Friday, November 26, 2010

Penang Bridge International Marathon 2010



After the 12.3, sights were firmly set on The Penang Bridge International Half Marathon. It was honestly a close to impossible thing if I must be honest. I was a little terrified as 12.3km to 21km was a big jump. To make matters worse, i have been training and running NOMINALLY doing usually 8km at most from the busy roster, never 10 or 12.3 or even close to 21. Hence the fear. This one was an even special feeling as i had close to ZERO encouragement. I’m grateful for everyone close to me and how supportive they are. Not particularly this one. There was a lot of pessimism and doubt.



The typical Malaysian negativity shat on my parade. People telling me things even I haven’t thought of!- ‘’You don’t come from from a sports family’’, ‘’Youre not an athlete to run 21km’’. ‘’The others are seasoned runners, youre not’’, ‘’Youre a pilot, not a runner’’ Basically every piece of (please excuse my French), bullshit from the bag was pulled out...Funny thing is I thought to myself, How hard can it be? I have 2 legs, if others can do it, I surely can. Whats the worse that could happen? Injury? Sprained ankles? walk to the finish? One thing was sure, I don’t EVER want to look back and regret not doing this. Again, you just shut up and get on with it. I got a plane to Penang..



My old friend Chu was running as well together with some friends of his I’ve gotten to meet from the other runs, and some new ones here too. Was really nice of everyone to take me in and make me feel part of the gang. They are really cool people! Had some fun the day before the race. Good food. Nice places. Bunked in Sany’s apartment.
Anyway race morning, woke up at 1.15am. Had to leave for the race course at 2am. Got there at 2.40am..Some warm up and before we knew it, we were away!



Had a pretty easy start at 3AM, ran slow initially. We had thousands running around so it was pretty easy to trip over someone or even block the faster runners. I just kept my pace. 2.7kms passed, got into a flow. Felt ‘lubricated’. As we ran up the ramp entering the Penang Bridge, could see some spectators taking photographs. There was a a water station for every 2 or 3km which helped alot as its easy to feel hot or dehydrated during a run, drank the right amounts for the pitstops and continued. Felt sad to see some folks already at the Medic’s stand with pain. Some guy sat on the road sweating in pain. Its very easy to run too fast or even too slow. Run too fast and try and overtake people and you tire yourself out for the long distance. Run too slow and you start to cool down and legs start to feel heavy and it becomes tougher with cramps etc. So it was about keeping a balance. Knowing your limit and tone things down when it gets painful or tiring. And then things got interesting..





IT STARTED TO DRIZZLE!- Initially i thought it was a light one as we were over the sea...As we neared the middle of the bridge (the slanted poles part), it POURED HEAVY RAIN!!, it was a pretty cool feeling your body doesn’t feel hot anymore, it feels comfortable, but the wet shoes and socks inside makes it feel like your jumping on a wet bed. It makes the leg feel heavier and vision becomes an issue too as the rain kept getting into my eyes and it moves the contact lenses around making vision quite blurry and it burns a little. Plus was starting to get worried my phone(or my mp3 player in this case) wrapped around my armband was wet and there was a risk i’d screw it up. There was no choice. 15kms to go! Pushed on. Stopped at water stations to drink(half water half rain water), the bread stand was nice, bread was soaked in water and become ‘’one’’ with the wooden tables which they were placed on hahaha, so that was a pass. There were also stations where the RedCross people would spray some ‘’aerosol muscle thing’’ on your leg to ease pain or cramps. In my case it helped because the legs began hurting just before half distance where we took a U-turn after the 70% mark of the bridge to head back. Rain got worse. I lost one side of my earphones from all the water that went in. To make things worse, my knees started to hurt. My left cuff and my right knee hurt the most. So started to run with more force on the less painful leg and when it got bad, i switched to the other leg and vice versa. We neared the end of the bridge and this time knees really hurt bad, lower back was irritating as well. The hips felt funny. I knew i had like 6 or 7kms to go so stopped running, brisked walked, then picked up the pace, slow jog, fast jog, run etc. Got out of the bridge into this flyover, another U-turn water station..Ice station!(They put bags of ice around your leg to ease the sore muscles)..With 4km to go..knees were pretty screwed! Saw some guys being treated in closed door ambulance. Pain was at its worse at this point. Both legs were bad. I think i was running with my waist and heels!..And then i saw the sign ‘’Half Marathon 18.3KM’’..I had 2.7ks to go!! By this time we were already running for 2 hrs 35mins. 10 minutes later Chu calls me ‘’Oiii..where are you la??, come on Jon 2 km, all the way man, come on’’. I ran a steady pace and it started to get better for me. Within minutes i saw the road leading up to the finish, the adrenalin built up even more, started running faster and all i could think of was the finish..Turned the corner and in the distance..There it was a giant Yellow Arch(with the word DIGI on it)...counted 1...2...3..Took deeper breaths and ran a sprint as fast as i could go. Felt my thighs vibrate. My cheeks were going up and down hahaha,The pain felt numb at this point. I screamed till i crossed the finish line...And there it was..6.01AM. – My timing was 3hours 1minute!. I finished within the 3.30mins time. I qualified for a medal! Felt such a relief.



Felt really good walking into the FINISHER’s stand to collect my medal. DID IT!! The pain was a different story. My phone died and so did the earphones. Good timing. It was unbelievable, I probably finished behind quite alot of people, i was just so grateful i had this chance to do it. Would have been easy to be like the rest and play it safe and not try. I mean hey everyone's got to start somewhere. And We were there, In with a chance. Able to live it and not just daydream. Felt so fulfilled to finally finish my first 21km half marathon in only my 3rd Real race event.



What we do is defined by the boundaries within which we restrict ourselves. A firm reminder that WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE SET OUR MINDS TO. I went for it because I knew I could. The one person you need to believe in most, is yourself. I am so glad i did this. Determined to do even better on my next run!

I appreaciate you taking the time to read this. Thank you very much :)

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