Yee ‘O Lost Souls

Whew. The marathon is over. And I’m proud to say I went through the whole 21 km! It took me more than 3 hours (approximate 4 hours actually) to complete it, but I did and that’s all that matters! We left for the marathon at 5 am with me barely having two hours of sleep. So as you would have figured, it was still dark. When taking pictures with your own camera, its a little hard to take a pic of yourself. So I just didn’t bother. I can ask for the pics from my sis. These are my fellow runners. Bros Wan and his friend, Abd Rahman and of course, my sis. The four of us had consecutive BIB numbers. My sis being D4055 and mine D4056 and the other two bros C3173 AND C3174. It happens when you register consecutively hehe.

Anyway, there was some jerks from the Tentera Darat force (now is officially ‘buaya darat’ force). "do you have a phone number?" Suuuure. In fact I have a lot of phone numbers. WHich one do you want huh?? I’ll give you my dad’s number. See how you like that!! At the start of the race I sincerely wish he would fall and break his ankle and become wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life! And we are trusting the security of the country to these guys!? I’m feeling quite insecure already.

It took me a while to lose them in the race. I don’t hope to compete with military guys. Obviously, if you look at who has the better stamina…I would immediately pale in comparison. I don’t care if I’m lagging way behind because I’m already far from the sixth place anyway. Anyway, that idiot did make me lose interest in the marathon that I have been looking forward to for a while. But I was determined not to let him spoil my good mood. After making him more death wishes I’m fine.

Right! Let’s forget about that. 21 km is really a distance you should have respect for. There’s no distance markers for the 21 km category, only for the full marathon (42 km). And God was I nervous when I passed by this marker . I mean, I’m only joining the 21 km! Don’t tell me I’ve ran/walked more than my designated distance!! But it does make you feel proud eh? You can show off to people that you’ve ran 30 km. Initially I passed by the 40 km mark when we were barely 2 km into the race hahaha! Wanted to take a pic of that but this happened. I should just stopped when taking the pic. But it was still fresh into the race and you want to run like everyone else. The guy who ran past me apologized though. I didn’t blame him. I mean, are you supposed to take pics when running a marathon? Unlikely heh. I brought my phone with me. Don’t trust those people at the baggage area.

Anyway, when you’re still starting out and everyone’s running past you and stuff its easy to still feel competitive. That pic was around one hour into the race and since other categories just opened up behind us and are catching up, you can see a lot of different colored BIBs. Mine was blue for both male and female groups. But when you reached a point where you realized there’s a long and winding road ahead of you, (like, say, the route behind the stadium), your fighting spirit immediately abandoned you. And trust me, it didn’t just happen to me :P. When I took this pic I didn’t realized there’s still a long way to go. But when you’re walking down a long, long road, and you see people going back the other side, you know there’s still a long way to go.

If I had had my earphones with me it would have been better. I turned on the walkman but its on loudspeaker. But it didnt matter much since I’m a long way away from anyone else. Fortunately, as I walked down that long stretch of road, I reached a U-turn for the 21 km race. After that I walked the rest of the way back to MASJA with Pak cik Ahmad! I had my feet sprayed too. It sure helped a little. I met pak cik several times along the way. I pass by him, he pass by me, I pass by his colleagues and so on. Until a point when we were abandoned by the pack and decided to just stick together. Pak cik and me talked about a lot of stuff along the way. Its good to have a companion. Other than keeping you motivated, it makes the walk back a little less daunting. We talked about fishing, birds, politics, principles, work, study, realtionships (it was a very long walk…) and just about any random stuff that comes to mind. Pak cik we made it!!! We went through the whole 21 km!!! Yeah!!

I learned that when you’re in a competitive running, you can control your motivation by imagining a ‘magnet’ in front of you. Put the magnet on the back of a runner in front of you and keep following that magnet as if its attracting you. And when you have overtaken your magnet, place that magnet on another runner whos ahead of you. And when there’s no more people to place your magnet, imagine that magnet at the finish line!

I’ve had several magnets along the way. Needless to say, I lose sight of all of them LOL!!

I felt a pain in my feet along my smaller toes of both feet. The medic along the way said I have a blister behind my ankle (whatever it is you call that part). But really, I dont feel any pain there. He just applied medicine anyway. It helps relieve the pain in my feet overall. But then its still a long walk. When I arrived at MASJA, my three fellow runners were already there! w00t! My sis and bro Wan didn’t finish the race because my sis had a bad ankle along the way. But the other bro finished it just a bit off the three hour mark. It took some effort to go back to the car since it was parked at the kompleks there but we all made it. But Marimo was toasty with all the accumulated heat in the car. So we had him aired first while I do some essential stretching.

Afterwards we went for lunch at a nice little Orchid Garden restaurant. The food is not bad though. We were not very talkative during lunch with everyone being so tired hehe.

At the end of the day, I survived the marathon with aching feet and a blister. I expect I will have a fever tomorrow which is bad since class starts tomorrow. I just hope not though. When I got home I was determined to stay on my feet for as long as possible because that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to rest on the day of the race itself. But I took a shower, prayed and went to bed after applying minyak buah pala to both my feet and the whole legs. Aaaahh~ bliss. I think my feet will hurt more tomorrow. But who cares. I need my rest. I even contemplated reading while standing, but its just…pointless and…not comfortable. So bed it was.

Oh yeah, when you complete a certain lenght, they give you ribbons. I got both ribbons. I put them on my phone bag. Most people put it around their necks. Oh in case you’re wondering what I drew in there, here. Hehehehe. Just in a show-offy mood. Since I am a very nice person I’ll share this with you. The latest page of my doodling foolscape hehe. Pencils don’t look good when scanned.

Aaah~ a long day finally ended. From now on I’ll take one week to recuperate before going to the gym again. Seasoned marathoners normally take a week off after a race. I thought I probably needed less than that but that one week off exercise sounds very appealing to me now hahaha.

After this experience, I will not underestimate the power of training. Ideally it takes 26 weeks to practice for a full marathon. For half marathon it should be 13 weeks. But I managed only less than half of that. I don’t think I’ll be joining any marathon soon, but at least I can say that I did!! And furthermore, I completed it!! Even if it was only a half marathon. Hehehe.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 26th, 2006 at 4:50 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.