NACLI
Woke up at 3.10 am in my room in NACLI! (in the middle of the last night of the sub-ministry retreat) Just timely, as I woke up Kheng and Hans just entered my room. With Kheng kindly helped me with a some tapping on my sprain left ankle and led me to some full leg stretching.
Abt 4am...head of the the common area seeing some of the youths still hanging out late in the wee hrs of the morning. Before I met up with steph as we drove off to orchard road...
ION ORCHARD
Met up with Chuen kiat at the entrance of ION orchard. He has been my running buddy since SOCC days, also for AHM and now this stand charted run!
Anyways, we did some stretching before the run, as we head of to the starting line from the back of the sub-6 area.
4.50am
The starting line outside ION Orchard! As everyone prepares mentally for the long 42.195 km marathon!For the first few km i was telling chuen kiat not to go to fast as i didn't want to aggravate my left sprain ankle, where previously I felt this extreme pain when I did my own tapping on my preparation runs 2 weeks before this marathon. But in the end, I really THANK GOD for everyone who prayed for my left ankle, as MIRACULOUSLY it did not ache up at all through out the run! This is really the power of prayers as normally any old pains will ache up especially in such a long marathon!
We started of with a pretty decently good pace as we hit our targeted time by the 10km mark of 1 hr 10mins...
10km- 1 hr 10 mins
By the 17km mark, chuen kiat decided to run ahead instead of running at my pace. As I really wanted to conserve all the energy I cld as I strategies of having a short walk at every 100 plus or banana break.21km- 2 Hrs 26 Mins
At this stage I was thinking that it's as though i've completed an Army half marathon and now need to do another 2 X of this half marathon!! (Bad thought!)
By the 30 Km mark the extreme fatigue sets in! And you can sense your legs aching up and you get so tempted to just walk!.. by this time... i took a longer walk at my usual favourite 100plus break... and sprayed my legs with the salon pas spray!32.5km- 3 Hr 30mins
36km- A special MOMENT that hit me!
Around the 36 km mark towards to marina barrage i had this 1 second vision of a scene in Hebrews 12:1-2 hit me.... 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith...
When I entered the underground sheltered area of the barraged, and there were people cheering you on inside. It suddenly felt like the great cloud of witnesses cheering us from heaven! As we ran the race for God! And in a moment, i just felt so touch by God that i almost felt like crying just thinking about that... in that instant i suddenly felt so much more motivated as I thought of the many more life lessons in this marathon...
38Km- THE TORTUROUS last 4km!
Around the 38 km mark towards uphill of the sheares bridge... I encountered the worst EXTREME cramping's of my life! I could feel from ankle up to my thighs this super super tightness when I move my legs in a certain direction. I was suddenly spamming my salon pas spray until it was totally empty and rubbing it like some "gundu" trying to shake of the cramps. I knew if I stop to walk the cramps wld just collapse fully on my leg and i might never ever complete the rest of the run...
The last 2 km more to go!... this was where I grabbed the counter-pain creams from the volunteers from the side when I finished my own bottle of spray and spammed it on my legs for the last part! As i so wanted to complete it and i had like 20mins more to complete the last 2km to get a sub-5 which was my personal target.
In the end, on the running chip it clocked 5:01:52 Hrs. My cramps was so bad that i had to limp back the last 100 m to the finishing line
The race result 2257 out of abt 19000 runners and 1540 position for the Singapore ranking...
The emotion on my face was literally showing the insane cramping pain I felt in the last 4km! It was so bad, I literally limped to the finishing line for the last 100m. And from the looks of the photos, it seems im the only one who was not smiling in this photo finish.
The Full marathon finisher shirt was worth the torture! But I doubt I wld run another 42.195km run again unless I feel a good purpose for it!
My conclusions of this marathon, felt the strain on my knees once I reached the 30km plus mark and i won't want to experience such extreme cramps again. And when your legs starts aching together with the sun scorching over you adding on with the demoralising construction site area after the 30 km mark... it dampened my mood for awhile.
Besides the torturous part of the marathon , looking back 2010, I would never have thought I would actually signed up for this Full marathon. This crazy thought came in the midst of walking in full battle order for 72km in taiwan in march, and thinking to myself if I cld do this now, won't a 42km run in just a singlet and shorts be so much easier, and only just 5hrs of torture. And just timely with the 21km AHM in Sep, and the peer pressure from my friends to sign up for this race during my joint term in ocs, I just thought! Let's do it! :)
Well at least i can say, "my childhood dream of completing a full 42.195km run in my life is fulfilled!"
No comments:
Post a Comment