Marathon | Penang Bridge International Marathon 2012

last weekend i was back in penang for grammy's 80th birthday dinner. and i got to know that on sunday the 18th there was a penang bridge marathon run so i registered for it somewhere early september with boyfie.

i was thinking since i had to wait for the bridge to open before i could head back to kl, i might as well take the chance to run/walk on the bridge for a 10km open marathon.

on the night before it was grammy's 80th birthday dinner and by the time we got home it was 12 plus. showered, facebooked and watched the starting of Man Utd VS Norwich game before heading to bed at 1 plus coz we had to wake up early later...

so it's my very first marathon but i did not train at all.

i told myself to go to the gym to swim and train but everytime i had stupid excuses telling myself i was too busy to spare time for gym. and therefore i had to bear the consequence of having horrible muscle ache after the 10km run/walk.

so on 18th i woke up at 5am to shower and boil some water to make half boiled eggs for the 4 of us. well, my brother end up doing it coz i did not boil enough water for all. ooopsieeee… and then i got ready and woke my lil pig up.

the 10km open was supposed to start at 6.30am but we only clocked in ours at about 6.42am coz we were kind of late and lost to find the starting point. but the time only ticks when we pass the starting arch anyway.

for the first few meters i could run and do some small jogs. but tummy muscle was pain and i didn't want to push to run and strain myself. so i decided to walk and told boyfie to go ahead. and for the rest of the 10km i did it on my own. it was pretty good for the first few KMs and we saw quite a number of encouraging quotes on our way to the end point.

the first was "MAY THE COURSE BE WITH YOU". and the very one that caught my attention and made me push to finish the run was "YOUR FEET ARE HURTING BECAUSE YOUR KICKING SOME GOOD BUTT" 

well i paused a moment when i could see the penang bridge. *i dont know how far i was from the starting point but probably 3km or less* and then it was camho time with the bridge background. but by then i was already starting to dehydrate and did not have any water. plus low blood pressure was kicking in i felt slight dizziness. but i told myself that if i'm gonna start i'm gonna have to push till the end.

so i continued going up slope heading towards the bridge and went by a couple of cheer people. which gave me a slight energy boost to run to the 5km point where i could get water. on the way i could see a really nice sunrise. the scene was indeed beautiful. and i knew i only had another 5 more to go after the u-turn. and there were more water stations on the way.

only problem is that we could see a whole lot of bottles places at the sides of the bridge which didn't look nice coz it made the bridge a dumpster. and even worse that the later water stations used paper cups and we could see a whole lot of them scattered all over the bridge. well i did contribute to 1 cup too. *guilty*

and then as i moved on, there was this really cool auntie who said in hokkien that went "hey it's only pass 1 hour, i still have chance to get my medal! go go go!" and woah! that made me feel even lousier for not pushing myself to finish it. so i ran a lil and pushed forward.

when i reached a point that i could see a signboard that pointed to Airport/USM i thought to myself that i probably only had another 3km to go so i should continue moving forward and finish it. but little did i know i had an extra km which made it my last 4km. when i saw the 2.5km to go signage i was thinking to myself "what???!!! i still have so much more after moving so far?" and there was when i bumped into chunyuin and sasa from pinkies.

at my second last km, bestie ai ling called and asked how far i had to go coz she had already arrived at the ending point *she started earlier and was already almost at the bridge when i started my run* and i told her 2km to go.

then i saw the 1.5km to go signage and went…okayh! that was a very long 1km! and i almost wanted to stop to have my toes iced but i knew that if i stopped, i probably wont be able to finish it…so i went on until i saw the final roundabout and i almost wanted to cry. LOL!

ai ling called again, and asked if i wanted milo since she was already waiting. i told her i was almost there but that final part took me a long 15 minutes or so to reach. well, i was pretty much exhausted and my legs were already not mine.

i finished my run in less than 2 hours having to have finish it within 1 and a half hours we should get our finishers medal. but they still had extra and this really nice girl passed by me and told me to ollect mine before it runs out. so i quickly collected mine and got my milo from bestie while waiting for boyfie to come look for me.

of course after getting our medals it was a camho time and then back home to shower and then grab mcds on the way to meet up with daddy and mummy before heading back to kl.

my leg muscles hurt like a B* the next day eventho i had foot massage right away on sunday night. i walked like a grandma/penguin but it's getting better now. and i can move around like a normal person despite the muscle pains.

well i'd say it was a good experience. very much worth the effort and at least i finished it. the results is that i finished my run within 1 hour 48 minutes and i'm at number 3595 our of 5209 runners. and boyfie finished his within 1 hour 17 minutes and ranked at 2674 out of 5373 runners. not too bad after all for first timers.