putrajaya night half marathon

8.2.2010

Today is Tunku Abdul Rahman’s birthday – the whisky drinking, horse racing lawyer who took role of Bapa Malaysia and finally founder of Perkim!

Two days ago (6.2.2010), I took part in the inaugural first Putrajaya Night Marathon. I registered for the half marathon whilst Keshav and Tania joined the 7.7km run. All preparations were going on well as planned. I retired for the night Friday by 11pm. Right at stroke of midnight, I had to rush to the hospital after receiving a call after my patient with a 36 weeks’ pregnancy was admitted in labour. After reviewing her, I had to go back to deliver her at 0300h. I came back home at 0330h and only managed to have a short snooze at 0400h.

At 0615h, I was jolted from sleep by a shrieking earth shattering scream from Divya at her mum. There went my sleep – essentially the whole night’s sleep was screwed up!

Then came an exhaustive Saturday morning clinic at KPWC. By 2pm, I was exhausted, forced myself to catch an afternoon siesta but no avail.

Fast forward… 1930h, all three of us were in Putrajaya after taking an arranged bus from Petaling Jaya. The Minister for Federal Territories, Raja Nong Chik flagged the half marathon at 2030h.

So far so good, I thought, everything was going according to plan. The terrain seems flat. 10km went on just fine – I had clocked 1h1m. May be I can pace it up a bit to clock under 2h! By 16km, it seemed quite a bit torturous. I had my first cramp over both Achilles tendons as I was crossing a road at 17km, slowed down a bit. By 18km, it was pure torture. I had the Hobson’s choice of continuing the journey by walking. At 20km, my lower limbs were playing tricks on me. They were going haywire and I was walking like Si-Bongkok in P.Ramlee’s movie. Half a kilometer before the finish line, I managed to continue my run at a decent pace and managed to complete the the half marathon in 2h27m – a total disaster!

To quote Mr. Saber, my rugby teacher, the mark of a true athlete is do well again not just the first time but also the second time around.

N.B. official result: (the last column is time taken to cross the 10km mark)

150 H7009 THAM YEE HONG 02:26:42 2:26:26 0:58:31

151 H7133 ASOKAN 02:27:04 2:26:42 0:53:54

152 H7081 ONE CHEE WAH 02:27:32 2:27:23 0:56:39

153 H7070 YAP SOON MENG 02:27:41 2:26:10 1:03:42

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