Gold Coast Airport Marathon 2011 Report (Part 2)

Congratulations to Singapore’s top-2 runners and triathletes, Mok Yin Ren and Ashley Liew for their splendid finish. Mok placed 13^th overall in a fast and fierce field, hungry for breaking the course and world record. A bonus prize money of A$20,000 was available for the taking should either records be broken. The top Australian runner won a bonus for breaking the course record on his birthday - imagine that!

I was pleasantly surprised to see sport-medicine specialist and author, Dr Ben Tan at the start-line. I heard that he narrowly missed the sub-3 hour ceiling – Congratulations to him for his attempt!

A massive shout out to the many Singaporean and Malaysian runners who braved the cold weather in Brisbane to run their 21K and marathons! In particular, we like to acknowledge Team FatBird, including Marathon Mohan, Danny, Charlotte (fifth in the Sundown Ultramarathon) and Winston – some of them completed the Sundown Ultra-Marathon 100K held a week ago. Also, a special mention is made to Wen Long of Safra Running Club who earned a sub-3 hour PB and a Boston Qualifier.

The race-fair was well represented by retailers, distributors, body care and coaching services. You could get assessments of your spinal alignment, or muscle weakness. Marathon Couple (Sue and Andrew O’Brien) were there to speak and autograph their book; the husband-and-wife team completed eight marathons over eight weeks over eight continents. Perhaps the organizers of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon can bring them in for our race fair? Otherwise, you have representatives from Skins, 2XU, Endura, Garmin (with the new watch model), and more speaking on-stage or attending to your needs at their booths. The final booth was raising funds for Japan earthquake victims, and many runners did their fair share of charitable assistance.

The Gold Coast Marathon was well run (no pun), as I expected from the two Ironman triathlons I completed in Western Australia. There was huge coverage of the race, with great spectator support along the route. There was no mad rush for the start-line, as each runner had an electronic card (champion chip) the size of a mini-credit card.

The 21K and full marathon routes did not cross, thus there was no confusion or annoying clashes of a dichotomy of runners. Runners were respectful, and both official and non-official pacers shared their commitment to assist new and seasoned runners along. I like to thank a runner with shocking-pink hair who led a small group of us along, until he bonked on the 32K mark. Up till them he was holding a 13kph-plus pace and encouraging runners along. I will find out and let you know his name soon.

The volunteers were ever eager to help us runners continue; I was one of the few who stood beside them when I drank. They were not in the least bit concerned when I encroached upon their personal space. We are fortunate to have volunteers to ensure we complete our selfish, personal tasks!

The course is, generally, flat with a few small flyovers – demanding on tired legs, if you hit the wall earlier. The cold weather (for us equatorial inhabitants) may lead us to over-dressing in layers; I may have over-done it this time, and felt hot towards the third-quarter of my marathon. Once you are warmed up, t-shirt and shorts/tights would be adequate. We were fortunate to have a relative absence of wind-chill, or else layering up would have been relevant.

The opening, motivational speech before flag-off was memorable. It went something like this: ‘So, you want to be like Pheidippides…run from Marathon to Athens…and died!’ That drew laughter all round, and set a positive and light-hearted approach to our golden quest for metal. I came home at 903th place (out of 5086 participants; and 93th out of 390 in my age group) in 3:32:36 - not a second BQ, but it will do for now.