Originally written July 2022
It was Cairns Marathon Festival weekend, and I was proud — and slightly terrified — to be taking part in my first full marathon: 42.195 kilometres.
I wish I could say it went beautifully.
It did not. 
Things started badly before I even reached the start line.
Graeme dropped me at Goomboora Park to catch the bus. For some reason, I thought the bus was leaving at 5:45, so when we arrived it was already there waiting for me.
I rushed out of the car and ran around the front to get to the bus.
Unfortunately, I think Graeme was still half asleep and started driving.
I felt the impact on my right knee and immediately thought:
“This is it. I won’t be able to run.”
But the bus was already waiting, so apparently my next thought was:
“Never mind. Get on the bus.”
I hopped aboard hoping the knee would eventually feel okay.
It didn’t.
Once we started, I knew fairly quickly that I couldn’t run the way I had planned. My original strategy was to walk the uphill sections and run the flats and downhills.
Instead, I had to walk both the flats and the climbs and only run downhill when my knee allowed it.
Then came the wardrobe malfunction.
It was my first time using gaiters over my shoes, and apparently I had absolutely no idea how to put them on properly.
After about four kilometres they were moving around so much that I finally stopped and took them off.
And one thing you quickly learn when you are with runners:
Stop for two minutes and they disappear.
You may see them again at the finish line.
So there I was, doing my first marathon, with an unhappy knee, abandoned gaiters and most of the runners disappearing into the distance.
To make a very long 42.195-kilometre story short, I finished the race miserably.
It certainly wasn’t the marathon I had imagined.
But I finished it.
And perhaps for a first marathon, that was enough.
Sometimes the achievement isn’t that everything went according to plan.
Sometimes the achievement is that almost nothing did — and you kept going anyway.
Stories Along the Way 