And the premier KL marathon is back again, this time in the first half of the year once more!
This year is my third participation, although it is my fourth sign up, as the year of 2015 saw the marathon being cancelled due to the haze situation.
SCKLM sees me progressing from 10km to half marathon and now full marathon. This is also my third full marathon for the year.
I probably should have given this marathon a skip given my condition, but I had lied to myself enough to think that I was fit enough to run. After all, who would want to skip the marathon that all runners in Klang Valley look forward to?
RUN DAY 21 MAY 2017
Luan and I had parked a little bit further as we weren’t sure if we were able to get parking close to Dataran Merdeka. We waited for her friend, Jenn Ming before making our way over to the venue.
We reached there later than we planned… as we were approaching the Start Line, the national anthem was playing, so everyone stood still as a sign of respect. Then we had to run into the holding pen (we had signed up for Pen 4, which is the last pen that was meant for runners planning to complete within the longest amount of time – 7 hours), and had a few minutes to prepare ourselves before the flag-off.
Not that it made a big difference, because due to the thousands of runners who had signed up, it still took us about 5 minutes before we got to actually cross the timing mat at the Start, since we were right at the end of the crowd.
I had been hoping to be able to do a sub-6 again this time – and I started off strong. Running past the 7-hour balloon pacers were easy. And then past the 6:30 balloon pacers. Then past the 6-hour balloons. I would have caught up with the 5:30 if I just kept pushing ahead.
And then…. that was when the discomfort started.
I didn’t know then, but – and this is embarrassing to admit – I was suffering from urinary tract infection (UTI). From the 5km mark onwards, I had to make several stops, plus it was difficult to keep running when I feel like I constantly have to pee. And also, I think the lack of training the past three weeks (due to various situations, including family emergencies) really took a toll on my body.
So I couldn’t maintain the pace, and in the end it was all I could do to keep ahead of the 6:30 pacers, one of whom is the now-famous and beautiful Kylie Lam, whom I met at the 24H race this year, and encouraged me to keep going.
I really suffered the remaining 37+km (it was more than 42km, according to my Garmin GPS watch!). There were honestly many times when I really wanted to give up, because it was getting too painful and exhausting to continue.
Still, I managed to finish sub-6h30m in spite of my lack of training and my UTI (which I got treatment for immediately after). Not the best I could do, obviously. But aiming to do much better in the future!
I want to thank all my running friends who kept encouraging me to go on even though I wanted to give up when I was in so much discomfort during the run. Special thanks to Kylie for her encouragement; and to Luan who took care of me when I was nauseous and dizzy after the run was over.
Thank you to the SCKLM organisers, marshals and volunteers for another fantastic event once again!
