Sub4 Attempt #1: Allianz Penang Bridge International Marathon 2012

This post is dedicated to all runners, for your courage and perseverance. I would like to give my appreciation to my running partner, Lie Wei. I know it has been tough that we are no longer running together for now as I chase my goals but I hope we will always share that passion for running. I would also like to say a big thank you to my coach and friend, Keat Seong for his dedicated help in my training.

After taking a long break from work to travel New Zealand for 6 months (from Aug 2011 to Feb 2012), I decided upon my return that it was time to train for a sub4 (under 4 hours) marathon. I have always had it in the back of my head that I wish to run a sub4 marathon but I never did put in any effort to get there yet. The closest I got to that was the Blackmores Sydney Marathon in 2010. I ran it in a time of 4:09. At that time, I was just training to hit 4:15 so the fact that I ran it 6 minutes faster was a real bonus.

I am going to divert a little to say a few things about the Sydney Marathon. It's not the biggest marathon in Australia although Sydney's the largest city. You can nicely save a lot of money by registering as Australian PR. All you need is an Australian address. The run is great just for the start, in which you get to run over the Sydney's famous Harbour Bridge and the finishing, running towards Sydney's Opera House while throngs of people cheer you on. The middle is mostly loops through Centennial Park which can be quite dull but there are people there to cheer you on there so it makes up a lot for the dullness.

When I was in NZ, I ran two marathons, the Adidas Auckland Marathon (4:52:10) and Buller Gorge Marathon (4:44:35). I ran them just for fun and at that point I have not even been running for 3-4 months. I just wanted to experience some marathons in that beautiful country. Seeing the state of my current fitness and my most recent marathon times, I knew I had a lot of work cut out for me if I wanted to hit my target. It was many months of hard training and sacrifice to firstly, get back my running fitness and then to get myself close to my goal.

I decided to choose Penang Bridge Marathon as my sub4 marathon because it was a hometown race and I thought it would be nice to hit a sub4 there. I think the choice of marathon may not necessarily be the wisest seeing that PBIM runs at an unusual hour of 2am when your body is supposed to be resting and it has been known to be an extremely humid marathon. Those who know me as a runner know that my body just tanks in heat or humidity. However, I justified to myself that if you train hard you can achieve a sub4 marathon anywhere. Heat or humidity are just things you can teach your body to overcome.

Fast forward 9 months and I am standing at the starting line of the marathon. Before the marathon, my last race was Putrajaya Night Marathon in which I ran a half in 1:53:46. I thought it was good time and could get me to a sub4 marathon. However, the weather in Putrajaya had been cloudy and cool during the race. Conditions that always favour me. The weather for the past 2 days had been scorching with hardly any rain and I was very concerned. Even at lunch the day of the race, the heat was just beating down on my skin. I prayed for some rain, just to bring the humidity down but it wasn't to be and as I jogged from Lie Wei's house to the start of the marathon, I decided to wear only my sports bra and Skins tights to run in attempt to expel more heat (if it is even possible). I was a bundle of nerves on the week leading up to the race but as I stood at the start line, I was calm. "Whatever will be, will be". The training was done and now it was just time to put that training to the test.

I snagged a bottle of water before lining up behind the start line and started to use it to cool my body down. The Chief Minister fired the gun and we were off! My marathon strategy was to run a 5:30 pace for the first two hours. I would have hit 22km at the end of the 2nd hour if I ran according to plan. I kept to that plan for all of 11km. As we hit the ramp to the bridge, I noticed my pace was slowing down, but then I thought to myself, no worries, it's just a steep uphill and you can get back the time on the flats and downhills. The problem was I was only to get slower and there was no getting back time from then onwards. It became a quest of chasing my end goal more than anything else. For the next 10km, I averaged 5:35-5:40 and I still thought that was alright. I hit the turnaround at the toll with much difficulty but I was still quite close to my target pace.

I looked drenched as I was constantly using water to cool my body down.

Photo credit: Cheong Wah Yeap

Unfortunately, after the turnaround things started to go downhill. I hit the 21km on the dot at 2 hours, which was still great which means I had to managed another 21km in around 5:40 pace in order to hit my goal. At that point, I was running more or less at 5:45 pace and it was a struggle to get to the midspan again. I was starting to suffer and my pace even dropped to 6:06 at the midspan. It was torture to be running with so much pain with so much more to go. I soldiered on but by 29km, the pace had dropped again to 5:50. I was slowly losing the margin I had built in the first half of the race. I hit the last turnaround point at 33km at a time of 3:06. With 9km to go, and 54 minutes to run it I just needed to managed slight below a 6:00 pace to get a sub4. I still had hope and with I covered the next 5km in under 6:00 pace. I hit the 37km mark at 3:30 and with 5.2km more to go and 30 minutes I was optimistic I could just make it.

Looking pissed as I make my way to the finish line

Photo credit: Chen Zhee Long

Alas, it was not to be as the next 5km my pace drop to 6:05 and I hit the bulk of the slower half marathoners. This resulted in a lot of lateral movements and at that time I was so tired and pissed off. I reached 42.2km at around 4:01 but the run was overdistance by 400m thus I only crossed the finish line in 4:04:43. It is still a new personal best and I got a placing which was a nice reward.

Finally finishing!

Photo credit: APBIM 2012

However, my first attempt at a sub4 is out the window. I will not point fingers but to only say that more training is needed to get closer to my sub4 marathon. I was disappointed that I was so close but I just lost it in the last 5km. Nevertheless, what is done, is done and the past is what it is.

Lie Wei and I looking happy about 1-hour post run. I spent 1-hour after the run on the ground in agony.

Photo credit: Sandra Leng

It is time for a post mortem on what went wrong and what could have been done to do better next time. Right now, I am just going to enjoy some downtime from running.

 - Chin Chin -

 P.S: My next marathon will be Standard Chartered HK Marathon. Cold but hilly and sub4 attempt #2.

Taiping Marathon apology (or should I call it complaint letter)

A fellow runner friend of mine, Adeline was very helpful in calling the race director of the Taiping Marathon to help me in my plight of getting what I think is rightfully mine, which is 3rd place in the half marathon. The race director, Dr. Rajendran asked me to email him with my dispute. I finally received a response from him yesterday. I was so disgusted reading his email that I didn't even bother to finish it. The email was titled "Apology" but it felt like the race director was writing a letter of complaint to me!

(pls click on the letter for full view)

There are a few "problems" with this email. At the race venue, I got into an argument with PAAA (Perak Amateur Athletics Association) about the results. They told me their decision is final and any complaints should be directed to the race director. When I direct my complaints to the race director, he tells me PAAA is the final decision maker and he can't overturn their decision. I got "tai-chi" from one place to another. GREAT.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Race Director. Until Taiping Marathon sees a new organizer, you won't see me running it anytime soon.

Taiping International Marathon 2012 Race Report

Venue: Padang Esplanade Taiping

Date: 16th September 2012

Time: 6.00am

As an event organizer, I do view the success of an event from a slightly different perspective. I try to be more forgiving of the race organizers if I have any criticism of the event at all. After all, I personally know the challenges each race organizer goes through and I try to take the short comings with a pinch of salt. You know you can never please everybody so as long as the majority of your participants are happy, you have done well.

However, the Taiping International Marathon was in my most humbled opinion, a mess from the start. For one, there was the incorrect printing of bib numbers. A women open marathoner got a men's open bib number. There was no proper information in the "race pack" on the race details. No route map was included and there was no instructions on what that tiny round plastic thing was or what to do with it. Of course, having run races for the past 7 years, I am already very familiar with what is a disposable timing chip and know how it should be attached but as race organizers we need to account for all types of participants. A newbie would be clueless on what to do with that!

I signed up for the women's open half marathon and the race started pretty much on time. I was told that the marathon start was delayed. My target was to try and run a 5:40 min/km pace (pace at MPSP Larian Hijau was 5:43 min/km). The starting pace of the front pack was pretty fast (5:00 min/km) and I had to hold myself back quite a bit and not get overtly excited and pace with them. I held back despite having tons of people pass me as I had a plan and I was going to stick to it. 21km is a long way to go to "pancit" after 5km. I hit the first water station at around 4.5km and it was a disaster! Two volunteers were scrambling to handle the horde of runners crowding the water station. I felt it was too much to bear so I made a decision to skip it. I picked up an almost full bottle of water a bit later and drank from that instead.

The route of the run was quite pleasant to run, even though some parts appear to be quite boring, think the industrial estate part before Giant, but overall I did enjoy it. It wasn't flat but quite rolling thanks to quite a number of flyovers that you have to go over, not to mention the one hill that comes just 1km+ into the race. I felt I ran well and was strong all the way until the finish. I didn't pace with anyone, just ran by myself most of the time. I started to pass people about 10km into the race and continue to overtake every woman I saw ahead of me. At the 12-13km mark, I met my wonderful support crew of Lie Wei and her mum who cheered on me! Slightly further down I would meet Lie Wei's sister, Lie Yee who jumped in on the run as part of her training. The last woman I was to overtake was only about 300-400m to the finish line. I finished third but sadly was considered disqualified as I lost one of the ribbons on route to the finish.

Pia-ing to finish line

Photo credit: Lie Wei

Photo credits: Kho Kwang Leng

Photo credits: Jamie Loke

Happy to come in 3rd place

Photo credits: Lie Wei

I do recall collecting two ribbons, the first being yellow and the second, purple. However, it was windy and all and the ribbons were flimsy. I did not even see it go missing. It was frustrating as I was told to wait while they verified my placing with the referees out on the course who were manually taking down numbers. I wonder what was the need for manual referees when there is a timing chip checkpoint. I spent a lot of time trying to find someone to talk to for this. Every race official I approached either gave me the blank, clueless stare or pointed to someone else. No one seem to be able to want to help me until I got so mad I went into a yelling fit. That was when people started to pay attention and a guy who was a secretariat got one of his referees to take down my number to check.

It took 4 hours for then to work out the final results and all the winners/potential winners were just kept waiting aimlessly. Kudos to the emcee though for being such a good entertainer. The result tabulation itself was a mess. I was at the official tent to witness this first hand. There was no proper verification of the results. 

For example, the manual marathon results were not even cross referenced to the timing chip results. If that is the case, why bother having such an expensive timing system? It's a bloody waste of sponsorship money. The marathon results were only cross referenced when a few Kenyan ladies came to the official tent to complain that there was some discrepancies in the results. This was another unfortunate situation and I feel very sad for those marathoners who got disqualified because they unintentional took the wrong turn. The signs were not clear and there were no volunteers to direct the way. I know they did not intend to cut short the route and they were just another casualty of bad event organization.

There was also a case where the prizes were given out and some guy was called on to stage to receive his prize only to have another guy come out to defend that he was the rightful prize winner as he was given a placing tag. In the end, the race officials gave the prize to the owner of the placing tag. I feel so embarrassed for the guy who lost out but he was so gracious in accepting the news. Hats off to you, sir! I am also seriously doubting who was the rightful winner because the race officials were just not doing their job right.

At the end of a 4-hour wait, I was told I was officially disqualified as I was missing one ribbon and only one referee on the course noted down my bib number. I was not to get my prize or placing even though the timing chip printout clearly stated I finished and passed through the checkpoint.

The list of issues did not end here. The location of water stations were not made known to participants so I was left second guessing when my next hydration point was to be. Water stations were badly managed, only 2 volunteers per station, and they were not ready to cope with the amount of runners. Instead of giving out water in cups, they handed out the water in 600ml bottles. What a waste of water! Runners just took a few sips and discarded the entire bottle and later on, a lot of these water stations actually ran out of water. If they had managed the water distribution a lot better, there would plenty of water to spare. There was no isotonic drink but the water stations gave out Spritzer Pop which was so sweet and gassy I doubt it would be fun to drink while on the run. I gave it a miss and stuck to water. The location of the water stations were also too close by in some situations, for e.g. one water station at 4.5km and another just 3km down the road.

The route markers were tiny! If you didn't pay attention, you can almost miss them. I am not surprised that people actually got lost! At certain critical junctions, there weren't even any volunteers or policeman to guide the runners. It was actually quite dangerous as runners had to run across road with no traffic control.

The finish line was so badly managed. It wasn't properly cordoned off and people were walking all over the place. You can hardly see the categories and after awhile all the race officials just abandoned the finish line altogether even though there were still marathoners coming in until 12noon. When they finished there was no one to give them water or medals anymore. I can't even begin to imagine what they felt. It must be horrid.

One of the weirdest thing to happen at the finish line is, that there was NO water! I came in thristy like crazy and there was no water but Spritzer Pop in the goodie bag. The distribution of the goodie bag was also very messy. They just handed them out without even checking if you are a runner or not so, I am not surprised if people were getting goodie bags that they weren't even entitled for.

However, despite the badly organized run, I am grateful to my support crew of Lie Wei, her sis and her mum who so graciously hosted my stay in Taiping. Thanks so much for all the homecooked meals! They were wonderful!

At this point in time, I am still in discussion with the race director on my placing. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Happier times with ultrafast runner, Debbie Chinn. Even she had some challenges with her marathon results.

Photo credits: Miow Chin

Campaign for A Lane 2012

Venue: Esplanade, Penang
Date: 9th September 2012
Time: 7.00am

Firstly, kudos the G Club Cyclist and Rotary Club Tanjung Bungah for a well organized event. There wasn't any glitch from collection of goodie bag, ride flag off or finish area. The food line and medal collection was simple and hassle free. There were enough buffet lines for food such that the crowd was well spaced out. The expo was also pretty great... it is one of those rare glimpses of event expos where there are actually tons of booths with actual things to look at or buy!

Did I enjoy my second CFAL (my first being its inaugral event in 2009)? Lie Wei and I rode together all the way. I definitely took the ride easy. It was not a race and I wasn't really pushing myself. Granted I have not been on my bike since Century Ride in Ipoh also says a lot about my biking fitness. There were parts of the ride which I did have a good time but overall I felt I was jostling for road space half of the time and trying to avoid getting taken out by my dear fellow cyclists the other half. Perhaps next time, I need to ditch the clipless shoes and use my sneakers. Personally, I think a lot of the cyclists who participated in CFAL still had a lot to learn about good bike handling skills and cycling etiquette and a cycling event of such a large scale might not be the best place to do so. I also think that road users in Penang still have a long way to go in "sharing the road".

Lie Wei and I along the airport stretch

(Photo credit: Yeow Chin Hong)

Some incidences still stay fresh in my mind:

1. During the long straight the stretch that led towards Pulau Betong, I called out "On your right" to a cyclist in front of me as I moved to try and overtake. He did not move, so Lie Wei then called out "Please keep to your left" and again he did not move. In the end, we both had to overtake him by moving even further out on the road.  He was not wearing a MP3 player so I am very sure he heard us both. I think some cyclists also need to learn how to "share the road".

2. While making my way up from Balik Pulau to Teluk Bahang through the hilly section I had a few cyclist lose cadence on the steeper sections and wobbled their way into my path as I was overtaking them, thus I had to swerve out to avoid being hit by them.

3. At Titi Kerawang, a fellow cyclist on my left suddenly yelled  "Cramp" and immediately serve sharply to the right as he headed for the road shoulder on the other side to stop. I am so sorry that all I could offer back was "Oii" instead of "Hope the cramp gets better" as I was trying to avoid being rammed. A big thank you to his fellow friend in front who braked suddenly in front of me to stop and join him. Pulling over would have been much better.

3. Along Gurney, which in my opinion, is a particularly dangerous stretch to cycle on, seeing the amount of cars parking or leaving from the side of the road, I grabbed my water bottle to drink only to hear Lie Wei call, "Car coming out". Erms... a bit too late, with my water bottle in hand, I moved to grab my brake as the car in front of me braked to allow the car to leave the parking lot. To avoid him, I swerved out onto oncoming traffic on the opposite side. I was thankful the car on the opposite was going slow or I would have been road kill.

4. After my near death incident along Gurney, a women driving a car pulled up beside me while on the same stretch and drove  really close to me. Definitely not 1.5m thus leaving me no choice but to slow down and moved behind her.

Things that CFAL organizers can do to improve on:

1. Even though I understand that the purpose of CFAL is to create awareness for cyclists in Penang and to have our own lane, but it might be important to note that having too many participants on the road may actually compromise the safety of the event. Penang roads are very narrow in certain sections and too many cyclist can overcrowd the roads. CFAL organizers may want to consider limiting participants to maybe 2000?

2. Better placed water stations. I skipped the first two water stations because the road was so narrow and there were just too many cyclists cramming their way to get to the table. I didn't want to bother and I had two full bottles on my bike with me which was more than enough for 80km ride. The second water station was the worst as it was placed near such a busy intersection in Balik Pulau not only causing a jam of cyclist but a traffic jam of vehicles who had to wait for the mob of cyclists to clear the road before they could continue driving.

Group photo with some of the organizers

(Photo credit: Chung Mei Ling)

CFAL 2012 Medal... nice one

Century Ride Malaysia 2012

Venue: Kinta Riverfront Hotel, Ipoh
Date: 15th July 2012
Time: 7.00am (rolling start for 8km)

I cannot call this a race report because the organizers of Century Ride Malaysia state that this is not a race but a fellowship ride. However, it offers timing and placing... so hmmm. It also used to be Ipoh Century Ride but is now Century Ride Malaysia, although, there are now two more events that offer century distances, one in Kuantan and the newest addition Terengganu.

Items in the goodie bag. The Chang Jiang White Coffee is really tasty!

The Excelsior group

 The Penang group

The Event Polo (as usual they don't make it with women in mind)

This year's medal. A really nice one that comes with a reusable larnyard!

This year's edition of Century Ride is best remembered for rolling steep hills. I rolled so much I lost count. It was a challenging course. The hills definitely killed me. That coupled with bad pelotoning strategy left me suffering for the last 50km. The initial plan was to try and peloton together with members for GClub but very soon into the ride (around 20-30km) I already lost them as they powered ahead and I got stuck with a slower peloton. I decided not to give chase as pushing yourself too early will just result in a very bad end. Lie Wei was me during that stretch and we tried to help each other and stick together. I would soon lose Lie Wei as well :( after we hit the first stretch of rolling hills. I tried to pull her up but soon lost her. I kept looking back much throughout the stretch but I could not spot her. I decided we may have been too far apart and it was time to move on.

I managed to ride with a peloton much of the ride until the second water stop at 99km. This was when things fell apart as I latch onto the wrong peloton leaving this water stop. The peloton I caught was going too fast and I was dropped very soon after. I cycled alone pretty much all the way until then as I did not seem to have enough energy to catch any other peloton that came by. The real suffering came from 110km onwards. My pace of 32kph at the start dropped to 28kph and later to 23-24kph only for the last 40km. I was quite pissed to find out at the last water station (around 153km) that there was 15km more to go! WTH?!? They did not count the rolling start distance of 8km into the total of 160km and so we were actually cycling 168km. I was not happy as my legs were extremely tired and it was getting really hot. That last 15km was the most torturous part of the ride. I was glad to cross the finish line but not very happy.

Despite my torturous ride, I still finish this year's Century Ride with a new personal best of 5:47 (previous personal best was 2010 at 5:57:36.25). I am not sure how this time came about as I stopped my own watch at 6:02:05 and I passed the timing mat at the start. I guess they must have figured out some way to deduct out the rolling start time.

A not-so-happy me completing the ride.

Poor Lie Wei had her own problems as she pushed too hard on the hills and suffered cramps the whole way. She is a champion for completing it despite all the cramps.

Lie Wei a happier moment of the ride.

Thanks Sandra Leng for the photos!

Port Dickson Triathlon 2012 Race Report

Venue: Avillion Admiral Cove, Port Dickson
Date: 15th July 2012
Time: 7:30am (wave start every 5minutes)

PD Tri this year was a good race for me. Everything went smoothly except the swim felt much like a washing machine. It is the first time that a swim felt so rough at PD. It didn't help that the buoy line that was laid out the night before to mark the course was washed away together with the net that was supposed to block participants from cheating. Thus, I felt the swim was a mess with people swimming all over the place. I tried my best to keep close to the people ahead of me as sighting was very difficult with the waves. On top of that, the "mini" turning buoys were simply quite pathetic. I could barely see them until I was really close! I almost completely missed the last buoy marker, the one that you hit before turning and swimming back to shore!

The swim started late for whatever reason but when my wave start began it was almost 8am. I came out of the water with 42:18 on my watch. It was 2 minutes slower than I had expected to swim but seeing that I struggled quite a bit with the waves and had to stop to fix some technical issues three times during the swim, I was overall quite happy with that time and also happy I managed to swim the forward crawl all the way this time.

I transition fast enough and was soon on the bike.I spinned for about 500 meters before I pushed into the big crank and it was big crank and ride hard all the way. The bike course is the same every year and I will say the terrain is rolling. It is not flat! I pushed hard on the bike, so hard that before the turnaround I started to worry if I had enough fuel in the tank to tackle the run. I feel as if there are actually more hills on the ride back. It felt good to catch up to the people who were out of the water earlier (swim is my weakest discipline). After the turnaround, I was grateful to have some guys who were wearing the Malaysian Airlines cycling club jersey form a peloton around me and were with me on and off throughout the last 20km of the ride. They were terribly nice and encouraging to me. If any of you ever read this, thanks a lot! On the bike I caught up with two lovely ladies from Penang, Ding Ding and my cousin, Wendy. Both are terribly good swimmers!

I got back to transition with a time of 1:18:59. Just as I was coming in I saw Mei See about to run out. It is good to see familiar faces during a race. Not too long after I ran out into the transition, I ran past Lie Wei. She was looking good but because she has been recovering from a knee injury, she wasn't going to push on the run. Next I bumped into Jasmine (also another fantastic swimmer) and just ahead I saw Mei See. It wasn't until 800m to the finish line that I actually caught up to run side-by-side with Mei See and we pretty much ran with each other until the finish line. It was nice of her to let me go past the tape first. She was only 3 seconds behind me. The run course this year is challenging because the second half of it is on the beach so it is especially tough when your legs are already tired and sinking into soft sand. You have to exert a lot more energy to pick up your feet. I did run the second half of my run slower than my first.

Our nutrition for PD Tri.

The race goodie bag.

 Lie Wei and me before the race start.

The Penang Team (missing a few)

Me on the swim, bike and run

Lie Wei on the swim, bike and run

Happy finishers!

Photo credits: Lie Yee, Tey, CK Calvin and UuBan Leong