A Journey to My First Marathon Part 1

Having completed my 10K run (in 2010) two years ago and a Half Marathon (2011) a year ago, I have mentally psyched myself to run The Penang Bridge International Marathon(PBIM) this year. 42km is really a long distance.

Night View of Penang Bridge

I was training for my half marathon for PBIM with no training program or information but just a passion to run. I spend most of my training on the treadmill running from 40 mins to 60 mins. And at times a 60 mins to 90 mins run around my "taman"(housing area) on a Sunday morning. Never knew anything  about nutrition or what to eat before or after a run. A real newbie in long distance running. Probably it is because I attempted a half marathon 25 years ago doing the same thing. But I have forgotten that I am 25 years older now with a heavier body and a much deteriorated stamina. I have stopped running after that half marathon due to the amount of training I have put into that. I just become scared of running.

What get me back to running after 25 years? I would not say that I have not run during these 25 years. I have still been running on the treadmill over these years but the passion is not there and running is just an exercise. I spend most of my time doing weight training. Ending up with a much much heavier body. I have moved to a new gym about two years back where the treadmill is mostly not fully utilised all the time. So I started running on treadmill most of the time. I started with a walk/run routine. I could not run 20 mins continuously not even at a 7.5km/hour speed. That is actually very slow!! So I later drop the speed to 6.0km/hour speed which is almost like walking speed. It took me a few weeks before I could run for 20 - 30 mins without walking. And the maximum speed was probably at 6.8km/hour. The interesting part is I was hooked!!

I have read that if you do endurance exercise for a longer period the endorphins will kick in mostly referred to as the runner's high. I started to run 3 times a week on a regular basis on a treadmill and slowly increasing it to 40mins and then 60mins on weekends. After about 4 or 5 months of running I thought I would entered a half marathon of PBIM at the end of the year. But later I decided to do a 10km which was in 2010. The 10km run that year was  not that difficult as I was already running about 6 -7 km at that time for 60mins.

My 10km Medal

As I like to take on challenges as it comes, the next race will be a half marathon next year. Continuing my training on a treadmill most of the time and occasionally doing longer runs around my "taman"(housing area) on Sunday. My runs was only about 45 mins to a maximum of 90 mins. I did not even bothered what is the distance that I have covered. I did not really find a training program or information on long distance running. That was really a big mistake !!!


On the race day, the run starts at 2am for full marathon and 3am for half marathon. I did not sleep for the night and never ate anything before the race except for the dinner the night before. And I have to finish before 3 and a half hour for a medal. I was calculating my speed earlier that I ran on a treadmill and I was doubtful I could even finished in 3 and a half hour.

When I was at the race venue, I was wondering why some of the runners was carrying bananas and energy gels for the race. Probably I would not need that. The atmosphere of the marathon is great. Very fanfare type. Gets you into a happy mood. And we saw the full marathoners running off from the start. We will be the next at 3am. You really see that runners come in all shapes and sizes and age too. There are really so many older runners in the race. The good thing is it makes you feel young !! Although I have been used to people calling me "uncle".

The race starts...and I was running with a group of runners and going at my leisurely pace. The stamina was good although I really did not know about my pacing. The running up of the mid span was the first toughest challenge of the race and you have to run so far before you can do a U-turn back on the bridge. After that you have another run up the middle span of the bridge. Gosh! This is really tough! This is like hitting the wall !! You just run out of energy at that point of time. The insufficient training and nutrition really come to bite me at this moment. The mental strength was the only thing that keeps me going. My only mantra was "I must never stop running".

To be continued....