The desire to excel. The passion to dedicate. The determination to see it through.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Marathon-of-the-Day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PQ!!!

Checked into Changi Village Hotel with my family in preparation for the Adidas Sundown marathon. The hotel's quite nice with reasonable room rates!

Question:
Is a person of the following characteristics able to complete a marathon?
  • Hardly ran due to FYP
  • Went overseas for 10 days (without running at all) and returning 2 days before the marathon date
  • Longest distance covered in a single run the entire year was 12km
  • Longest distance ever covered was 16km and was 8 years ago
Answer:
Yes, if it's Jaime! LOL.

Adidas Sundown - flagoff at 11.59pm
My first marathon (42.125km but we ran more than that by a couple of hundred metres cos they changed the route to accommodate crowd control which pissed a whole lot of people off):
I had no idea what distance I wanted to cover but I really wanted to try the full distance. I was horrified at the start line but there's an emergency back-out line - I carried $30 for a taxi ride.

One observation is quite funny! Guys tend to walk and talk then run then walk and talk again. Girls just keep a constant jogging pace throughout! My bros and I all observed this! Quite interesting!

Managed to run with my bros for the first 10km then had to switch to a slower pace to ensure I could complete the race. Damn tiring and VERY SLEEPY. Super xiong.. had to keep hydrating at water points and drenching myself to keep awake and "pump fuel".

After 15km, everything hurts! My ankle went loose and I decided to keep running while maintaining a proper position and it fell back into place after a while. The knees started hurting. The chest seemed to ache a little.

After 30km, everything turns "rusty". The joints become immobile and each step is harder. Each step of balancing is tougher. It's almost impossible to break into a jog after each water point unless there's overwhelming will power. Keeping awake is a chore.

Within the last 5km, you want to pick up the pace but the joints seem to remain immobile. Then, something happened at the last 1+km (I think about 1.5km or slightly more). They played Chariots of Fire at one point which reminded me of running back in secondary school. Emo song and the adrenaline must have pumped real good cos I ran like I've never ran in a very long while, all the way to the finishing point at a sub-1:40min/round pace. Every type of pain and joint immobilisation I felt immediately vanished. I almost cried cos it was so tough to push and maintain the pace yet I wanted to cos it was just a little more! Haven't felt that in a while. Many runners and Adidas volunteers cheered me on as most of the others were walking and those who were running weren't running that fast. I was amazed, I just kept overtaking everyone and everyone along the way cheered. It was.. damn shiok. Wow, it's a been a while.

I'm amazed I managed to complete it and complete it with strong finish! Gosh, I actually ran for more than 6 hours. I'm glad I completed what I set out to do. I feel almost invicible now! It seemed impossible.. and since it's an Adidas marathon, I shall say, IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING. They gave me my most precious running medal yet! At the beginning, I told myself that if I could complete it, I can practically do anything I want with the grace of God. Cheers to the start of a new chapter in my life!

Damn happy! (",)

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