Maiden Marathon

As I'm writing this, the pain below my feet is still tingling. Good, that will make my memory fresh from the marathon that I ran yesterday. Yup, I ran the Kuala Lumpur International Marathon and I completed the full 42.195 KM in 5hrs 02mins.

I shd porbably start with my journey to reach this goal. As some of u are aware, my ultimate goal is to be an IronMan(IM), and marathon is 1/3 of the disciplines that I need to complete to become one. It would be foolish if I go to IM without even completing the full marathon distance first.

The farthest that I had run before this was 30K, and this was back in January. And since then, my training has been irregular becos of so many unavoidable reasons, but some of it because I had lazy ass. To cut story short, I had compressed my training plan into 1 mth, and that was a month before the Marathon. (not a good idea).

With the compressed training plan, I never achieved the distance I wanted to achieve in training, because I will always get cramps abt 3/4 of the distance. Eg; If i planned to run 24K, I will end up running 20K only. So, coming in to the Marathon dates, I was not as prepared as I had hoped for. This is not good for me, because my confidence always comes from knowing that I had enough preparation. But I guess now I just had to rely on my mental strength than anything else to carry me thru this.

In terms of food intake, the preparation was the same as before, a lot of carbo 2 days before, but this time, I add on a lot of potasium and sodioum from stuffs like banana and prunes, hoping to prevent the cramps.

So on the race day, woke up at 3.3o. Had breakfast and most importantly, kubab. My dearest wife sent me to Dataran Merdeka, she needs to get back to prepare for her 10K which only start at 7. As I entered the field, met up with Kam, Budin and Akmal. Then Bandit and Shazly came along.

The race was flagged-off at 5 am sharp. The only thing that was on my mind was the the tip by Stupe, 'keep your pace, don't get overly excited'. I felt very good for the 1st 10K (1:10), as it was quite cooling after the slight drizzles just before the race. I re-hydrate at every water station, and that was my plan, to keep on drinking at every stops. Succesfully maintained 7-7.30m/km.

As I passed 15K, my mind started to think abt my wife and Noah. I dont know why, but I was feeling the goosebumps. One thing for sure, I know I have to do this for them, I need to show them u can do anything if u put ur mind into it. I had a banana at the food station, and my pace had risen up to abt 6.45K/min, the sun was abt to rise.

Reaching the 2oK mark, the time was 2hr 1omins. I was going too fast, need to slow down. Went to relieved myself by the bushes and continue running. At this point, I have not stop running yet.

Moving along, tried to slow down the pace to 7mins, but I felt strains on my calves if I try to do that, so maintained 6.45 pace. As I reached 25K, I think somewhere arnd Beach club, I walked up Jln Sultan Ismail instead of running as I'm starting to feel strains on my quads. So I changed my strategy, I will only run up any hills if I dont feel the strains.

But after that, managed to run at 6.45-7min pace till 30K. Eventhough, the pain in my legs is getting stronger, I told to myself, I'm not tired, I'm just in pain. Just shut-up, tahan sikit sakit and get on with it, dont be such a sissy.

I know Mantat is somewhere arnd 30K as he was distributing the power gel. From abt 100m I could saw his towering firgure. I dont why I just felt terharu to see him there. I even refused to take a power gel from the person in front of him, I want to take it from his hands. Well this is what 30k of running is doing to u, it will get u emotional.

It was 8:15 when I reached 30k. I have 1hr 15 mins to do it sub 4:30 and 1:45 to do sub 5. Very do-able. Or so I thought...

I'm telling you guys, the marathon only starts after 30K. The last 12K felt like forever. I only ran when there were flats and downhills. Unfortunately, half of the last 12K was uphill. The part from Istana to Jln Sultan Sallehuddin was ruthless, with big hills and totally exposed to the sun and traffic.

But the worst has yet to come. I was doing the walk 50m run 200m strategy from lake gardens to the peak of Jalan Sultan Sallehudin, to my horror, there was no water at the water station. Its 5k to go and 40 mins to do it sub 5. Sounds easy right? wrong. It was the hardest 5k of my life.

As I start to run with a faster pace, both legs started to cramp, everywhere. Shit, all sort of questions came thru my mind. Will I be able to finish this? I cant even run without having any cramps. But I have to do it, for Tesa and Noah. They must know that I'm not a quitter. I'm not running against time anymore now, I'm running against myself.

At 39K, my strategy is walk 100 run 100. On top of the cramps, I'm starting to feel sharp pain at my rib cage. I was trying as hard as I could to run, but the legs just wont give in, it will just lock.

As I see the finishing line, I was trying with all my might to run, I dont want to finish a marathon walking. But I couldnt bend my legs anymore now, little bend will cause severe cramps. I was limping 100m from fininsh. To withstand the pain, I was grinding my teeth so hard that I think it would crumble into sands.

50m from finish, the public was cheering for the finishers. I tried to run really slowly. I could hear Isma and Callie (frow work) cheering for me.

But my saviour, my angle, my wife came to me 30m from the line. She screamed on top of her lungs and dragged me to complete it running. I dont care abt the pain anymore, I ran as hard as I could without bending my legs at all, to reach the goal, the ulitimate recognisiton of being a MARATHONER. And so I did....Alhamdullillah. Thank God for giving me the opportunity to realised my dream, my everloving wife, the pillar of my strength. And my family and friends, for giving the me support.