The Penang Bridge International Marathon 2010 is schedule on 21st Novemebr 2010. My plan is to hit the half marathoner status by end of the year, but I target to hit at least another 10km run before going for the big one like this. Caught up with work loads and forgotten my aim earlier, easily I slipped and I only left a few months before the major event.
I'm already motivated with my new pair of running shoe, plus encouragement from my buddy that's planning to do 21km run as well, I log-on and sign up for the 21km run. Without knowing, I'm done and started to sweat ...
I struggled during my run of 10km earlier. Although I finished the run in 1 hour 12 minutes and 54 seconds, which is well within the qualifying of 1 hour and 30 minutes, still I struggled and rank only 1209. One of the reason why I dare to sign up for this 21km is because the qualifying time for the Penang Bridge International Marathon is longer at 3 hours and 30 minutes, comparing to 3 hours only of other event. That additional 30 minutes should serve a good buffer for me to complete the run, even if I walk, I suppose.
But still, I'm worried. I started to did some search online and found the following.
Photo courtesy of Penang Bridge International Marathon 2010 website. Very beautiful.
The stretch from the island till the top of bridge looks so short from this photo, but in fact is quite a distance away. I did a measurement in the google map and it's approximately 3km long and the slope up to the top of the bridge is the scary part. It's confirmed the gradient of the slope is only 3%, but I doubted it. It does look scary from this photo. The entire stretch of the 3% slope is 500m long. That would be hardest part I thought, but experience marathoners say otherwise. I think I will wish to be roll down after hitting the top ...
Experience marathoners said the slope is quite manageable but the real difficult part is when you are going down the slope. Reason being you are looking directly to the stretch of the wide road without end. That's very de-motivating. I will see how it goes on that day.
Continuing to a short brief of the registration process, it's very simple. Go to their website (given below) then choose your category. Start throwing in your details and choose your running singlet.
I can't really recall what I took for my earlier KL run, but I take up XL by the measurement given. I dont think the given measuremet is not very accurate, so I take up a safe bet living up XL. A little loose don't kill.
My friends asked me how to collect the singlet, good thing is that this is an international event. So they should be expecting lots of registration from all over the states. Delivery to doorstep is offered. It cost an additional charges, but much well worth it than traveling down a day or two earlier just to register and collect the goodies pack just does not work. I paid to save the trouble, just a small sum, nice.
Then I did a good search around the entire webpage and found lots of information. Manual booklet for download, 21km route, qualifying time and etc. This will be definitely an experience of my lifetime.
The qualifying time for 21km is 3 hours and 30 minutes. When I told my parents that I joined up for the run, first thing they said is "you can run meh? dont join la". You know, parents always do that, especially when there are news that a young chap passed away in the last KL Marathon. I'm determined and I will complete this 21km. I think I might stop at 21km rather than pushing myself to 42km, the Full Marathon challenge. Let's see how I do this time, will let you know the plan =)
The registration is done, training time is up and my targer is within 3 hours. Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment