I ran my first full marathon and survived to blog about it.
The night before, I ate like a king. Mom cooked up a storm serving her to-die-for nasi lemak. Knowing I have a big race to run the following morning, I helped myself to two platefuls of rice topped with chicken curry, sotong sambal, chilli prawn, ikan bilis and eggs.
I went to bed at 10pm only to wake up three hours later at 1am. I had configured the alarm to go off at 3am but excitement got the better of me. My eyes literally popped open as I told myself: This is it.
Overflowed with energy, I got up, changed into my Reebok shirt and running shorts. Then at about 3:30am when it was time to leave, I roused mom and dad from their slumber and they drove me to Bukit Jalil where I took a shuttle bus to Dataran Merdeka.
At 4:00am, I alighted on the start/finish ground of the marathon I was to run. The place was abuzz with carnival like atmosphere. I spotted the runners tent and proceeded towards it where I settled down on a chair and allowed myself to soak in the air of excitement.
Loud music was blaring from huge speakers as hoards of runners meandered in and around the tent. I was sitting with my legs rested on ground when it dawned on me that most runners were propping up their legs up on the chairs, in effect extending the lower limbs, stretching them out straight and relieving the pressures off the soles of their feet. Needless to say, I went on and did the same.
At 4:30am, I checked in my bag and ambled towards the starting line to join the other 1467 runners. I have read beforehand that organizers usually allocate starting lines for marathoners of different abilities according to their finishing times. To my knowledge, there was no such arrangement that day and I could not, in the big crowd spot the official 6-hour pacer. I didn’t want to risk standing too far in the front, lest getting sucked into the speedy pace and ruining my run-slow-first strategy. With some maneuvering, I settled myself nearer to the back of the pack and readied myself for the gunshot.
At precisely 5:00am, the gun fired and we were off.
What a start it was! Running with literally thousands of like-minded souls who would rather sweat themselves out in the ungodly hours on a Sunday morning than staying comfortably in bed. It was all very exhilarating, this sense of camaraderie. I had a intense urge to hug everyone in sight and tell them what a wonderful world this really is.
The first 10km was easy, as I had anticipated. I was cruising at 7:00/km and enjoyed myself so much I thought at the time I would be running the best race I could ever hoped for, finishing in a speedy (for me) 4:30 perhaps. I was to realize I was so wrong. When I reached the 15km mark, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my left knee. I was sure I had strained a ligament somewhere in the knee joint. I cursedly silently and decided to push on till the next aid station.
Somehow miraculously, the pain disappeared. But by then at 20km mark, more problems started to emerge, detracting in more ways than I feared from the total enjoyment of the race. My right ankle was hurting badly. The calfs were stiffening. My back, oh my sore back, has returned to haunt me, not to mention the feet.
Gradually, my pace slowed down to 8:00/km to 9:00/km reaching the zombiesque nadir of 12:00/km at many points along the race. Boy, I was losing too much steam. Negative feelings crept in more times than I could keep count on and I had to fight myself out of self-doubt as the pain intensified to unimaginable heights.
I winced as the 6-hour pacer distanced himself further and I had to contend with running with my own pace. Again, mysteriously as if some external force is aiding me in secret, I hung in there. I ran, then walked, then ran again. At sight of aid stations, I praised the god more effusively than a shark survivor would before lunging forward and promptly settled onto the chair and applied more diclofenac cream on the calfs and thighs. The balmy feeling on the legs kept me going.
At 32km mark, a by-stander cheered,”C’mon, just 10km more.” Right, ‘just’ 10km, I thought. The guy had no idea! Let me break this to you: 10km is like 20km when your legs manifestly turn into a pair of elongated bricks.
Somewhere along the route, I was running behind a lady with a custom back bib which read “Running for Andrew in heaven.” I was more than a little touched and I resolved to running alongside her to show solidarity in her undertaking. Of course, she didn’t know and I hadn’t the courage to introduce myself. But I ran. I ran with her as a stranger to her cause. If only for one kilometer for I could not keep up with her pace. I could see a lot of determination in her. She seemed like a strong woman who at one recent point in her life lost a loved one she must have really cared about a lot. I admire her.
But even the feeling of awe and admiration is ultimately subservient to the reality of pain and suffering. The legs continued to hurt. I kept telling myself: Go on! Go on!
I dragged on. Yes, dragged myself in fact to the 40km mark when I realized that after all I was going to complete the race! And complete it in under six hours. To me, that was good enough incentive. I picked up pace, drawing whatever energy left of me. I went into a kick and raced down the finish line.
I felt awesome, in spite of the tormenting pain. I pumped my fist and quietly whispered,”I have done it.” 42.195km in a time of 05:53:43.
