Virgin Money London Marathon 2020- The 40th Race

My running partner for the first 5 km and the last 8 km

I never expect to be able to run in Virgin Money London Marathon 2020 and not having had to go to London. The actual Marathon was scheduled in March but postponed to October due to covid pandemic. As the pandemic did not subside by August,  London Marathon organiser had to make the general participants run virtually wherever they were on 4th October. The elite runners were allowed to run in a very controlled environment at St James Park. The original participants who had successfully registered for marathon 2020 was allowed to opt for the virtual run or transferred their slot to London marathon 2021. Besides that more running slots were created for new applicants to participate virtually. I was very lucky to notice the opening for registration early and acted promptly to get myself a slot because the empty slots were fully taken up within few days. In total there were 45000 participants from 129 countries who would be taking part in this marathon.

My Car serving as my water station

We were given a running app created by TCS ( Tata Consultancy Services ) to be downloaded in our handphone. The app would be able to track our run wherever we were but we were only allowed to start our run earliest from 00:00:00 BST and had to finish by 23:59:59 BST ( British Summer Time) on 4th Oct. Since we were given 24 hours to complete our run I divided my run into 2 parts, that 21.1 km in the morning and 21.1 km in the evening. 

I started my run at 7:00 am or 00:00:00 BST from my starting point near the foothill of Maxwell Hill. Seok Wan accompanied me for the first 5 km of my run. I started my run by pressing on the start button in the app and stopped to see whether the app was functioning correctly after running a short distance. I was shock to see zero mile covered even though I had run almost 1 km. Actually I should set my phone's time zone to London time which I did not. After some trial and error I finally managed to set the time zone correctly and the app began to function perfectly. I had my Garmin watch as my secondary gadget to measure my run as a precautionary measure. If the app failed I could still upload my result from my Garmin connect to the organiser. 

After 5 km, Seok Wan stopped running and I continued on my own along my usual route around Taiping Lake Garden and the surrounding residential areas. It was quite sunny and hot from 8:00 am onwards and I really had a terrible suntaned. By the time I stopped my run or after covering half of the full marathon, it was almost 10:30 am.  Time taken for my first half marathon was 3:05. I paused my TCS app to be resumed at 4:00 pm as planned but I stopped my Garmin watch to just measure the time for 21.1 km. 

Time for my first 21.1 km registered by TCS app and Garmin watch

I tried to get some sleep before I resumed my run but I could not sleep and did not get the proper rest I so desired.  By 3:45 pm while I was getting ready to go out for my next run. It rainned heavily and it only stopped at 4:30 pm. By the time I started my next run it was 4:40 pm. As I had volunteered to shoot a half-hour video of my run for BBC live video wall from 5:00 to 5:30 pm, I had to carry a camera stick with me. 20 minutes after starting my run and reached Raintree walk of Taiping Lake Garden,  I logged into the live wall of BBC by keying in the unique password given to me. I could not hear any voice from the moderator on the screen but when I touched the screen, I could see a small window occupying a small section of the screen showing my surrounding in front.  So I assumed I was in the BBC live wall and started shooting the video of my run for about 2 km from raintree walk until Maxwell Hill. Maybe I did not manage to shoot anything at all but I did not worry too much as my main aim is to complete my marathon. 

My e-certificate with my elapsed time

I was experiencing fatigue in my second run and my pace went down drastically compared with my first run. After running 11 km Seok Wan came to pace with me again. Seok Wan was in good form and ran faster than me. I really had to struggle with my steps behind her. She did not accompany me till the end but stopped after I had 2 more km to go. It was already dark when I still had  5 km to completing my run but I had my headlight with me since I had anticipated running in the dark. The last 2 km was spent running alone in darkness along waterfall road and race course road and I was shocked to spot a herd of wildboars by the road side. I turned back to avoid them and continued running in safer zone. I was really delighted when the voice from the app congratulating me that I had completed the 26.2 miles. My total active time for my full marathon was 6:20 but elapsed time was 12:30. If active time is considered this is my PB which I never dare to dream achieving but if elapsed time then this is my poorest full marathon time. Even though I splitted my run into two but I still felt very exhausted after the run. So perhaps two half marathons within 12 hours and a full marathon within 7 hours does not differ much in causing tireness and fatigue. It is amazing that I had finally earned a medal of the Abbott World Marathon majors by chance and luck. 

My e-medal , the real medal will come later.

                     Time for my second 21.1 km as registered by my Garmin watch and TCS app