Runner’s Envy

The 15th annual Angkor Wat Half Marathon happened a few days ago in Siem Reap.

There were a few PCVs who ran it and finished, which is incredible in and of itself, but I would especially like to point out that Jane finished first amongst female PCVs despite only having 3 weeks of training. Fuck yeah. Way to represent K4 strong.

But now onto more important things:

I am so jealous that those 10 or so PCVs had the chutzpah to embark on such an undertaking. My inner competitive nature was simmering with adrenaline and envy (but mostly envy) when I read Facebook statuses regarding the event and saw pictures of runners finishing.

Everyone who knows me is well aware of my love for competition and stupid tendency to do so without training once in awhile. Case in point, the Santa Cruz Sentinel Triathlon of 2008. It was an Olympic distance tri, which involved a 1.5k swim, 40k bike, and 10k run. My hubris led me to believe that if one can swim, one can run, so all I did for the month leading up to the event was swim at practice and occasionally go on bike rides. Come race day, I crashed. Running is SO not the same as swimming. According to my splits, I was 3rd in the swim, 6th in the bike, but 24th in the run, which led me to finish 12th overall in my age group, out of about 24 people (yup, slowest runner). I was averaging nine-and-a-half minute miles. Embarrassing. This was only four months after the AIDSLife/Cycle, where I biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 7 days with the SFAF (San Francisco AIDS Foundation). I had bought the road bike I used (my first road bike) only four months prior to the event, and actually got on the bike three months before the event. I had not biked a distance over 10 miles until the first day where we biked from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, a distance of about 80 miles. Yes, I am that stupid.

Given my propensity to not run (because I kind of hate it), I shelved my competitiveness and did not sign up for the half this year. But seeing all the race pictures and results has sparked something in me (probably that “oh I’m missing out!” feeling…but most likely that “I NEED TO WIN” feeling) and I made a promise to myself, that by hell or high water, I will finish it next year.

I’d rather swim to the Philippines, but seeing as how there’s no race revolved around that, I’ll settle for finishing a half.