In late November of last year, I was in Belgium when a fortuitous message entered a group chat; a friend, who is an avid and talented runner, had suffered a hip fracture in training for the Valencia marathon and had to pull out a mere fortnight before the marathon. And so, the message uttered: “would anyone like my hotel room in Valencia, can’t do the marathon so I’m not going”.

And thus, the stage was set.

Being a man without a plan and an astute appreciator of a good deal, I promptly took him up on this offer, and was flying out to Morocco the next day. A trip that would see me do a lap of the country and indulge in a generous amount of the mountain-grown hash,plentily available, as well as continuing to churn through the unimaginably cheap cigarettes found on every corner. (Australia, I understand the motivation for your taxes on such a destructive product, but $40 for a packet of Winfield Golds? Jesus wept if I’m destined for an early grave, but at least let me be able to afford to make it to the casket).

Once my Moroccan adventures had begun, a thought began to creep in: what if I gave the marathon a crack? Through the power of repetition of the idea and sheer idiocy, I convinced myself that despite not having run in a good year and a half (please understand that at no point have I been an “actual” runner, this was just the last time the requisite footwear was donned and tarmac was graced with my glacial strides) and, despite having ingested enough tar and alcohol over the past few months of travel to reseal Punt Road and supply all nearby pubs for a month, a marathon was well within my abilities.

A message was sent and plans for conquering 42km of road began. After a cursory glance at the internets ideas of good marathon training (an 8-12 week training block for those curious), I decided that with a week left it was best to change absolutely nothing other than to quit smoking - an assertion that lasted in all likelihood 45 minutes before being abandoned with a flick of a lighter.

None but my co-conspirator were told for fear of my high likelihood of flaming out, and I continued to thoroughly enjoy the wonderful country I was in.

The first slight wrinkle appeared a few days out. For legal reasons, I will not refer to my friend by name - lets call him “Randy”.

As earlier mentioned, Randy is a talented runner and, as a talented runner, had qualified to run in the first wave - the elite group - and due to the closeness to the event, his bib could not be changed. Thus, to compete, someone claiming to be Randy would need to collect said bib and run with the elites (for context, I believe there was not a person there who had a PB slower than 2h 40m, fucking mental right?). So, collect a bib “Randy” did, resigned to being a little off the pace of his compatriots.

After a frantic night before that involved weaving through a large protest against tourists while possessing not a lick of Spanish to ask people to move, “breaking in” a fresh pair of New Balances by walking around the hotel room for 5 minutes (brand name mentioned, so any marketing execs feel free to add this talent to your litany of sponsored athletes), a beer to soothe the nerves which was then followed by several more extending well past midnight, paired with half a pepperoni pizza and a packet of Oreos ready as a nutritional breakfast for the morning, I was ready.

The morning passed in a blur; walking a few kilometers to the start line, dumping my bag and jumper, and then proceeding to the marshalling area of my hard-earned elite gate to scroll through reels on a bench while sponsored athletes did warm ups, and video cameras filmed inspiring documentaries of athletes pushing their limits. Eventually we were called to the start line, with Olympian qualifiers and hopefuls at the front of the group, and an Australian out of his depth smoking a cigarette at the back - this drew both ire and a certain amount of awe, as its not often that eyes are graced with a supposedly near inhuman athlete sucking back a Camel at 8:15am before crushing 42km of road in an internationally broadcast marathon after all.

What follows are the thoughts that passed through my head on this fateful day, transcribed into my trusty pocket notebook shortly after it was all over. There were likely a few more, probably cursing of Randy, fantasizing about slipping into the obscurity of the crowd along the sidelines, the lyrics of ‘Sweet Dreams Are Made of This’ on a loop etc, but this was the core:

Not enough sleep

I swear I just closed my eyes two seconds ago

Humans shouldn’t be awake this early

I need to shit

Shower time

I need to shit

Not hungry but must eat

Triple check that’s everything

Where is everyone, am I going the right way?

My god there are so many people, why would they all want to do this?

Do I just sit and wait?

They look like good runners, I’ll copy their stretches

I need to shit

Okay siren sounded its go time

I’ll stick to my pace and keep something in the tank for when it gets hard

This is easy I’m going faster

I can keep this up all day

Is it possible that I’m actually just a better runner than everyone else?

Great shot getting that water bottle into the bin while running!

Time for a gel

Okay ease the pace a little

I need to shit

HALFWAY!

How the fuck am I only half-fucking-way!

Would quitting be so bad?

How do I have both dried and wet sweat on me simultaneously?

28km? Surely i’ve gone further than that

Just count them down and divide into fractions

No that’s way worse

Getting close,

I’m starving

I don’t want water, give me electrolytes

BANANA

Who the hell could eat at a time like this,

I need to shit

Okay, actually getting close now

Did I just get passed by someone wearing sandals?

Oh, traditional marathon style, nice

Fuck that

I’m dying

Actually actually close now

Don’t yell “push” from the sideline, you fucking get in here and do it then if its so easy

Sorry that was rude to think since I did choose this and you’re trying to help

I’m not going to make it

2km to go holy shit!

The finish strip! oh push!

Don’t count down the metres

There’s the line

I could just keep going I feel fine

Oh its over

That was easy

I’m the greatest athlete alive

Oh my legs don’t work…..

How the fuck am i getting home?

That’s right - I actually bloody did it, this was a story of the indomitable human spirit! Or, I concede, a rare moment of playing stupid games and not winning stupid prizes. History was made! Admittedly not by me but by a slightly more impressive Aussie setting a new fastest marathon time for the country, but by god was the group chat alive!

Strava was graced with its first post from me in 18 months; I wont be sharing that here, but lets just say one can clearly identify in the splits where exactly my cardiovascular system collapsed and my stomach’s valiant battle against a metric fuck tonne of caffeine supplied by never-before consumed gels failed, and I proceeded to visit every portaloo the great city of Valencia’s course had to offer. I had several (for once actually hard earned) beers after a shower of such bliss I emerged feeling a new man, and a sleep in which an apocalyptic event would not have roused so much as a murmur.

The singular greatest period of this triumph was experienced for approximately ten minutes from roughly the one kilometer mark, when a pack of much faster men and women had unceremoniously dropped me like a sack of shit and I stumbled along, already beet red and sweating profusely, through the beautiful course of Valencia alone with tens of thousands of humans along the sidelines assuming I was a running star having the worst go of it of my life - not a pack-a-day smoker absolutely crushing it, and cheering for me and me alone (okay, for Randy given the name on the bib but let's not sully the moment), a privilege I genuinely believe few if any others have had the pleasure/embarrassment of experiencing.

Obviously this is not everyone’s experience during a marathon, and my respect for those that undertake it as a serious endeavor has increased tenfold after experiencing the unique hell that is running 42km. But, I will say this - when presented with life, one should, to paraphrase a fellow former junkie (though this one fictitious and slightly better looking in a crop top), “say yes to hash pipes proffered on foreign shores, say yes to the group chat longshot, say yes to a quick flight into the unknown, say yes to the seventh beer, say yes to a marathon, say yes to life”!