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| 2020 Taipei Standard Chartered Marathon |
Taiwan is the country I wish to visit since many years ago but never know that it is the Taipei Standard Chartered Marathon that trigger the trip. I was jokingly talking about going to Taipei to take part in a marathon to a friend who studied in Taiwan before. A great surprise that he was interested in going with me and invited another friend to follow suit. We started our trip from Kaoshiung on 10/1/2020 and travelled northwards in Taiwan until Taipei where the marathin was held. We reached Taipei on the 16/01/2020 from Taichung via high speed train which only took one hour. We stayed at Beauty B7 Hotel which is very near to the starting venue of the marathon besides Taipei 228 Park for four nights.
The collection of running bibs was not an easy task as the venue was quite far from our hotel and quite difficult to find. Luickily I had my two friends who are good as navigator using google map. The site for running bib collection is at Xinyi Boulevard just opposite Taipei 101 building.
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| Taipei 228 Park, landmark near the starting point |
After collecting my running bib we proceeded with our itineraries of visiting places of interest in taipei before the day of action on 19/01/2020. The night before the race I still had cough infected while on the plane to Taiwan and I was wondering whether I should just give up the race. As I was feeling better in the morning of the race and very reluctant to give up the chance to run in Taipei which was my main intention of coming to Taiwan, I finally decided to run even though I am not in the pink of health. Luckily I was just running half marathon which would not be to demanding on my physical condition.
As the temperature was around 10 degree I had to wear a thermal shirt before putting on the running singlet of the marathon. I could notice quite a number of participants wearing a just singlet and a short under such low temperature for the race. There are 3 categories in the marathon that is 42 km, 21 km and 13 km which attracted about thirty thousands participants. 10 minutes after the full marathon was started, we the half marathon category was flagged off. There were pacers for half marathon but only until 2 hours 30 minutes. I was standing behind the group which has no pacer as I was prepared to just run at a leisure pace through out the 21 km. I managed to maintain my pace at 12 to 13 minutes per mile as the the route is totally flat. We ran from garden road besides 228 park towards the direction of Beitou passing by quite a few tourist attractions. I stopped on many occasions to snap photos of the landmarks of Taipei such as Taipei 101in the distant, the historical Yuanshan hotel, kuomintang war memorial and river side park which also was the finishing venue of the 21 and 42 km categories. There were water stations every 5 km interval and every water station provided banana , chocolate wafer, mineral water and carbonated drink. There were quite a number of support and cheer groups along the route to motivate us.
I finished the race in a time 2 hours 55 minutes which is within the cut off time of 3 hours. After collecting my goodies bag which contained a medal , a nice towel, some drink and bread we had to line up to take a free shuttle bus to the starting venue which was almost 10 km away. As the queue was so long I had a hard time locating the end of the line where I could join in. The worst part is the cold because I did not bring any jacket or winter coat to put on after the race. I thought the finishing venue is the same as the starting venue just few hundreds metres away from my hotel. So I was reckless in that sense and should not complain being put in such miserable condition of being wet , smelly and icy hands for almost one hour before I reached my hotel.
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| President palace, landmark near starting venue |
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| Riverside park, finishing venue |
As the temperature was around 10 degree I had to wear a thermal shirt before putting on the running singlet of the marathon. I could notice quite a number of participants wearing a just singlet and a short under such low temperature for the race. There are 3 categories in the marathon that is 42 km, 21 km and 13 km which attracted about thirty thousands participants. 10 minutes after the full marathon was started, we the half marathon category was flagged off. There were pacers for half marathon but only until 2 hours 30 minutes. I was standing behind the group which has no pacer as I was prepared to just run at a leisure pace through out the 21 km. I managed to maintain my pace at 12 to 13 minutes per mile as the the route is totally flat. We ran from garden road besides 228 park towards the direction of Beitou passing by quite a few tourist attractions. I stopped on many occasions to snap photos of the landmarks of Taipei such as Taipei 101in the distant, the historical Yuanshan hotel, kuomintang war memorial and river side park which also was the finishing venue of the 21 and 42 km categories. There were water stations every 5 km interval and every water station provided banana , chocolate wafer, mineral water and carbonated drink. There were quite a number of support and cheer groups along the route to motivate us.
I finished the race in a time 2 hours 55 minutes which is within the cut off time of 3 hours. After collecting my goodies bag which contained a medal , a nice towel, some drink and bread we had to line up to take a free shuttle bus to the starting venue which was almost 10 km away. As the queue was so long I had a hard time locating the end of the line where I could join in. The worst part is the cold because I did not bring any jacket or winter coat to put on after the race. I thought the finishing venue is the same as the starting venue just few hundreds metres away from my hotel. So I was reckless in that sense and should not complain being put in such miserable condition of being wet , smelly and icy hands for almost one hour before I reached my hotel.
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| Misty Taipei 101 in the distant |
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| The historical Yuan Shan hotel |
