The Road to Action Asia Challenge Week 2

Week 2 was the UNICEF Run for Children Half Marathon. It was another great route, start and finish in the Disneyland Resort, the run takes in the coast line of Sunny Bay and the Inspiration Lake. The area could be turn into the venue of the next ITU Hong Kong Triathlon is negotiation can be successful. I started off well, reaching the 10km mark at 50mins. But soon hit the wall at 15km and finished with a disappointing 1hr55m, the slowest half marathon I have done. The event was more successful with Martina, who is becoming a great action sports photographer! Here are something to add to her portfolio.

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Marathon Photos

Sorry the hype is over, but I don't have much else to write about, here are some photos from marathon-photos.com that just came out. Notice how my left arm was fixed at the painful finish!

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Beyond the 21KM

As I approach the turning off point on Ting Kau Bridge, I hit the 21km right on 1hr50min, that was exactly my half marathon time last year. "Things have been looking good, I can get this done within four hours." But beyond 21km is uncharted territories for me, the longest I have done on road is 21km. It is the 2006 Hong Kong Marathon, I am running the first full marathon along with 5000 runners. I did a last minute filled in of a GROE team and so I set a target of 4 hours to finish it. The GROE runners get to start with other elite runners at the front, but I am not sure if that helps, being over taken by about 500 fast runners in the first few kilometers really disorientated me. Though as I calmed down and start timing my speed, I realised I am doing 5min/km, not a bad speed for myself. I manage to keep this pace for the first half of the course, beyond that I has no idea how my body would withstand. At around 25km, energy began to leak out of me and I my speed plunged. It was when I hit the low of 9min/km, I decided to drive harder. Every now and again, I would locked on someone who just overtook me and tried to win back to lead, they would eventually shake me off but I played this game for very much the next 10km to keep up the spirit. Toward the X-Harbour Tunnel, many runner began to have bad cramps and at least I was still running, even if merely jogging. Only 5km beyond the tunnel, a blind runner and his guide ran pass me, the guide was constantly talking to the blind runner, encouraging him to shoot for a under 4 hrs finish. That was the final push for me, I just kept up with the pair for the final distance. At the final 1km mark, my left back began to have a cramp, so I have to lock my left arm and swung harder with my right arm to keep the momentum. No time to slow down, only 6 mins left to 4 hrs. Every sense of awareness was directed toward my tired legs, keep running! you can have the cramp of your life beyond the finishing line, but for now take me home! Finally my foot hit the finishing line, the sweet beeping sound caused by the champion chip detector greeted me. It was 3hr59min45sec a hell of a run.

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Hong Kong Marathon

The climax of the running season is nigh, this sunday I will running my first ever marathon in the HK Marathon. The original plan would be turn up with insufficient training and stuggle through, just enough to avoid the humiliation of being pick up by the minibus. But motivation always come unexpectedly, I was asked to be a last minute replacement for a GROE team. A GROE team is a team of four people which runs a leg each of the 4 marathons sponsored by StanChart. The guy who meant to do the HK leg got sick and I was asked to take his place instead. So I am in the SCB All Star Blue team which will be racing against the SCB All Star Green Team. Well I know it is just loads of corporate mumble jumble, but at least I got something to run for. Also being a GROE runner, I get to start in the front with other elite runners, and I get to pick up my own water bottle on routes after filling them up with what ever I like, how about a bottle of dry martini at the last water point, haha. So final preparation tomorrow, I am gonna get a nice massage!!

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