Run a Marathon

2015: For 26 years, I was one of those ignorant people who honestly thought that every running event was called a marathon. I thought 5 km was a marathon. I was proudly telling everyone I was running a marathon when in fact, it was just five 1-km loops around a lake.

And when one day I heard of a half-marathon category, I was like, what, is that 2.5 km? That led me to Google what a marathon is. And what a shock did I have. 42km?! Are these people even human?

2015 marked my first attempt at joining a public running event, and that was also the year I was taking my health and fitness more seriously. The first time I started training for this run, I went jogging around the KLCC park, and I only managed to do one loop (1.3km).

The event was called Color Run. What motivated me to do it was the color powder they threw and splashed at the runners. It was really fun, and although a friend of mine who initially wanted to join bailed out on me, I'm glad I went through with it.

Before

After

2015: On the morning of 16th August, which was my 26th birthday, I woke up at 5.30a.m. for my second running event. This time, it was a 7-km race, with balloons. Every runner was given four balloons which were equivalent to 20 seconds. Losing a balloon would cost you 5 seconds of your total time.

I saw a lot of improvement in my stamina. Although I still felt like dying, I didn't stop running except at the water station. My goal was to get the finisher medal, which was reserved for the first 1,200 people to cross the finish line. I think there were only about 70 or so people ahead of me, males and females included. My time was 47 minutes, and I lost 2 balloons. For my personal record, that was not bad at all.

2018: Since then, I have joined more than 20 running events. 2017 was my most active year, with at least one event per month, gradually increasing in distance.

2016 - 7 km Balloon Run

5 km Bubble Run

2017 My first 10K run

MPAJ run, can't remember the distance. 12 km, I tthink.

Run like a girl, with all the boys chasing to keep up. 13 km.

I ran my first Half Marathon at SCKLM 2017 (Standard Chartered KL Marathon), with a time of 3:09.

SCKLM 2017 (Half marathon)

My second Half Marathon was at KL International New Year Run 2018. I had an infected wisdom tooth and swollen tonsils, hadn't trained for a few months, but my time was surprisingly better, at 3:00:12.

KL International New Year Run 2018 (Half Marathon)

I went on to complete my third half-marathon at the Malaysia Women Marathon in March 2018. The time wasn't so good this time, it was 3:12, the slowest I had run so far. I don't know if it was because I was having my period or because again, I lacked training, or because the route was hilly.

Malaysia Women Marathon 2018 (Half Marathon)

And finally one month later, in April, I did my first full marathon, all 42 kilometers of it, at the Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM). The only training I had was the half-marathon one month prior, and I managed to squeeze in a few hours at the gym and a few hours of jogging per week for a couple of weeks before the race. My plan was to go a little slower than my usual speed, because to me my speed didn't really matter, so long as I finished the race within the cut-off time (7 hrs and 30 minutes, I think). It was better to finish late than not finish at all due to injury or burnout.

I had read some books on marathon, and they generally suggested at least 6 months of training and building up your weekly miles. They also warned me to be wary of 'hitting the wall' at the 20th mile, which is when the body tends to become depleted of fuel to burn and start giving up. It was true though, the last few kilometers were the hardest, especially because of the sun. It was already past 10 am, and the sun was savagely zapping away whatever energy I had left.  I felt like I could have done better if this was a night marathon. But I just kept running (or slow jogging, more like). Just one step at a time, because each step I took, no matter how small it was, was taking me one step closer to that finish line.

Bystanders stood on the roadsides cheering us on, some of them carrying placards with witty sayings on them, like "Smile if you're not wearing underwear". I smiled. They were such good sports. When we went up a hill called Bukit Tunku, there were some hikers who set up a little table and brought their own cups and bottles of water to give to the runners.

I kept myself hydrated with two 300ml bottles of water I carried in my waist bag (which I ordered online and arrived in the mail 2 days before the race). I also brought energy gels and coconut water to replenish energy.

 

And in the end, it wasn't as bad as I had expected. I thought I was going to go home in a wheelchair, but I still managed to walk 1 km to our hotel after the race, and spend the rest of the day at the shopping mall. (It did help to cool down my muscles enough so that I didn't feel any discomfort the next day). These are the stats:

 

 

 

Would I run a marathon again? Probably not. I only took it as a challenge that I needed to complete once in my lifetime, and all the running I did before that was to train for that full marathon. Now that I have accomplished that, I just don't see the point anymore. I never did learn to enjoy running like other people do. I never experienced the runner's high. And if I want to keep fit, I'd be better off jogging at the park once or twice a week. Running a marathon and training for it are not that good for the body anyway. I mean, sure, it's better than being a couch potato, but if you want to be fit, you don't really have to go to such extreme. The books that I read for the marathon--at least 70% of the contents was on how to avoid injuries, and how to recover from them. So that's proof enough.

My E-Certificate

The medal

The finisher T-shirt

My medal collection