what a day this was!
it started when terence came to pick me up in his super spacious race mobile and got us to the race site in no time at all.
he lent me a spare tube and taught me how to use the hand pump which i've had on my bicycle all this while but never used. :p
we met bernard tay and his friends outside peninsula and chatted for a bit before i went off to SCC to meet Yuan Ping, my race partner.
though it was cumbersome to carry my floor pump, i was glad i did as i was able to pump up the tyres on her wheelchair properly for the first time (we have always been training on slightly soft tyres). cos Yuan Ping started to question me about not pumping the tyres too much in case they burst, i decided to err on the side of caution (even though her tyres said can pump to 145psi, the tyres felt pretty pumped by 70psi).
one thing l learnt here was that handicapped people can't use floor pumps like we do cos they can't stand on the base to pump.
we still some distance away from the start line when the gun went off so i panicked a little about losing time. but in the end, it was not too bad cos by the time we got to esplanade bridge, there was still a considerably-sized crowd walking forward to the start line cos there were so many people for the marathon.
as we had agreed with SSC, we waited till the bulk of the marathon participants had crossed the start line before we started ourselves. i think at least 15 minutes had lapsed by then...
we spent the bulk of our time in the first part of the marathon being hemmed in by the sheer size of the crowd and it was difficult to get into a rhythm. most of the time, it was jog-run-jog-run. i didn't mind so much cos i felt it was probably better to be forced to slow down than do a cheong-ing first half from all that adrenaline and then run out of gas in the second half.
what was very touching was that a lot of the runners would break out into spontaneous applause whenever they saw us. their cheers and kind words were very encouraging. we saw ivan at marina south and i introduced him to Yuan Ping.
i can't remember our split times very well but i vaguely remember we did the first 10km in about 1 hr 5mins. thank you, powerbar! at this point, we saw bernard tay.
more wild applause followed when we returned to esplanade bridge and the 10km runners were waiting to be flagged off.
by the time we got to mountbatten, i remembered feeling the onset of fatigue and wishing the 20km mark was a little closer. i think we were about 2hrs 7mins at the 20km mark.
when we entered east coast park, my throat was feeling parched though i had kind of been drinking regularly at the water stations. i felt the first twitches of a cramp but willed it to not overcome me while saying "Supernatural strength" to myself. :)
as i had expected, my pace dropped at east coast cos my legs were starting to feel a bit tired. still, i resisted getting some deep heat cos i wanted to see how long i could last this year without it.
we saw richard and CG at east coast when they shouted out to us. :)
shortly after the u-turn, we had to stop for a toilet break cos Yuan Ping had to go. then just as we were wheeling up the ramp to the handicapped toilet, one able-bodied runner went inside ahead of her. i asked him in a loud voice to use the normal toilet and he came out and apologised. heh
when we got to the seafood centre after the u-turn, i decided my legs had had enough and so, i slathered on some deep heat cream. it was niiiiiiice and my legs thanked me for it. :)
i think we reached the 30km mark at about 3hrs 27mins. at this point, i was thinking "wow, maybe we can wrap this up in under 5hrs". but at the same time, i was not sure because i was really feeling very hot from the sun and knew that it would take a lot to carry on cos my body was screaming out to "WALK! Relack!!".
then we saw joe waiting at the side and his smile lit us up to carry on. all of a sudden, chris appeared magically and we got a second wind, thanks to him.
he cleared the path in front of us by continually asking runners (most of whom were in a daze by this time) to give us some space to pass through. what we had to resort to earlier was shouting out "excuse me" to runners and then saying "thank you" when we passed them.
also, he would run ahead to get us cups of drink. before that, we always had to slow down, and then get close to the tables where the water was, all the while avoiding other runners who had also stopped to get water themselves.
his words of encouragement to Yuan Ping and I were also appropriate and it was then that i realised how invaluable his deciding to run with us for the last 10km was. from his actions, i learnt that it takes an athlete to know what another athlete needs to keep going. (hearing a volunteer screaming "c'mon, don't walk too much! the sun is very hot!" is not my idea of encouraging fatigued runners.)
when we got into stadium link, we saw michael. then after we exited kallang, we got a vehicle escort watching over us as we navigated the huge downslope and upslope near crawford, all the way to where the singapore explorer was. as a form of motivation, i pretended the vehicle was those which accompany podium contenders (wahlau, thick skin or what!).
chris was with us all the way till the last 200m, then shouted at us to take over and that this was our moment. what a guy! thank you, chris. we couldn't have pulled through the last 10km the way we did without you.
the time on my watch read 4hrs 46mins. gun time was 5hrs 1min, i think.
after the race when we were being interviewed, mike denoma from stanchart came over with wong ai-kwei to congratulate us. i thanked them profusely for sponsoring our wheelchair and they were very kind about the whole thing. just before he left, he said "next year, we get you an even better wheelchair". what a guy! i have read so much about his initiatives and his achievements that i was slightly awestruck meeting him in person. :)
Written by boonpin
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