Beijing Marathon

haven't been writing for a while, so many things to do, so little time:-)

Beijing Marathon

Run the first part of your race with your head, the middle part with your legs, and the last part with your heart "chiong ah........"

Arrived Beijing on the early morning of 18 Oct. After lunch, we took the sardine pack subway to collect our race kit . Collection centre was a small shop unit in a shopping centre, a little messy but after about 15 mintues we got ours. A handy back pack, race bibs and runner's T.

Dinner was suppose to be carbo-loading, but botak suggested 皇城老妈 for spicy sichuan hot pot and to my surprise nobody objected. The heart wins over the head or in our case legs, we run to eat!! After dinner went hunting high and low for bananas along of all places,wangfu jin tourist belt. By the time we get back hotel it was nearly 11pm. Our stomach started turning and churning.... Anyway alarm clock set at 5 am. First oversea run so never really sleep well and it was wakeup time. After our morning routine took another 2 bananas for breakfast.

6 am at lobby of hotel

6.30 am en-route to Macdonald for pre-run coffee

7.45 am, Entrance to Tian An Men Sq,

Fine weather, a cool 12c, blue sky,yes it was blue that sunday!! The male elite marathoners gun off at 8 am. elite female, male/female marathon, half marathon, 10km and 4km all 25K of us have the same 8.15 am start - Crazy chinese! At 8.15am sharp, the gun sounded, wave after wave of thunderous roar filled Tian An Men Square as 25 thousand runners shouted BEIJING, 我能赢！

Contrary to what I was told, the run was very well organised, ample water and sponge stations. Hundred if not thousand of policemen standing in full attention lining the route gave an impression that we were VVIP runners.

Route marshals were plentiful, always ready with their smiles and encouraging words. You will be touched by the huge crowd turn out, at every street they were there shouting "jia you jai you" . you are letting them down if you don't do your best.

Their race pacers, wow !! was another stunner, the 5 hr lead pacer was a strong 60+ yrs old while the 4 hr pacer was a stronger young chap, couldn't smell the 3 hr pacers, they were too far ahead of me. The lead pacer always run chest up, with one hand stretching forward holding a huge flag flying in the blue beijing sky, followed by about 20 pacers running in double file, very well synchronize, every km they shouted in unison urging everybody on. How can you not be inspire? That morning we ran with our heads, legs and hearts.

Andrew, came in with a personal best of 01:41

300m more

3 happy amigos at finish line

Beijing, we will be back next year - full marathon.

Our half mara result (everyone finished in their personal best time). How do i look in my new stylo malo "是白的" man suit? Don't pray pray hor, was told this was the same technology used in the speedo swim suit - high compression performance wear. It helps me to achieve my personal best, but the main reasons i think were the cool weather, electrifying run atmosphere and fantastic crowds.

andrew 01:41
william 01:49
freddy 02:03
billy 02:30
daniel 01:20 (10km)

we will do a 31km run on this sunday 26 oct before we taper down our training for SCSM

6.30am Sunday, 26 Oct 2008
31km
ECP Mac - NSRCC- Changi Beach Park - ECP Mac
Warm up 6.00am
Run start : 6.30 am
water station at Changi Beach Park.
For those who want to do a 15km, you can u-turn at NSRCC back to Mac.