Tobago's Sea to Sea Marathon

The bus inched it's way under the weight of it's passengers up the steep slopes of Tobago's Main Ridge in the crisp early morning atmosphere of a typical tropical forest. As it's headlights pierce through the darkness of a rounded bend, it caught a startled animal in the roadway which then scampered off to the side. It was exactly 4.00 am when champion Kenyan marathoner Keniata Nkaya pulled out three bananas which he proceeded to eat. One hour before the start of Tobago's Sea to Sea Marathon. So that's how they do it I thought to myself. Those three bananas would top up his energy supply with potassium, magnesium and essential other minerals required for endurance events. He would go on to win this event. The Sea to Sea Marathon race course will start in the Main Ridge Forest Reserve near Bloody Bay on the Caribbean Sea, proceed through the forest to Roxborough, Tobago’s second largest town located on the Atlantic Sea coast. Athletes will then run south along Windward Road flanked by the Atlantic coast with seaside vistas, through picturesque villages to the capital Scarborough and on to the 26.2 mile distance finish line in Lambeau Beach, Little Rockly Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. For a non-athlete like myself, a marathon becomes an emotional roller-coaster. One experiences anxiety, excitement, anticipation, camaraderie, hallucination, belief and non-belief and other mixes of moments. It's an event where you're likely to stretch your hamstrings as well as your heartstrings. The challenge of completing involves a huge amount of physiological effort and also a million tonnes of psychological as well. It's just the sort of depth that makes the event such a unique and intoxicating experience. The general outpouring of positivity of a marathon day is immense and actually something to be treasured where you have total strangers willing you on as you flash your Tom Cruise smile saying thanks. While hesitant in the first place as whether to attempt because of the hills involved and a cut-out time of seven hours. Things were progressing well up to the 16 mile marker. Then I guess because my socks gave way, I started to develop blisters. At mile 20 there-on, each footstep was met with a jolt of excruciating pain searing right up my body to a region somewhere in my conscience between my sense and my non-sense. What brought some relief is an experience of my co-worker who once said,"It's a good thing I have Ninja-training." This was while evading security personnel in a Curacao Brothel Compound for not paying. LOL. Today I would use my Ninja-training. Whatever Works you use. It takes a whole lot of personal control to reign in your emotions at the finish where an euphoria of physical and mental relief hits you. What is certain is that the person who starts a marathon is not the same person who finishes.