I started my race-day at 2.15am. I had my quota of sleep on
Friday, as my experience taught me that I tend to sleep, interruptedly, due to mild pre-race anxiety. After my pre-race ritual and a simple breakfast (mug of black
coffee, and a generous mug of Hammer Nutrition ‘Perpeteum’), I took a cab to Raffles City
to meet Charles Teng, and loaded my fresh change of clothes in his car. Both us opted for tri-suits as we believed in racing as if we were in a triathlon. I had a new set of sports tri-gear, thanks to Swim, Bike, Run SG.
We took the MRT/subway, and alighted two stations away. At
the entrance, we bumped into a bare-bodied, Caucasian runner (dressed in
runner’s shorts and his bib/race-belt. He would post a good timing later that
morning, as a leading amateur marathoner. After a bathroom break at a nice
shopping mall, we made our way into the runners-pen. I edged as close as I could to the
band of official race-pacers (BMW Pacers); some of whom were in full festive
make-up, and their obvious helium-filled balloons. My plan was to stay slightly
ahead of the 3:45 pacer.
I shook hands with Adam 'One-Armed Runner', and saw Singapore Blade Runner (Shariff) near me. These are two of the most inspirational, physically-challenged, endurance athletes around. After 30 minutes of prolonged preamble, and a noticeably inflated
bladder, I was glad for the opening dance item (four dancers prancing to a
choreographed rendition of ‘Gangnam Style’) to end, and the Minister of State
to flag the race off. I was only about 10 seconds from the Start-Line. It was a scenic route from start-to-end, littered with major tourist and historical landmarks.
With massive amounts of adrenaline drenched in my muscles, I
took off briskly, and set my Garmin watch just before the line. The pacesetters
were fast, and I followed suit. After a fast, first, 2K I decided to make my mark at the
infamous Speaker’s Corner. It was the best 90 seconds I lost, and which I was relieved to recover several kilometres later. I met many familiar faces, which gave me an intuitive
indication of how fast I was going. I referred to my watch, deliberately
dropping my pace, if I went more than 13kph. I took a cup or two of water at every aid-station, whilst running, opting to funnel the contents in my mouth, while in flight: The coolest thing I have ever done, next to giving spectators the 'High-5'.
After hitting the 21K-mark at about 1:41, I was pleased I
was on-track for a possible BQ (3:24). That was the plan, and it was reinforced by the
fact that I was ahead of a few, usually, stronger runners. To earn a negative
split was a pure bonus, yet staying to the same pace could yield me a
surprisingly good time. Along the way, I said hello (or bade goodbye) to
runner-friends. Some encouraged me on, for which I am thankful for. Every
psychological tool or edge I used or found, was necessary for my 'quest-to-be-my-best'.
I assure you, I did experience the ‘suck’ as Macca put it.
It sucked, I sucked, and I embraced the suck. The discomfort in a marathon is a
blend of poignant pain, determined discomfort, and evil boredom. I envied the runners with their iPods
and musical accompaniment. I was operating on my mental algorithms of ‘pain
control’ and ‘internal self-dialogue’, and I assure you, my head was a little
noisy with the mental arithmetic and, unnecessary, self-pity.
Interestingly, my split times were reasonably faster, as I kept
to a sub-5:00 pace for the first 30K. It went south from there. Most of the
runners I spoke to, shared that their performance dipped after the 30-34K mark.
It could be a psychological factor at play; ‘Hitting the Wall’ is a belief
shared by runners, where our energy reserves (within our muscles) are spent.
Professional photographer, Richard Leong caught me in a ‘com-posed’
moment; it sucked being me.
Photo-credit: LIm Yanglyn
At this point on the Marina Barrage, I was activating
‘damage control’. My race-pace nosed over the 5:00-mark. Intuitively, and sensibly, I knew I was going down. In my mind, I committed fiercely to my 'All or Nothing' mantra. If I go down, I'm going down in flames - like the pilot episode of 'LOST'. Simply put, I decided to 'go as fast as I could for as long'. Bugger of a plan, as far as I deeply knew. No retreat, no surrender.
If you can’t beat them, join them! I succumbed to the ‘dark
side’ and walked up the slope (37K mark), deciding that I would do a quicker descent.
However, I did not realize that I would merge with a humungous crowd of 10K and
21K runners. True to last year, the prophecy of a congested last 3K came true.
I jogged through the mass, without regard for dodging through the human
traffic. At this point, I knew I would just improve on last year’s time, and
call it a day!
I called it, albeit with an uneventful jog to through the
finishing chute. There was no drama, no pomp and pageantry – just me wanting to
rest my weary bones. I raised my arms high up, with each index-finger pointed
to the heavens as a sign of personal achievement. I loved this pose, having
learnt it from Macca. I hope that this will be my posture/gesture one day when
I cross the finisher’s chute in Kona, Hawaii. You can’t fault an amateur
athlete from dreaming, can you?
I headed straight for the pens, and received my finisher’s
medal, t-shirt, isotonic drinks and water. With the shoal of runners
congregated on The Padang (field), I was unsure about my potential ranking. To
still be one of the top-1 percent of the nation’s marathoner would have been
nice. After two months recovering from a stress fracture on one of my left
toes, a 4:00 finish at Berlin Marathon (with no run training), I was grateful I
was injury-free (hopefully, this was ascertained after all the adrenaline and
endorphins wore off). I learnt, later, I was ahead of my friends who beat me by
minutes in Berlin.
Charles returned shortly; we looked for his wife and located
her. Before that, I queued and surrender to my attempt for free PayPal slippers
and wet-towels. No privileges were accorded to marathon-finishers. It was a ‘free
for all’ with the runners of the shorter-distance persuasion. We took several
photographs with friends of AniMiles, and the headed back. We heard that Ashley
Liew beat Dr Mok Ying Ren into third, and Anne Hui retained her throne as queen
of the local marathon scene. Congratulations to all the podium winners!
One of the middle-two AniMiles runners did a 3:06!
The unofficial results were posted within a day, so that was
a massive plus-point for fatigued runners. There was mention of a delay in the
Women’s Open (Singapore) results; that was a bit of suspense. As it turned out,
one of the runner-up runners used somebody else’s bib, so was penalized for
this error. The true winner was reinstated, so all ended well. Lesson learnt:
Never win a podium placing, if you are not who you say you are. This is a
violation of the rules, and an unspoken rule.
Due to her honeymoon, under-trained, uber-runner Baoying encouraged me on ahead of her. I am in contention for top-10 Women (Local) again. Hoo-Ah!
I had NO marathon photographs as I displaced my race-bib
during my run. I preferred my bib to wrap around the side of my hips.
Nevertheless, I have my memories to incubate for a while. Congratulations to
all first-time marathoners, those who earned PBs, and to all who completed/attempted
the race despite the inherent challenges!
My only Finisher photograph, thanks to Sasha Farina!
No comments:
Post a Comment