Our first run in Cambodia and our last before the Marathon

Wahooo bring it on!

Oh how i miss the excuse of 'carb loading'..

I managed to sleep for 2 hours the night before the race, yes, you heard right. 10pm-12am and then i was wide awake. I knew the alarm was going off at 2.15am and i was worried of passing into that deep sleep that usually hits right before your alarm goes off.
Instead i stayed awake talking to myself and imagining myself crossing the finishing line. Thinking of the money raised and reminding myself that this was the easy part now... all we have to do is walk, run or crawl to get over that finish line and we are done.

Outfits all laid our ready the night before.. eeeeek

2.15am came and i put on some dance music ( much to the disappointment of my neighbors) doused myself in a ton of deep heat and went to eat my specially made big Carby/nutty flapjack. Well, that was until i realized the ants had gotten there first! i laughed and turned to the only other food we had: a cup of coffee and half of Neils flapjack. Oh if only that was the only hiccup we faced on the day..
We arrived to the temple with music pumping in the pitch black, hardcore Asian running clubs wearing their funky satin dressing gown things that stated the 100's of marathons they had taken part in. I realized we were playing with the hardcore runners and well when you felt the heat at 4am in the morning it made sense to me why...and there we were trying to hide our scared rabbit faces behind dancing, singing and general words of enthusiasm.

4am at the start line!

The run was flat, the heat reached 37 degrees by 7am, there was no crowd at all and at times you were running with 4 or 5 other people in no mans land. It was around the same time myself and Nigels knees decided they didnt want to run anymore and most importantly when we realized that the run hadnt been mapped correctly. According to the km signs ( that were so randomly positioned we were convinced someone drunk laid them out) we were around the 9 miles/15km mark. We passed one of the only western runners who shouted to us that it was incorrectly mapped, he just wasn't sure by how much at that point. That is when the biggest mental challenge hit us all... you are running in obscene heat ( they hadn't had any rain in 6 days) your knees are going and you have no idea how much longer you are going to be running for. Where i would usually say to myself, right just push through this pain for the next x amount of km instead I was thinking ' what if i push through then i have nothing left to give towards the end? because when will the end be? I have only prepared for 26.2 miles not longer?!? I had no idea at these moments how much more a crowd gives you, someones face smiling and cheering for you to keep pushing through! we only had a group of school kids at one part of the race and there broken English sent tears to fall down my face. They reminded me of the babies we running for.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat the morning of the race

We hit the 26.2miles/42km mark at 4.40hrs but the signs put us at 21.2miles/36k which meant we still had another 5 miles to run..and that is when the inner greatness, i will not be defeated slash oh god i'm going to die at Angkor Wat came in. The hunger pangs started, the heat and sweat was burning my skin and the ambulances were driving around to pick people up that looked tired or near passing out. They had so many people collapse they were trying to prevent anymore.. i cursed there air conditioned cars and both Neil and I swore that if it kills us we are finishing this race.

Those last 5 miles took us 2 hours and I can safely say for everyone who ran that day they were nothing short of horrendous. A fellow runner who was on his 302^nd marathon was also struggling promised us that marathons aren’t usually this torturous and that by any standards it was a very challenging run.
It helped because you start to get disheartened, you have trained so hard for something and planned for a victorious finish that you start to go through stages of loosing the faith and feeling weak. Thankfully our unified mind set of simply not giving up, that it didn't matter that it was unfair, that we had technically finished the race, that our knees were swollen. We were not leaving without a medal.

13.2 Miles in!

6 hours and 10 minutes after we started we crossed the finish line and saw Sarah waiting for us, i was elated, exhausted and in tears. I felt underwhelmed that we hadn't finished strong and well a little overcome with frustration that it had ended so unfairly. Thankfully Sarah's cuddles and knowing that Nige was on his way over the finish line ( we had lost him a little over half way) kept us up. His knees were in so much pain, he had committed a huge amount to take part in so many ways that I felt responsible for the way it had gone and wanted to keep the focus on what we had achieved, not what we didn’t, that we weren’t just marathon runners.. we were ULTRA MARATHON runners. Trust me there is a very very very big difference...
We ran in the region of 30.5 miles/ 50kms according to everyone's tracking systems. We later found out the race wasn't certified by the marathon officials ( whoever they are) hence the course being so far out because no one 'official' had checked it over.

 

Definitely took us an hour to get up off the floor for this..

Our post marathon meal..

I have taken a huge amount away from this experience,the training taught me what we are made of when it comes to committing ourselves to something be it a cause, a race or a particular goal. We traveled in every country and with each one came a different set of challenges, I learnt to let all the obvious thoughts of doubt and practicality fill my mind for a few moments and then just let them go..
The thing is there will never be the 'right' time to do anything, never the perfect conditions. We are always going to be thrown curve balls and hit obstacles but there comes a time when you have to just let that be, accept things will never be 'perfect' and carry on anyway!

Otherwise how will we ever achieve anything? It didn’t matter how long it took me or where it was i just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Forget the other nonsense your mind or others want to tell you and listen to that little voice inside that whispers, you can do it.
Secondly with our fundraising, well, it has been a phenomenal response from the video. It has had the exact response I wanted; people to feel apart of it, to see what commitment it has taken, where this journey has taken us and I guess most importantly truly understand what there money was going towards.
We are bombarded with charity pages, people asking for money and there are many times where i have struggled to understand where the money is going and question if the person fundraising knows? There is a lot of glorification that comes with fundraising at times and although I am all for people raising money for charity nothing makes me more engaged and willing to give then the cause coming from someones heart, something they are genuinley passionate about and just want to help. It shines through and I hope is why we have had such success.

All this combined with the day itself, a day where things weren’t exactly 'fair' and we were thrown the biggest obstacles possible, we didn’t give up. We adapted our game plan and we powered though regardless because in the end that is what happens in life.
Things don’t go to plan, everything is constantly changing and sometimes it isnt fair but you cant just give up, well I don’t think you can. As the famous saying goes 'It isn’t the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change'

Angkor Wat 'Ultra' Marathon taught me that important lesson and I hope to carry It through into the next curve balls, obstacles or challenges life throws my way.

Thank you all for lending me your voices to spread awareness, express words of support and great kindness. For donating you hard earned cash to these beautiful children, i cant wait to update you as the process kicks into action over the following months. Thank you Thank you Thank you. x