My personal preparation for the Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM2017) was not the best to be honest. Lack of sleep over the previous 48 hours led to a rather lethargic end to the race. This was my longest run since the Tokyo Marathon in February 2017 and is only part of the preparation for Boston so not too disappointed overall.
LACK OF SLEEP:
On the Friday before the marathon I had a day trip by car to KL for a meeting. This meant waking at 0430 and then spending 3hours 30 minutes driving down. Arriving home late at night on Friday around 22:00.
After having just a couple of hours sleep I woke to watch the Premier League match “West Ham vs Leicester”. I was able to have another hour sleep post match before my boys woke everyone up (so far 3 hours sleep). Then car service at Nissan and a meeting with Wilson from Brooks (MY) before heading home for lunch.
Martin arrived from Langkawi in the early evening, so after dinner and catch up it was decided to grab another hour or so sleep before leaving around 2300 on Saturday to drive to Queensbay Mall. Total sleep since Friday morning around 5 hours.
Prior to our race starting at 0300 (Sunday) we had time to watch the fireworks, start of the marathon and have a couple of soft drinks in a bar watching the football. Must have been strange for the people enjoying their night out to see two middle aged guys drinking juices wearing running kits during the early hours.
CALF TIGHTNESS:
I had been nursing a small tear in the right calf over the previous 5-6 weeks so I decided to ensure that I would run in calf sleeves to support this.
The event appeared to be very well organized – plenty of toilets, tents, seats etc as well as the booths of all the sponsors. Music playing on the sound system was only interrupted with the firework display. Very loud for 0130 in the morning. Luckily not too near any residential areas.
THE START:
With the excuses out of the way.
Finally we arrived at the start and was as prepared as we could be on a lack of sleep. Martin was carrying his carb gels and I had my “mars bar” (more on the mars bar episode later).
The morning was unusually cool and was really perfect conditions for running.
So at 0300 on the dot we are flagged off. There were a couple of bottle necks where pace had to drop to a walk in the early stages. This was due to the volume of runners. We were soon able to get into gear though and the first 3km was done in around 19:30 (6:40 mins per km). We skipped the first water station (maybe a mistake) and headed on. We were consistently hitting the around 6:30 for the next 7 km too. So to be around 1:05 at 10 km was on track for this stage of my training for Boston.
Martin was looking strong (for his first HM).
THE STITCH STRIKES BACK:
Around 12-13km I developed a stitch in my side that was very persistent. First time I have had a stitch mid race. I tried to run through it but it did impact the pace greatly. This was where Martin was able to muster on and finish strongly in around 2hours 22minutes.
I started to walk 1 minute and run 5 minutes – hoping that the brief relaxing period would clear the stitch.
MARS BAR EPISODE
I then thought I would try to relax the stitch by eating the Mars bar and walking. This point was unfortunately midway between two water stations. The mars bar that had been in my pouch was very soft and sticky. The taste was fine and very welcome, but the very sticky consistency made it difficult to swallow. In hindsight this was a mistake to try to “drink” the melted mars bar without water..!
THE BRIDGE:
I was so looking forward to this segment of the race. I knew that the run was very early morning but I was hoping to be able to see some sights as I run out onto the bridge and also when we turned to head home. Sadly the view was disappointing. The fact it was still only around 0430 in the morning meant there was not enough light to see much (see picture below)
LOOKING TO FINISH:
With the pace now dropped back to a slow meander it was not possible to hit the 2 hours 30 minutes target. As such I felt that rather than pushing on, I would just look to finish the race comfortably and use this purely as intended. A step along the preparation for BOSTON and the start of the runRICKYrun project.
I reached the finish line with a time of 2 hours 36 minutes 43 seconds. Average pace of 7:26 per km. The last 8 km was 2 minutes slower per km than the first 10km.
Not disappointed really though as this is only part of the initial training for Boston. Really chuffed for Martin though as it was a tremendous effort by him. Just wish I was 15kg lighter and maybe I could give him a real race lol.
Final Note:
I know that post race there were many complaints from runners about the lack of medals, t-shirts etc at the end. I can only comment on my experience and I would say that the race appeared to be very well organized and everything was there to support the runners to finish.