千九百七十：Kobe Marathon

Kobe Marathon Participation T-shirt

My 2nd last run for the year is over & I'm feeling that alot of weight is off my shoulders! I know that I'm not in to win but there is just pressure on myself (from myself) that I need to do better that I did previously. Now I have only the Standard Chartered half marathon in Singapore left to worry about!

The run expo was a rainy affair, and there was only a small hall with with not many exhibitors. It was quite a sad event compared to the Osaka Marathon Expo and I don't know if it was due to poor planning or just plain stinginess on the organisers' part, there was no wet weather plan.

It was lucky that the marathon day itself was sunny but with very strong winds. It was a horrible run mainly because I had the urge to pee which got very very bad towards the 7-8km mark & I was really running for the loo rather than for any other reason in the end. The race course was too crowded - again poor planning, I don't know why they start everyone off at the same time cos in the end the 10km runners are stuck behind the slow full marathon runners who are definitely not going to be running at the same pace as us (or the people who actually need to use the loo) with many sharp curves in the route where runners were slowed to a crawl when running (now i understand the pain of the F1 racers in Singapore).

I managed to finish the run in an hour+, seek immediate relief in the loo of the end point before going on to support the full marathon runners.

Hiroki did really well! I'm actually surprised that I managed to catch all the people that I know was running, & that cheering them on helped to boost their morale (at least that's what they said). It was fun chasing them with the trains to 2 different points in the race - something that is probably not doable in Singapore. (How to go to Orchard then ECP then suntec within a few hours with all the walking & road closures in between?!) But the sunny weather was such a boost to runners' morales & you can really see the difference in the videos. Most people tried to finish with a run here but in the heavy rains during the Osaka Marathon, everyone looked depressed even at the finishing line. At least I experienced the worse one with hopes that if I ever join any marathon again, it should have better weather?!

I'm glad I've done all I wanted to achieve this year (train up, improve my 10km, do a good half marathon & try a full marathon). Heading to Seoul tomorrow for a colleague's wedding, it seems to be super cold in Korea! I hate the cold, it makes me feel all sleepy and want to just hibernate like a bear. I'm so looking forward to escaping 2 months of the cold in SG in a week!!