6 Dec 2015

Just to note that the day before the marathon, I also conquered one of my greatest fears, the fear of standing on the stage singing, by myself. Stressed as I was on that day, the next day was another eventful day…..

Haze that lasted for about 2 months affected my training regimen very much. I got stucked indoors, using treadmill in the gym. Instead of going for longer distances outside, I went for short distances, with more resistance and faster pace because people were waiting for the machines, hence, I couldn’t use the machines longer.

It’s my fifth full marathon, and I have to say that I could never get used to the feeling. I set a time for myself to work hard for during the race. My goal was below 5hours.

I started the race with the 5hours pacer after 1km I started running away with my own pace. I was quite familiar with the route hence, I was able to comfortably run the whole race. I stopped through some of the water points. Last time, I would stop in almost all. This time, I also didn’t use muscle gel. I have to say that I was in good shape, not my best, but good enough to finish the race achieving my target time of below 5hrs.

I managed to finish at 4hr 55mins, my new marathon PB.

Anyway, while running, I tried to introspect a little on how one can actually run a marathon strategically and effectively on the day itself:

1. Pace ourselves properly from the beginning. I think, it is safer for us not to go with the first wave people if we know that we won’t be able to finish really fast. Because if we do, we would tend to follow the crowd and start exerting so much effort following other people’s pace. Train and know our own possible goal and pace, place ourselves accordingly to avoid exhausting ourselves early and also to avoid injuries, then just enjoy the race.
2. Set small goals for ourselves. What I tried to do was, I quietly celebrated every 6km until I reached 36km where I started rejoicing my every kilometer completed. Motivate ourselves by seeing beauty in small things along the way, a butterfly crossing my path, sunrise, the site of people cheering the runners. Thank them if we can, high five with them if their within our reach. There’s somehow a positive energy transfer when those things are also celebrated.
3. Look out for each other. I actually failed on this one. I hated myself after that. There was this guy screaming “woooooohhh” along ECP, on the side. From a far I could already hear him. When I passed by him, I checked on him, he was still shouting “wooohhh”. I thought he was cheering. Then after running a few meters away from him, she suddenly blurted out “help me”. I was like huh? Did I hear that correctly? Then I looked back, there were people turning towards him. I was steady and already a few meters away from him, with a goal on my head, a heart beating faster than ever and a full bladder. I wanted to finish as fast as I could. Since I already saw people going back to help, I didn’t bother returning to offer what ever it is that I could offer. After a few minutes, my heart went even faster, what have I done? What have I omitted? Why didn’t I recognize that the “woooohhh” screams were actually cries of desperation for help? Why didn’t I return back to help? It bothered me for a long long while..Until now. I hope that man is ok. On my side, I will try to get into sports-related first aid courses, so that next time, I would be more aware and conscious and of course, I would know what to do exactly after recognizing the need for immediate help.