HK Marathon 2009

Decided to have a post solely for the review of the HK marathon.

The entire experience is really awesome. To be able to run in a foreign country across their heartlands, along their iconic bridges and through the central business district is really a hard to come by opportunity.
The residents shouting cheers in cantonese which I find it very heartwarming. You hardly hear cheers in dialects. "Ka yao!! Noh lek!!" (which means Jiayou, work hard). They are everywhere. Along the roads, in their housing estates, on their balconies, on the overhead bridges and especially the last 2 km stretch through the Shopping haven, Causeway Bay. The amazing shopping crowds.

The entire race route was challenging with the slopes located at the last 12km part of the run. I find the slopes even steeper than the ones we had at Benjamin sheares. Sad to say, I didn't train hard for the slopes which i knew before I went over to HK. Whenever I encountered every slope, I just stopped and walked up. Thát's why training is impt. The haze is not as bad as I tot it would be. Everything turned out to be fine, perhaps it's because it's a Sun and the factories are closed. THe weather is good as well. Low humidity and cooling weather at around 20 deg. I regretted dousing myself with water along the race. The water together with the cool winds to the hot and sweaty core, made me feel a little sick along the way.

My timing is reasonably okay. Shall try to hit below 4 hrs for the end of the year Sinapore Stand Chart Marathon.

10km mark: 54 mins
21km mark: 1 hr 52 mins
30km mark: 2 hr 53 mins
42.195km mark: 4 hr 25 mins.

And this marathon has a cut off timing of 5 hrs 30 mins. Anyone whom the organisers deem as unable to meet that timing will be asked to load up the bus and to be driven back to the end pt. I remembered seeing bus loads of participants alighting when I was battling the crowds back to my hostel.

But the going home part was hard. Trying to squeeze my way past the shopping crowd in my smelly,sweaty singlet and tights is not easy. The crowd is like the count down kinda crowd. I feel so bad for being so smelly. hahaa... And the ending point is full of indonesians. I guess it's their place for the maids to gather every weekend. I was so shy until I tried to cover my tights with the finisher pack. The HK runners who wore tights had a running shorts over it. Mine was just the tights. Cultural clash. I even had to queue up to cross the road which is only 3 metres wide to get to the side of my hostel.

And when i finally made my way back to the room, my other running buddy is already lying on the bed. Clothing washed, shower taken. Outstanding. His timing: 3 hrs 54 mins. And I owed him a meal. We had a bet that whoever is the slowest will treat the faster one. Lost this time round. We had another bet for the one end of the year. I will make sure i will win him, despite the fact that he is 13 years older than me. hahaha...

And I just slept my day away. And the gals left for dim sum without us.