A very wet Penang Bridge International Marathon 2018

Route for Penang Bridge Marathon 

On 25/11/2018 it was our annual Penang Bridge International Marathon which I had participated since year 2011. I registered for full marathon even though I was informed during registration that if I finished the run more than 7 hours I would not receive my medal and finisher tee. My finishing time last year was 7 hours 18 minutes, 18 minutes more than the official cut-off time but I still managed to get my finisher tee and medal which were sent to me by courier after my appeal to the organiser. I registered this year though it is quite likely my time will exceed 7 hours and get nothing because I really enjoy running on the bridge which is only deserved for us participants once in a year. Seok Wan registered for half marathon.

We planned to go early in the morning on 24/12/2018 to get our running bibs so that we have enough sleep in our time sharing hotel, Georgetown city hotel which is quite far from the starting venue. Due to Seok Wan's dilly dally over household chores we only managed to reach Queensbay's mall around 2 pm. By the time we finished our lunch at KFC it was almost 3 pm. After collecting our bibs I had another errand to complete before I could proceed to the hotel. I had to sent my mum's medicine to my sister 's house at Sunway Tunas not far away. 

Very smooth collection of running bibs

After we had checked into our hotel, it was already 5:30 pm. We tried to get some sleep but ended up chit-chatting on bed until dinner time at 7:00 pm. We walked to a nearby hawker centre to have our dinner. I thought at first to have fried rice for better carbon loading but ended up ordering fried koay teow which was not the best option before a full marathon. After dinner, Seok Wan insisted that we walked to Gurney plaza 1 km away to buy a t-shirt as the base for her running singlet which was too revealing. After returning to  our hotel for some sleep I only realised that we had only the most 1 hour to rest. Luckily I had one hour of quality sleep before we headed to the starting venue some 12 km away. I had to rely on my waze to lead us to the parking site near Sungai Nibong Bus station. I ended up parking my car at the parking  lot of a hawker centre where I was charged RM 10 by a group of locals who hijacked the place as their own property. I had no choice as it was difficult to find free parking lot. When I finished parking I was shocked  to realise that the time was  already 1: 00 am or 30 minutes to my full marathon start off. We were almost 1.5 km away from the starting point so I had to jog slowly to the starting point leaving Seok Wan behind. Her half marathon would only start at 3:00 am and she did not have to rush.  Luckily I still managed to reach the back of the full marathon participants already gathered with just 5 minutes left before the gun off. So the 1.5 km jog was perfect as my warming up before the marathon. 

Full Marathon Participants waiting for the start-off

As I have recovered from my persistent heel pain which was with me for more than a year I could run faster but I still maintained a pace of 8 min per km. I did not stop at the first two water stations as I could drink from my bottle filled with energy solution. I had only one small bottle with me as I had dropped the other one into a big drain while easing myself during Taiping full Marathon in March. I did not feel very tired like I usually do after covering about 16 km on the highway and overtaking the 7:00 hour and 6:30 hour pacers. It started to drizzle while I was entering the bridge. The sea breeze blowing right into my face was really an enjoyable moment and a stimulant to run better. But soon after that it began to pour heavily with intermittent thunder and lightning. Some runners were very excited and stopped to snap photo of the thunderstorm while some looked frighten. As the bridge has tall lamp-posts on both its sides,  it was quite unlikely the lightning will strike objects lower than the lamp posts. Actually I am more worried about my new iphone in my pocket which was already soaking wet. I really felt sorry for a participant who ran pushing his baby in a pram. The pram was covered with plastic but it was still not fully waterproof. In my opinion the organiser should not allow this type of participant at all because it is not fair to expose young baby to the agony of bad weather in the middle of the night. 

long line to collect medal , the runner pushing a pram just in front 

The rain did not stop but slightly subdued when I turned back on the bridge towards the island. I could run faster as my body was  cooled down by the rain which  reduced my over sweating. We were given two bananas at two different water stations and that really helped in boosting my energy but the real energy booster still came from the  energy gel which I brought along. I finished five of the six packets of energy gel I brought with me. Perhaps it was the energy gel that I consumed at the last 5 km mark that allowed me to push myself a bit harder overtaking many participants who were mostly walking. I thought of speeding all my way for the last 3 km but I suddenly felt pain at my heel prompting me to immediately slow down. I only ran faster when I had 500m left to finish. As I was in top form in this marathon I was not really surprised to cross the line with the digital clock at the finishing line showing 6:39. My actual time is 6 hours 38 minutes which was my personal best result after 9 full marathons. Besides the cool weather, my personal best result was partly due to the cancellation of the 10 km event which cleared the way for me to run without any hindrance in my last 5 km run.

our hard earned medals

At the finishing line we were asked to line up to collect our medals and finishers' tees in the rain. The process was so slow that it took me almost 30 minutes to collect my medal and finisher tee. The long queue was due to too few counters being set up to give out medals and tees. The volunteers manning the counters did not check whether we had ribbon which were given to us at the Butterworth checkpoint to avoid cheating.  So those who cheated in the marathon such as turning back half way on the bridge and those who returned by bus were still happily collecting their medals and finisher's tee. The organiser should take away the bibs of those who boarded the sweepers bus and maybe waited until near to cut off time only transferred them back to the finishing venue. Besides that, the organiser should collect the ribbon from the participants and who could not show their ribbons should be disqualified.

There were a lot of complaints about last year's marathon and it seemed there was no improvement at all this year. Many were contemplating not taking part in the Marathon next year but I will still go for it unless I have other plan such as running in Halonga Bay in Vietnam which date coincides with Penang Bridge International Marathon. There were nothing much to eat at the finishing venue except milo and " koko Krunch ". The organiser should not try to cut cost but should instead promote the famous Penang street food to the participants who were surely very hungry after an all night run. Maybe the organiser can reduce the prize money for the winners who were mostly Kenyan so that more allocation can be used to provide food for the runners. We did not wait for the lucky draw as we were soaking wet. I really felt sorry that Seok Wan had to wait for me for more than two hours in wet clothes as she finished her half marathon in roughly 3 hours.