Happy day indeed...today marks the end of the "official" running calender for Singapore runners, as we take a short break after the SCM to prepare for the gruelling Singapore Biathlon coming up next year, the first event of a series of competitions...of which we might know all too well. Haha.
My first virgin run for this marathon, ended on a happy note. Happy day, indeed. 
Early morning woke up at 3am, because I could not sleep further, and had my morning breakfast of bananas and noodles (of cos one might ask how they come together...but...they did. And no problems too. Haha)
Then I set off for Toa Payoh Stadium to catch the morning 4.30am shuttle bus ride to Padang, where I met one of the sgRunners, yankee. He has run 2 marathons before, and he trained himself more for this one, so I was quite worried of whether I would be able to complete. My goal: To complete the run.
Got down to stretching, taking in my Powerbar bit by bit, checking my shoes and laces and ensuring that my Powergel is snugly in place. In fact, it would become my lifesaver later on.
Well, shall not blog too much into the run itself, will do so after I come back from my recce to KL tomorrow.
But, finishing it was definitely nice, a sense of achievement too! So, look out for edits on this post! Bye! Time to sleep...
After the event...A view of Parliament House
With some of my friends
Finished! Yea!
Current Mood:
SleepyJust returned from a recce trip to KL, shall blog that up on top, but now, back to the marathon...
The run was okay for the first 15km or so, which was from the start point at esplanade bridge, to the Marina U-turn point, and back to where we started, passing by the Nicoll Highway and National Stadium. I was running with yankee and kops21, both sgRunners forumites. It was a steady pace, which we are all comfortable at. (And that means u can talk whilst running, haha!) Basically, we were counting down...a typical convo:
me: 13km mark!
kops21: 29km more... Good work!
me: That's the 2 mark...soon...the 1 mark! woohoo!
This is called motivation.
And running with friends was motivating enough. Though both were older than me, it was my first marathon, after all, and I decided that finishing it was more important, therefore I kept close to their pace, as they had undergone at least a marathon each before.
Holding a waterbottle and running, I fingered my PowerGel nervously throughout the run till Nicoll Highway, checking that it's in place. Despite the presence of the safety pin (which I added just in case it came off), I was unsure whether the PG will drop off, as I could barely feel its presence. And each time I felt for it, I was assured that my 'lifesaver' would be there.
Somehow, when you are running the marathon, your thoughts wonder all about. At least, that's for me. I was thinking of other stuff, like what I would do after the run, who are waiting for me, the people I love, like and wish to be with immediately after the run...etc. It's this sense of closeness and longing that pushed me to want to finish this gruelling (and not to mention, HOT) race.
As I passed the distance markers and the respective water-points, I felt lucky that there were 100-Plus and water bottles available for us. A great relief, as the sun rose and the weather grew hotter as the time hit 8 am. By then, I think I was at Nicoll Highway.
Yankee had already downed his PG, and I was contemplating whether to, since I had downed a PowerBar just at the 10km mark. By then it was closing to 15km, and my stomach rumbled a little. Or was it a growl...
So I took out the PG, and tried tearing the top off. Turned into Fort Rd as I did it, and I realised that tearing the top was difficult, so the next method was to use the teeth, which obviously worked.
Slowly took in the PG, and downed with sips of water. It worked. The stomach growling ceased, and I carried on running whilst eating.
And, guess what? I saw Vijay at one of the water points, giving out the 100-Plus Isotonic drinks. I never noticed till I heard his voice. And that was motivation also. Never thought that I could see a familiar face in this run.
Many a time, during the run, I wondered why I'm doing this run. There're reasons which I have, but I doubt I would like to say here. And all those doubts and thoughts made me feel like crying during the run. It was painful, yes. But I told myself that I could push on, and as the 25km mark passed, I focused on getting to the U-turn mark, where the Powergels and bananas would come in handy.
And boy, were the bananas given out huge. Managed to eat whilst running/walking, and on turning round, I managed to grab 2 sachets of PG from the volunteers, and held in my hands. I wasn't thinking much when I got the packets, but I ran a distance, past Eugene approaching from the other lane, and the Bedok Jetty, and look at what I have in my hands.
Green Apple.
I nearly fainted. I figured that the apple flavour would at least be better tasting that the strawberry version, since I had tested my Lemon Lime version, which was awesome and I felt good after it. So I stored the Apple flavour away, and opened the Strawberry flavoured packet.
Wrong Move.
After the first gulp of the PG, I thought of puking and throwing away of the packet, because the taste was horrible! I just could not stand it.
Nevertheless, I forced myself to eat it dry as I passed the 30km mark, where the invisible "wall" lay, for most runners. I was carrying on alone, after leaving kops21 (20km mark?) and yankee (29km mark?). Basically, running my own race, mind over matter.
Felt a comfortable pace setting in, but it was between 33km to 38km where I had the worse part of the entire run. I felt slight tightness in my calves, and back of my thigh muscles, which forced me to slow down, stretch, and walk. The stretch/walk/run lasted for this crazy 5 km, where the distance seemed to get longer and longer and water points getting lesser and lesser. The weather was also significantly hot by then.
Nonetheless, I pushed on, knowing full well that I've already covered three-quarters of the distance. To give up now, is simply too wasted! I gritted my teeth, and managed to walk/run from Fort Road to Nicoll Highway. Along the way, I met with the MES runner during my Army days, a very good sprinter. Forgot his name, but he was walking and asking me to go ahead, which I did. But alas, pain struck and I had to slow down for another stretch.
All these changed when a lady overtook me, wearing Saucony Grid Tangent shoes, same as mine! She was running pretty fast, but at a pace which I can easily match. I decided to use her as my pacer, and paced her for 2km plus. And that helped to break the problem of muscle soreness! Soon after, she slowed down, and I continued at that pace, and mentally told myself to go on, for I'll be bearing the pain for only a while more.
The ending lap was hot, and filled with supporters. I just continued running at my pace, upping it to drain myself, as I thought that this is the only place where one should just heck it and go all the way. Overtook a few runners en route to finish.
Finally, a sense of relief and satisfaction gushed within me. I couldn't wait to tell my family and friends, as well as those I've had in my mind throughout the race, that I've ended in one piece.
I walked further in after the crossing mark, and took a can of 100-Plus made available. Thought of sitting down, but the emotions within me was too much. So I quickly walked to the chip-return counter and got my finisher's medal as well as the finisher's t-shirt, an adidas climacool top!
Walked over to the baggage collection area in a half-dazed mood and threw away the half-drunk can because I felt too full. Met up with Carine, who had finished her race in 3:45, which was very good for a female runner! I've got loads to learn from her. Met up with Enping and Jonathan too, both of whom had done good races.
There was some problem with the collection of bags, especially for the 21km runners. Bags were stacked so high and in such a disordered fashion, and all hell nearly broke loose as people streamed into the place to find their bags. It was made more difficult when you see lots of SCM shoe bags and New Balance orange bags lying around. Luckily, I had used my orange Crumpler, and found it immediately.
Quickly changed out of my wet socks and shoes into comfortable beach slippers, and proceeded to leave the area. Attempts to contact Huiqin, Tianyuan and Wanling
were made futile. Liquan was already on the way home by the time I called.
Went to Marina Square to meet up with Zhi Han and Geraldine for lunch, at the food court. On the way, I saw Wanling and her cousin, Isabella, both 21-km-ers.
After a much-needed drying up and change of clothes, I had my lunch, but it was difficult to stomach in the food. Soon, I left to meet another friend for the movie Chicken Little, which was damn hilarious!
It was definitely...a great day for me. Achievement of many objectives were done, and I hope that with this, "tomorrow would be a new day!" (Quote from Chicken Little)
Results:
Ended up with a chip time of 4h:30m:8s, which was above my initial expectations. This worked out to be about 9.4km per hour.
Marathon Results here.
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