Bangkok Marathon

I should write something about the 42.2K in Bangkok on Sunday. But I don't know how to sum up the story in a few words.

Marathon #1 in the US last year went like this: trained well + ran my best + finished under 4 hours = very happy.
Marathon #2 in Canberra in April: trained well + got injured + had no idea if I could run at all + ran anyway and finished = amazed.
Marathon #3 was... different. I took it seriously but it was hilarious. It was a disaster and totally fine at the same time. After the race I met and chatted with the Kenyan woman who came second. She ran Sunday's marathon in 2:46. I confessed I ran 4:01. She smiled and said, "You tried!"

The Bangkok Marathon starts at 3:30am. I fell asleep just after midnight and set 2 alarms for 1:30am so I could eat, stretch, shower and dress. Instead, I woke up to the sound of my friend banging on the door at 2:25am telling me it was time to go!

I started out feeling strong and perhaps ran a bit too hard. 10K in 49 minutes, 12K in an hour. I slowed a bit to conserve some energy and continued running. Bangkok was fine until about 25K. Then I couldn't keep it together. Physically I wasn't too bad; I knew I had to pick up my pace a little if I wanted to reach me goal time. But I just didn't have it in me. So instead I had a dummy spit. Stupid marathon. 42.2K. 26.2 miles. This isn't a race, it's a form of torture. Impossible. Insane. I'm done with this and I don't care if I never attempt to run another long-distance race again.... This wasn't exactly the inspirational, motivational, positive talk that I'd practiced before the race. Run strong? Dig deep? Nope. I wasn't believing it for a second....

At 28K I did something I thought I would never do in a marathon: I walked. You want to know something? It was fun! I forgot it was meant to be a race. I soaked in the sunrise. Stopped looking at my stopwatch. Jogged a bit. Walked some more. Didn't bother calculating my splits. It almost felt like I was alone on that long bridge, closed both ways to traffic; out there in a silent world for an early morning weekend workout at whatever pace I wanted.

The sun was up when I approached the 36K marker and suddenly decided, "I think I can run again." I was fresh. Excited. Energised. So I ran. I maintained a reasonable pace for the final few kilometers. And I finished in 4:01. It wasn't the result I'd hoped for, but it was about what I'd trained for. The Kenyans may have laughed but I finished a marathon before half of the city had rolled out of bed.

Marathon #4: To be continued....