Running a Full Marathon in Taiping

A rare photo of me in action. Thanks to Organizer's photographer

Senior veteran running in junior veteran category

Taiping International Flag Run 2018 on 4 March 2018 with 42 km, 21 km , 12 km heritage trail and 5 km categories was organised in a grand scale. It managed to attract more than 2000 participants including few foreign runners in various categories. This is the second time a full marathon was held in Taiping after the poor organizing of the first full marathon in 2012 which was dubbed the worst full marathon ever organised in Malaysia. The organizer this time was more prepared as evident from their impressive promotional video,  maps of routes of the various categories, design of medals and finisher's tees. 

I had run six full marathons so far but none in Taiping so the full marathon in my hometown was too attractive to miss. I was a bit worried when I registered for the full marathon fearing that it might be a repeat of  the faulty first full marathon in Taiping. I have reason for my worries because it is always not easy to organize a full marathon which needs a lot of preparation, many volunteers and financial support. But my urge to run a full marathon in my hometown was too strong to be swayed and I gave it a bet.

The full marathon only managed to attract about 200 runners. It was supposed to start at 12:01 am but was only flagged off 15 minutes later. As usual I started the run with my slow pace of 8 minutes per km which would definitely became slower when the run progress. I was  pacing and chit-chatting with a Taiping runner who was a 6-hour finisher until 3 km mark before he increased his his pace and left me behind. I was running so slow that more and more runners overtook me and by the time I reached 5 km, I was almost running on my own. 

The route map given by the organizer was not exactly similar to the route directed by the road marshals. When I reached the flyover near Tesco I tried to run below the flyover to turn into Kamunting road but was directed to run up the flyover toward the Aulong by the road marshals. When we reached the traffic light at the junction to Aulong I nearly made a U-turn to run toward kamunting road but was asked to run toward Aulong. I was a bit confused but few of us just followed the road marshals' instruction and ran until we turned into Taman kami. It was few kilometres of quiet and dark residential roads from there until we came to the flyover at Tesco again. From there we turned into the flyover towards Kamunting road. The section of the route from Tesco to Aulong and back to Tesco Flyover was almost 8 km which was not shown in the route map given. The last minute change of route kept most of the runners in the dark which caused some runners to follow the wrong path cutting short their 42 km by at least 8 km. Many runners were shock that their personal best result were so good. The organizer should announce it before the run if there was any change in the running route. 

I really had a scare of my life when I reached one of the traffic lights along Kamunting road where the whole road was crowded with motorcyclist-daredevils racing with high speed down the road. It was very noisy and smoky and risky. I had to walk along the uneven grass patches by the side of the road and luckily they were professional riders and did not skid to hurt themselves and others. The police car arrived later trying to catch some of them but I doubt they were successful. The noise only disappeared when we reached the Kamunting mosque and from there we could have our peace of mind running. Only three of us were running together until we reached the 30 km mark at the end of Bukit Jana road where we were each supplied with a can of Red Bull energy drink. That energy drink really came in handy to supplement my almost depleted energy. I was a bit disappointed that there were no supply of bananas or buns. I stopped twice to apply the analgesic balm, Counterpain on my legs and shoulders to relieve my muscle pains. In fact the real pain came from the blisters on my toes and I had to take off my socks to give more room for my toes' movement.

When I reached Taiping town centre, a runner in front of me  did not know which way to go and I had to be the road marshal. Together with another woman runner behind me ,  three of us ran and walked together to complete the last 3 km from the hawker centre via the Chinese Temple to Lake garden. I doubt runners from outstations knew the route of the last 3 km and they would most probably made the wrong turn into lake garden reducing their full marathon to only 40 km because no road marshal was there.  There should be distance markers to acknowledge the runners the distance they had run  or how many km left to finishing line. Besides that, the organizers  should not leave the last three 3 km which has few turns without any road marshals to direct the runners. When I crossed the finishing line it was already  7: 10 am which meant my time was still within the 7 hours cut of time because the race was started 15 minutes late. 

Running through centenary rain trees canopy

Slow and steady run across the finishing line 

I think the organizers had put up a good show in certain areas such as providing sufficient water stations, volunteers, medals and finisher's tees and illuminating sticks but there were many shortcomings too. The organizers should not have change the route once the route map was distributed, the road marshals should be stationed at every turn or junction of the route and stayed until the last runner passed through, distance marker is also a must to give runners idea on how far they had covered. Running at night sharing the roads with other road users could be very risky and the organizers had done its part by giving the runners illuminating sticks but many runners did not use the illuminating sticks. In fact it is safer if every runner is equipped with a head lamp or blinker.  Most of the shortfalls did not really affect me because I had a Garmin GPS watch to tell me the distance and I am a local who is familiar with the roads in Taiping except the motorcyclist-daredevils  racing on the road which was  a real threat to our safety. Despite all these, I think I still enjoy the night run and I will definitely register for full marathon again if the organizers decided to organize the flag run again. Surely the organizers had learnt their lessons and should take note of all the shortfalls and rectify them in the next marathon event. Finally thanks for the beautiful photos uploaded by the organizers. 

Rain tree walk of Taiping