Singapore Marathon 2009

I did my Standard Chartered Marathon Run this morning. We were blessed with great weather – cloudy and cooling. Team Fat Bird was the official pacer this year, and they were easily identifiable with the balloon they tied on their back and the timing they displayed in front and behind their runner tee. I saw them training at east coast park before and I remembered vividly the tagline I saw on their poster. It was something along the line of “Birds fly. Fat birds just run”. Hah!

I completed my marathon this year with a sub-5 timing of about 4h52min. It was a pleasant shock actually for I never dreamt that I could complete a marathon in less than 5h. Dan and I were thinking that it would already be an achievement if we completed it in 5h15min, judging from the way we attempted to train for it. :P

There were a lot of factors today that contributed to our much faster than expected run. First was the cooling weather. Second were the pacers, who had played a great deal in keeping ourselves focused. Our eyes were always searching for the balloons to see how near or far we were away from the 5h pacers, and were running to catch up when we lagged behind. The power gels were powerful of course, delivering burst of energy when we run out of it. However, my stomach was intolerant to the power gel, and I ended up having 3x diarrhoeas at every 10+km, with the worst at 38km. And it was at 38km that my body gave in… The final diarrhoea drained out all the energy that I had left and I struggled very badly at the last 3+km… My speed was like a snail, yet I was breathing so quickly so much so that Dan got worried that I might hyperventilate.

The aftermath of a marathon is always a nightmare of course. I got serious abrasion, and guess where? The area around my anus! SO painful that I could hardly walk properly!!  Not to mention the overstretched leg muscles and aching shoulders… Luckily I was not alone – Dan got all the symptoms too. Wahaha…

Ok, one chapter closed for now. Finally I don’t need to do last min training anymore, and I can take a short break from running. More marathons? Let’s wait and see…Till I recover from all these pains. ;)