After running a marathon

What do you normally do after running a marathon?

This is my first time so I hope some readers out there who have more experience can share theirs..

This is my own experience after running my first marathon yesterday.

1. Have to do a lot of stretching immediately after crossing the finish line.

2. Queue up to get my finisher's medal and t-shirt.

3. Queue up again to get a bottle of mineral water.

4. Return to the finishing line to wait for a friend who is yet to finish.

5. Rush home to shower, eat lunch and drive out to fetch my son from his tuition class.

6. Bring the 2 boys to their music classes after that. Do some walking around the shopping centre while waiting for them.

7. Return home at around 5.30pm then bring the elder out for cycling at around 6pm.

8. Bring the 3 fa kuat long's up to the room after dinner and write my race report while letting 3 of them ransacked the room.

9. Sleep early together with the younger boy after a tired day.

10. Woke up 5am the next morning (can't turn off this biological clock) and go for a morning walk.

Standard Chartered KL Marathon - Part 3

From 32km onwards the route is getting tricky for me. We have to run on Jalan Istana then connect to Jalan Mahameru. It was really hot out there at the time.

The road is slopping up and down. I had to walk most of the up slopes and run the down slopes gently.

My leg muscles started to get tight after the 35km mark. I consume another pack of powergel immediately to supply more energy to them.

35km to 40km is the hardest and longest of this run. Leg muscles getting sore and my right heel started to get painful everytime I land. I just kept going with slow pace.

I was surprised to see Hugo waiting at 40km mark when I reached there. He has come to cheer for us and Ravin especially. I stopped to chat with him for a couple of mins before proceed to run the last 2.195km.

No simple words can describe the feeling I had when I reached Dataran Merdeka... It was pure joy inside.

CP waited for me at the finishing line. He has run a truly outstanding first marathon with the time of 4 hours 39 mins. My time is ¹hour behind at 5 hours 40 mins.

We waited for another hour before Ravin finally came in. This is 3 out of 3 success rate. Too bad Lam can't make it. Otherwise it would have been 4 out of 4. The only hurdle is in the mind..

Update: My time split.
05km : 0h 37m
10km : 1h 15m > 38m
15km : 1h 55m > 40m
20km : 2h 35m > 40m
25km : 3h 15m > 40m
30km : 3h 55m > 40m
35km : 4h 35m > 40m
40km : 5h 25m > 50m
42km : 5h 40m > 15m

Signoff from SCKLM. Until the next marathon...

Standard Chartered KL Marathon - Part 2

From that point onwards I continue with my 3:¹run-walk plan.

Janice and James came to cheer for us at Jalan Travers 5am in the morning. What a nice gesture.

First 5km, I was pacing comfortably at 7.5 minutes.

I reached the 10km mark at around 75 minutes. Still running at 7.5 mins pace. After that point, I slow my pace down to 8 mins in order to nurse my knee and to ensure I can go further. This is the point my knee pain started during the trainings.

I managed this pace until 15km mark without any sign of pain. Delighted with this, I just kept going.

At 18km mark, Uncle Yong from Bukit Jalil ran pass. I speed up a little bit to catch up and had a few chat with him. He told me to take it easy and warned me about hitting the wall at 30km or 32km mark. I told him about my knee and said I have to take my walk break now. He continue his run and I overtook him later at 22km mark.

Uncle Yong

I continue my run past 20km mark and started to get worry when there is a slight sign of uncomfortable on my left knee.

At a waterstation near 22km, I met a 65 years old senior man and chatted with him for a while. He has just recovered from flu and fever this week and wasn't sure whether he could finish the run. He told me about his first marathon experience and how it took him 4 years to train for it. Again I parted with him to do my walk break. I saw him again at the finishing line hours later. Bravo Mr. Gurdip.

Gurdip

25km was the point I make up my mind I will finish this run even if I have to walk the rest of it. Fortunately my knee is still holding up well up to this point. I stopped to take my first powergel at this point.

About 40 mins later I was at 30km mark. Time still below 4 hours. This is quite unbelievable since I've never ran upto this distance during training. Still remember my furthest distance is 29.2km? Everything beyond this point is an unknown to me and to my body. I decided to take it easy after that by slowing down the pace.

See part 3...

Standard Chartered KL Marathon - Part 1

This is my first marathon and I'm very happy to finish it within my target time of 6 hours.

The event itself is very badly organised. First the mayhem during the first bib collection day then they ran out of water at waterstations today.

I was told this event is much smaller than similar event organised by the same sponsor and organiser in Singapore. Doesn't make sense how they can messed up so badly with all those experience.

Back to my race report.

I woke up at 3am this morning to get ready for the run. The night before I went to bed at around 9.30pm but was awaken by gastric pain. My stomach has not been feeling well yesterday due to overload of food from the carbo loading. I had to swallow a couple of actal tablets to ease the pain and tried to get back to sleep. However the burning sensation from the stomach kept me awake until around 1.30am (last time I remember checking the time).

The stomach pain was still there when I woke up at 3am. I took a panadol before heading out. Panadol has been an effective medicine for my gastric problem.

After packing a few essential things into the running bag, I head out at around 3.20am.

CP sms me just when I turned into Padang Merbuk parking place. We managed to park side by side.

After taking one of my granolar bar as breakfast, both of us walked towards Dataran Merdeka. Not many runners around when we arrived.

We managed to meet up with Ravin around 4.30am.

Suddenly it rained 20 minutes before the race start. All of us have to hide under the VIP tent for a while before the organiser called everyone out 10 minutes before the starting time.

At the starting line, I told Ravin of my target time and 3:¹run-walk plan. I asked him to pace with me.

The run started on time at 5am. It was such a great feeling running out of the starting line. We wish CP all the best and told him to run at his own pace. Ravin is supposed to pace with me but he decided to continue his run when I started my walk break.

See part 2..

Mission Accomplished

Photo courtesy of CP again.

When I went out from the house this morning, I really wasn't sure whether I can even finished 15km. 10km was my target.

Less than ¹week ago, when I decided to join the run, the aim was just to be there to give CP and Lam support and run a relaxed 10km then take a taxi back.

It has been close to 1.5 months (a week before New Balance 15k) when my knee problem started. I have been struggling to finish even a 20k run since. So being realistic, I didn't set a very high target.

However I always keep the slim hope alive deep inside me. I wanted to get ready just in case. So while all other runners have started their tapering last week, I was still putting in km after km of mileage. I want to keep my legs ready if the knee doesn't give me problem. I glad I did all that because all those training mileage come in really handy today. I was able to pace myself without much problem through out except the stretch after 33km where it goes slightly uphill.

Being able to finish my first marathon after all the challenges is truely satisfying. I learned a lot from the race, the trainings and from all the challenges that I need to overcome.

We must keep the hope alive and always get ready. Never give up even if sometime it seems impossible..

Race report coming up next...

Less than 17.5 hours to go

It is less than 17.5 hours to go before the gun off of 2009 SC KL marathon.

I'm in the midst of preparing a checklist on items to bring.

1. A cap - very important item especially if I'm running past 11am tomorrow.

2. Sun block - must remember to apply before leaving home.

3. Powergel x ¹- i normally don't take powergel but will carry one for safety reason. The organiser will provide this after 30km so i can grab from there if need more than 1.

4. Drinks - very very important. Will bring ¹x 250ml bottle of accelerade drink plus a pack in powder form. I can mix it at waterstation.

5. Handphone - my E90 is too bulky to bring along so will downgrade to a smaller nokia just for emergency. Maybe i will facebook along the way every 5km:) Those who are interested can stay tuned..

6. Money - if I need to take a taxi. Also for parking just in case.

7. IC and driving license - a bit troublesome but looks like no choice.

8. My stopwatch - I have programmed a run-walk interval of 3:¹minutes into the watch. I planned to follow this rhythm throughout the run so that the impact to my knee is not so bad.

9. Knee guard - still wondering whether this would help but I will bring along nevertheless.

10. Tower - i plan to carry one during the run. Can serve 2 purposes. ¹- to rub my sweat. 2 - as extra protection from the sun.

Last but not least - i will bring my determination and hope..

My final preparation for Standard Chartered KL Marathon

Wake up at 5.45am this morning to do my final laps before tomorrow's marathon.

It will be my first marathon attempt and could be my first DNF in races participated so far as well.

Overall since last sunday, I have accumulated 51km of slow mileage this week, trying to catch up on the lost ground.

I've been training with various running speed trying to find one that will not hurt my knee so much when the distance get longer. Pace of between 8.5 mins to 9 mins per km seems to be working fine so far. The truth will be revealed after 10km tomorrow I guess..

Anyway some of my friends have been advising me to not over do it. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to them for their concern. Don't worry as CP said, I know my body best and will know when to call it a day. I still want to run until age of 76 at least, an inspiration I've drawn from the oldest ironman in malaysia:)

Signoff from the training log of my 1st marathon attempt.

Race pack

Collected my race pack this afternoon thanks to CP.

It was a disaster for the organiser.

First it rained just before noon when most people take the opportunity of lunch hour to go and collect their race pack.

Then they were hit by power outage. The LAN system is out and no one could collect their pack.

When we (me, CP, Ravin and Devan) reached the collection area, it looked like the queue for full marathon category is fairly empty. However when we approached the counters suddenly there is a lady shouted at us said please queue from back there.. Really can't understand the pure kiasu attitude..

After queuing for almost 20 minutes and the system is still down, we decided to walk to Masjid Jamek for lunch.

When we came back 30 minutes or so later, the electricity has been restored. It was still a long and slow queue in front. I waited in the queue for another 15 minutes before decided to leave because I've to catch my next meeting back in office. I passed the authorization letter to CP who helped to collect my race pack.

Overall the initial impression of the organiser is really bad. I hope they improve tremendously during the race day. Otherwise I'm really worry they might run out of water supply for the slow marathon runners like me.

Other than that what's in the race pack is also quite disappointing. ¹running vest, ¹tower, ¹powerbar, bibs, runner's guide, a bunch of promotion leaflets and nothing else. I was hoping for more since this is such a big event compared to others.

Ready or not...

I've decided to turn up for SCKLM marathon event regardless of what's going to happen. At the very least I will be there to support my friend - CP, who is going to run his maiden full marathon.

So far I'm confident of running at least 10km with a very slow pace. If fortunate I might be able to last 15km or 20km. If I manage to get to 25km mark then I will likely to walk the remaining 17km. BHAG... My Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Hehe :)

This is definitely not a glamorous way of finishing the 1st marathon but who cares..

Meantime I need to find a cap or maybe a hat with umbrella on it to shield myself from the extremely heat from 9am - 12am on the race day. I have calculated it will takes between 6.5 hours to 7 hours for me to finish. All preparation must gear towards heat management... unless it rains..

Other than that I need to bring my knee protector, sloan cream, emergency numbers and other medical supplies just in case..

May the force be with me on the race day...

Happy father's day

Photo of my sons in the bath tub. My elder son tried to run with me once but he gave up after 600 meters and had to be carried home:)

I try to do a long run this morning without any specific target just to see how far I can go. Unfortunately the knee pain came about after just 7km. I continue to run-walk-run for another 2km before called it a day.

I've stopped running completely whole of last week to rest my knee and at the same time to recover from the cough. Looks like the knee will need more time to heal. It could take months I guess.

Took me around 10 weeks to heal when I injured the metatarsal bone on my left foot in a futsal match last year.

No races for the next 2 months since I will not be able to do long distance run for a while.. Or maybe I should take up sprinting again:)

Bad luck hit twice

Apart from the knee problem that hit me out of no where, I was down with minor lung infection in the last 2 days. It must have been the haze and viruses around the office.

With this my slim hope of turning up for SCKLM is almost buried. Just not enough time left to train even if my knee can take it.

Anyway I plan to resume my running routine with short distance run until my knee is fully recovered. I might not make it this time but I have committed to another marathon run in November. Plenty of time to train for it so I have to take it slowly this time to not repeat the same injury problem.

It's 2 more weeks to go for my friends who will be running their 1st marathon: CP, KW and Ravin. All the best to you guys.

Not good

I failed my 15km attempt today. The culprit is the left knee again. It gives way after 4km.

Next stop is Dr. William Chan's office..

An uphill battle

This week my running program is even worse than the week before. I only managed total mileage of 29km with longest distance of 10km.

I dare not over stretched and had to stop the run every time the pain on my left knee started with level 1 or 2 pain.

Good news is I'm now able to do at least 9 or 10km run before the pain starts.

My plan in the next 21 days before the SCKLM is to do a run on alternate day to give my legs some rest time in between. I'm still hoping to be at the starting line of this event if things progress as expected.

With the alternate day plan, I hope to be able to catch up with a 12km run tomorrow (8/6), 15km (10/6), 18km (12/6), 20km (14/6), 22km (16/6), 25km (18/6), 28km (20/6), 30km (22/6) and taper with a 6km run on 24/6.

25/6 onwards will be carbo loading days to fuel up for the 42km run.

By the way, I'm supposed to see a sports doctor on my knee. I know what the advice would be and decided to skip it until end of June.

Wish me luck all my friends... :-)

The boys are enjoying their Sunday

There is a nice water park at my housing area and it's only 100 meters away from my house.

Our swimming class was cancelled because the coach is sick so we decided to bring the kids to the water park to enjoy themselves.