Vancouver Marathon

Just finished my first Marathon ever in Vancouver. This is my virgin run of Marathon and I did it in 4:27:22 (chip time). This is in the range of my expectation, although I had hoped to be able to push to 4 hours.

I feel so great and so proud of myself to accomplish the first Marathon in my whole life. I can't even think of any running race when I was in school, coz I was so bad at sports at that time. It just proved that everyone can accomplish something if only had goal, did proper training and persistence. A quote from Mr. Yu Minhong, "My life is once again complete now".

Anyhow, let me review this fantastic experience.

Get up at 5am this morning. I get to the starting area around 7 o'clock. After the first 6 km, I have to take off my long sleeve shirt as it's getting warm and I was sweating with both long and short sleeve shirts on. The first 10k was around the stadium area and I took a biobreak around 9k. When I met Linda around 10k, I have to take off the long pants and with only short pants and short shirt on to continue my race.

We ran through downtown east side area and ran to Stanley Park. It's an unprecedented experience running around downtown in the forest of the building. The GPS didn't give me accurate results in the forest. The weather is gorgeous when we reach Stanley park, sunshine with breeze, not hot at all. I'd take the chance to enjoy the scenic view when running in the park. I realized that I was a bit slow as it takes around 2 hours 20 minutes for me to reach the mid-point of the 42.2 km. I was running among old ladies and big guys and girls. I have to speed up a bit to make up the time I wasted in the first 10k. I adjusted the pace to 5:45-6:00 and I started to pass people.

After Stanley park and we ran up to the Burrard bridge, I saw Edwin was taking photos. He told me that his wife was just passed through and about 10 meters ahead of me. "Caught up!", he said. I felt a bit embarrassed as I was slower than his wife. I caught up with her in about 30m and said hello to her. Then I speed up a bit again when we rush off the bridge.

The so-called "wall-hitting" didn't hit me when I reached the 30km sign. I'd reached the longest run of my life. Every step is a new record for me. I still feel energetic from 30k to 35k, although I felt the side of my hip is getting sorer and a bit pain. I passed the 4:30 pace bunny around 33k, so I knew that I should be able to make it less or equal than 4:30.

I stopped by every water station and gel station, walk a few steps and sketched twice along the race. The race becomes harder after 35k. Both sides of my hip are getting sorer and more pain. It may be the so-called "wall-hitting", but it is easier than I thought. After all, I'd never done a long run longer than 30k before.
The last few km are really challenging physically, mentally I feel good though, coz I knew that I can do that.

I speed up again and curse the long slope of Burrard bridge around 38km. People started walking and I passed more and more runners. Running off the bridge is fantastic as only 3km left. I encouraged other runners and felt encouraged by the cheers of audiences. I smiled and kept running. I ran faster and faster from 300m to the destination and passed other runners again. Audience were applauded for me and others. I felt never better than ever passed the finish line.

My legs felt very stiff afterward and I drink a lot water and gatorade then. As I said before, I should push a bit harder in the first half, but maybe that's the reason I didn't get any knee injury and hurt in the race. The Advil I took this morning may have helped as well.

This is my virgin marathon race and I will definitely keep going. Next time I should strictly follow the training schedule and incrementally increase the weekly mileage to avoid injuries.

I feel so satisfied and still excited.