Run and travel: Kuching Marathon 2018, a nostalgic run

Smiling Charlie charging forward

It is always my dream to run in Kuching, the place where I started my teaching career in 1981. I was in Kuching for 4.5 years before I was transferred to Taiping to serve until I retired last year. I could not make the trip earlier for the run because kuching Marathon is always held during school term. It is almost 33 years since I left Kuching and never return for a visit even though my friends from Kuching have visited me several times in Taiping. I am really excited that I am finally able to make the trip to the land of the hornbill which nearly became my permanent home.

In fact I would have missed the registration for this year's Kuching Marathon had I not being informed by Charlie that the marathon was almost closed for registration. Upon notification, I immediately registered for full marathon which would be my eight FM. As I would be running the marathon and visiting old friends, it was only appropriate I stayed a bit longer in Kuching. So I made it a one week affair running Marathon cum friends calling. I would go to Kuching on 9th August and returned on 15 August which was just sufficient for visiting friends and running the marathon but not enough time to visit places outside Kuching.

I took the 2:00 pm flight to Kuching which only took 1 hour 35 minutes. Charlie was at the airport to welcome me and we proceeded straight to downtown Kuching to get our running bibs. The marathon was held at Padang Merdeka just 50 metres from St Thomas Secondary School, the school I once served. There are many familiar buildings like the Anglican Cathedral, Main Post office building and Aurora hotel but there are more high rise buildings with more modern road networks.

I did not have to put up at hotel as Charlie arranged for me to stay at his brother-in-law's new condominium for free. It is fully furnished but it is a bit out of town. I only stayed at the condominium for two nights before I moved to Cat Backpacker's hotel near the marathon site on the night before the marathon to avoid troubling Charlie to send me to the marathon site before 1:00 am, the starting time of the full marathon. I checked into the hotel around 6:00 pm which only allowed me with few hours of rest before the run. In fact I could not sleep at all lying on bed for few hours before I went out to have my dinner at 9:00 pm. There are few restaurant serving western cuisine but I preferred rice for carbon loading. Luckily I found a Malay coffee shop which served fried rice and that plate of fried rice would be my last meal before the race.

Running past the famous Tua Pek Kong

By the time I finished my dinner it was almost 10 :00 pm, so I had two hours of rest before I took a 5 minutes walk to the starting point. There were two thousands plus FM participants including some foreign runners. As usual I positioned myself at the back of the pack and started off with a pace of 7.5 min/ km. There were no pacers but it did not affect me much because I had my GPS watch to keep me informed about my pace and the distance covered. From Padang Merdeka, we ran to Satok Bridge followed by Malay villages in Petra Jaya. The route is quite flat and should be easy running but I could only maintained an average pace of about 8 min / km for the first 16 km. From then on I felt tired and sleepy and my pace slowed down to 11min/ km partly due my tactic of walking for 200m and running for 800m. I had to depend on energy gel to recover my energy and also counter-pain cream to sooth my tiring muscles. I began to run better after the 22 km mark maintaining a pace of 9 to 10 min / km until the last 3 km. From then on, I had a sudden surge of energy which pushed me into increasing my pace to 7.5 min / km until I crossed the finishing line. I was really delighted that I could finish the race in a nett time of 6 hours 56 minutes.

I forgot to end the run on my gps watch

I really enjoyed the run and credit should be given to the organisers for ensuring a safe run for us by putting cones along the route for most of the 42 km stretch. There were many water stations with mineral water and isotonic drink served by cheerful and friendly volunteers. Road marshalls at road junctions and on bicycles had really done a good job ensuring the safety of the runners. Besides providing refreshment and banana, pain relief cream were also provided at the water stations near the end of the race. One of the major weaknesses of this marathon is the extra 600 m we had to run compared with the actual distance of 42.195 km as recorded by my Garmin watch. Despite the few weaknesses I encountered, I still considered Kuching International Marathon to be much better organised than Penang Bridge International Marathon. Cheers Kuchingites.