Wednesday, March 08, 2006
KL International Marathon 2006First overseas marathon. Glad I'm doing it with the sgrunners. Hehe they took care of everything - registration, collection, train tickets, coach tickets, hotel accommodation, carbo-loading and shopping itinerary, and even photographer! See photos and read run3 and renoh's blog for details of the fun we had.
Was planning to downsize to the half marathon but din manage to so had to do the full instead. No fuel belt but renoh came to the rescue. No power gel but lucky expo got sell. Die lah! This is how my training log reads for the last 6 weeks:
Injured Achilles Tendon - Rest - Run - Injured Shin - Rest - NUS Biathlon - Fell Sick on Overseas Work Trip
Ran a total of 60km in 6 weeks (THE PLAN was to do 60km a week) and no exercise in the last two weeks. SCARY. Only positive thing was I was able to carbo-load with no feelings of guilt.
There were 5 of us doing the full - Dream, DO, kops, Weishan and me. Those doing the half include run3, brokie, renoh, cookie, sportsventurer, seal, freddy, lactic acid, david, sotong, spectre (see photos of his two cute daughters)
and jamessoh. Kelly as usual was our official photographer. Some sgrunners had signed up but had to drop out due to illness or injury. The full marathon was starting at 5:00am and the half marathon one and a half hours later at 6:30am, but everyone met at the hotel lobby at 4:00am. The full marathoners were all very touched by the encouragement shown by the half marathoners. *sniffs*
The last SCM I had a plan. Run every 2km, walk 2 mins, adjust accordingly. This time round, everyone told me: Listen to your body. So I started running, not knowing what to expect. For some strange reason, I was hyperventilating after only about 7 mins of running. But din want to risk it so started walking. Felt better and started running again. This kept happening until very soon I hit the 10km mark. 1hr 6mins. Pretty good actually, better than expected. Being the optimist I was, started calculating the odds of a sub 5hr marathon. 20km. 2hrs 20mins. Still not too bad. But soon after the 20km mark, I started to get cramps at the back of my left knee. Panicked. I never got cramps before! Told myself not to panick. Walk. Walk it off. So I walked and ran when I could. But could only run for about 2 to 3mins now before the cramps returned and I have to start walking again. 25km. 3hrs. Hmmm sub 5hr not possible today, but maybe still can get a PB (last marathon was 5hr 17mins). Shall not describe the next 10km. Suffice to say it was a long, painful journey. Saw the sign for 4km remaining. Do you know the organizers are sadist? We are going uphill?? Can't even run one min now. It's just run one cone, walk two cones. Waiting for the down slopes to come - I mean, what goes up must come down right? Continued plodding. Well, if you think upslopes are bad, all I can say is that downslopes are worse. Reached the top of the hill and started to run downslope. What just happened? My knees gave way! I hadn't realize my knees were in such a bad condition but I had problems even walking downslope. I had my wish - the last 1.5km were downslope, but I could have been a snail at the rate I was going. The last 1km was the worst in my life - took nearly 15mins. Saw sportsventurer. He had come ahead to cheer me on, but I couldn't muster the strength to run. Turned the bend and saw run3 and renoh cheering. Tried to lift my legs and run. Then the sgrunners all appeared and started running alongside me. It was all a blur. I think there was cokiee, kelly, DO, run3, renoh, imd(?), seal(?). But I sprinted, the last 100m(?), towards the finishing line. Hehe see the before and after photos of me as I approached the finishing line. The before photo looks really horrible but I will sacrifice my image to share with you people the beauty of a marathon (and the sgrunners), of how one can be squirming in pain one moment, and smiling the next.
My time: 5hrs 26mins.
My placing: 42nd out of 50 in women's open.
Dream It. Plan It. Do It.
Just The Girl @
3/08/2006 07:19:00 PM
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