Run! Run! Run!

Everyday, thousands of restless motor vehicles traveling to and from this beautiful island called Penang via this bridge. Once a year, the bridge will be closed for one fine morning. No public vehicles allowed on the bridge. You'll have to use ferry if you wish to cross the sea at this few hours, as the bridge will be full of people, guys and girls, from all ages, from all around the world, participating in this great event - Penang Bridge International Marathon.

Pre-run:

The marathon was supposed to held somewhere around June-July. Because of the March 8th election, the event has been called off because the previous state government think the new state government should organise their own events if they want. Well, the new state government did not dissapoint us. Eventhough the event had to be delayed to November, it was held successfully. And for the first time, the event was actually organised entirely by the state government. Personally, I think it is pretty well organised compared to previous ones. I won't say it's perfect as there are still alot of things to improve on, but the whole event was carried out pretty smoothly.

Applied for the marathon pretty early, thought I could be well prepared for the run this time. But so many things happened that I almost thought I couldn't go for the run this year already. Until pretty last minute, I managed to stick back to my original plan to go for the run. Then on the Saturday morning, one day before the marathon, I went for a short run around my place. My trust-worthy-old-friend, my nike sport shoes finally decided to gave up on me. The sole was totally seperated from the shoe's body. At this final moment, she gave up on me...

Why does everything I planned had to go through so many resistance? Where do I find the money to get a nice pair of shoes to run at this time? Again, I felt like giving up... It was already 12noon, I was still sitting there staring blankly at my laptop monitor, in KL. Then my sis found out what's going on, from her MSN...

"What else is stopping you now?"

"Just go lah!"

" I can sponsor you a new shoe!"

Somehow she managed to wake me up! What else is stopping me? I wanted to do this, and nothing is suppose to stop me except myself now. Why must I get a nice shoe? If those school kids could run with their Bata shoes, I don't have to buy expensive sports shoes to run! I packed my stuff and rush my way to Tesco and bought myself a pair of, ermm... okay sport shoes. If you ask me, I think it looks ugly. It doesn't fit my feet that well. But what the heck, it fits my wallet. It's RM70 so what else to complaint? At least it should be better than running with Bata school shoes. Grabbed a burger and on my way straight to Penang Queensbay Mall~!

Reached there around 6pm, got myself registered and collected the t-shirt and number. After dinner it was pretty late already. 8pm is quite late if you had to wake up like 2am the next morning to run 25km. To save time, I decided to sleep in "Hotel Queensbay Car Park" ...in my car...

The Run:

Won't call that a sleep for that few hours I spent in my car, more like a sauna session for me. Regardless, I did get a little rest, shouldn't be too bad. Weather was really nice and feels like there are more participants than last year. Did some stretching and warm myself up, ready to conquer that bridge. To start off the marathon, there were lion dance on the starting line. Then, the gun shot fired to mark the start of the marathon sharp on 4:30am. Lion dance drum still beating while everybody were cheering and slowly run across the starting line. Pretty motivating moment.

Since the new shoes were not run-in yet, it felt like I was wearing bricks. The shoes are already killing my feet after about 45mins run. The marathon used to start from USM and have a length of 22.3km. This year, we started from Queensbay Mall with length of 25km. I thought that extra 2.7km shouldn't make much of a difference. I was wrong. I guess 22.3 km is pretty much my limit already, and 25 km is just well over my limit. For the last few km, I was basically crawling my way back. My feet were so painful I felt like chopping it off. Got multiple muscle cramp on my thighs and hamstrings, even fell down because I thought I could still run. Lucky no injury at all, it was a slow motion Matrix-like-fall. The qualifying time was 3.5hours. I took almost 4 hours to finish the race. So, no finishing medal and certificate for me this year. :(

Well, at least I managed to finish the marathon on my own, without getting on one of those sweeper buses, I'm happy. Moreover, I was still on time to get a nice massage session by this cute St. John girl after the finish point, best reward for the day.

Mr. Stanz, you served your purpose, at least we finished the race. We'll come back again next year okay!