Driven and motivated to a commitment of fulfilling one of many ambitions and paranoia (I presume) drove her to commit the following crime. Not to society nor humankind but to herself, her own body, physique and mental status.
Angelica
De Silva bearing staff number C12407 or Angie to our cabin crew is considered
to be a fitness fanatic. Her passion to complete fitness goals are in abundance
and one of it was to run a marathon which was on her “bucket list” of sorts. In
my opinion brave, rash; but obviously Awesome.
Randomly,
she chose the Colombo marathon known as the “LSR (Lanka Sportreizen/ http://srilankamarathon.org ) Colombo marathon,”
the national event recognized worldwide as the Sri Lankan leg of the global
marathon events. A staggering 8500 runners including more than 300 foreigners
from 46 countries representing all continents were at this 17th Edition of the
series which was held on the 08th of October 2017. The route from the Ministry
of Sports at the Independence Square through Borella, Dematagoda, Peliyagoda,
Wattala along the Hamilton Canal, Pamunugama, Thalahena, Pitipana, Duwa to
Lewis Place on to Beach Park in Negombo consisted a distance of 42.196Km.
Thriving to achieve this objective required intensive preparation, and her training methods were comparatively different from a predictable marathon runner due to an arduous job as a crew member. She arrives from flight duty at 2300hrs, starts training at 0400hrs the next morning. Consequently, any free time she succeeds to muster was her training time. She just switches OFF, headset ON and fixates on to a preconceived rhythm. The world is her oyster.
She says…...
“On marathon day, an adrenalin rush coupled with the fear of “hitting the wall” or “bonking” tends to seep in. The gun goes off, you zero the clock, settle into a relaxing pace, zone out and start to believe that this is a breeze. One tends to believe in one’s groundwork and a realization that all the training and commitment is about to pay-off…….until you hit the 30-kilometre mark.”
“Then your body begins to burn,
hurt, cramp and stall. Anything and everything around starts to work against you,
the runner. The shoes you so meticulously selected for the event become your
enemy. They start to walk backwards. The world sucks and this whole idea appears
to be crazy stupid. You get what's called central fatigue, the perception by
your brain that you are tired, even though your muscles might be fine……Everything
in me said STOP.”
However,
Angie did finish the 42 plus kilometres with a timing of 4 hours 58 minutes and
was placed 11th from all the female participants. Her goal was to be
inside the first ten within her fraternity but was more than happy to finish.
Angelica’s motivation to continue was her support crew. They were her husband
Kesara, colleague and friend Thanuja, her parents and a well-conditioned mindset
with a strong will to tick the checklist.
Moreover,
as a SriLankan airlines’ crew member, the accomplishment was amazing and the
first to achieve it. With long working hours, night shifts in a cylindrical
contraption sans the required oxygen, limited time to train one’s self to
undertake a full marathon and eventually and factually setting one’s mind to go
for it was a heroic venture, even to, at the least, to think of indulging.
Her timings, placing, running style or even the non-conventional preparation may not be the conventional requirement for a marathon runner……But I challenge you, to do it….cos, I will not. But to Angie….well done!
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