First ever Full Marathon done! 😃 at the Asics Penang Bridge International Marathon on 27th November 2016.One word regarding this race, it was a torture. Maybe because I did a 30km run just a week before and couldn't recover in time. During the beginning of the run, I could still feel the strain of the leg muscles and joints from last week's 30km! Should have given a 2 weeks recovery.
Since we were in Penang Island, we had to do hawker food carbo loading. Plenty of choices of hawker food in Penang and reviews can be easily found online. We pretty much had everything we could order within reach!
The race started on time at the road in front of Queensbay Mall. After walking through the starting crowds, I started running at a very comfortable pace, keeping heart rates down. Maintain that pace and only walked the water stations. It was a long route on the island with humid still ait before finally reaching the bridge.
Once on the bridge, the wind blew and finally cooled down and sweat a lot less. But at 28km, I hit the dreaded wall. Had major pain at the back of my right knee reaching to the calf too. I thought it was cramp and just continue one but at a slower pace. Along the way, got ice to ice the back of the knee and also some counterpain. Was doing an average 9-10 mins/km.
Kept trying to run in between walks making sure that I kept to the targeted sub-6 hours run. At about 37km, the 6 hours pacer caught up with me! Had to start to pick up the pace and keep running to ensure I finish within 6 hours. As I kept pushing it, the pain started to go away. Must have been the adrenaline of chasing them. Slowly, I picked up the pace to catch up with the 6 hours pacer by 39km doing low 7 mins/km pace.
Kept the head up and pushing as I saw the last 2 km sign and nearing back to the Queensbay Mall area. By now, I am doing a low 6 mins/km pace to the finishing line.The feeling was amazing. Never have I thought I could do a full marathon and with all that pain, yet finish within the targeted time of 5 hours 56 minutes.
So what does a recently accomplished full marathoner do? He went ahead and sign up for another marathon in 2 months time!
Check out my race on Strava.
