4hrs 28mins later.... its finally over!

the face of pain

well, i gotta tell ya...if there's anyone out there planning to do a marathon for the first time, all i can say is "you gotta prepare, prepare, prepare." dun take anyhing for granted, like i did. i only trained up to 26km, and got too cocky thinking "well, its only another 16km...shouldnt be too much of a problem". BIG MISTAKE! haha. the pain....the pain...oh man the pain...

the weather at the start was perfect. it was drizzling ever so slightly and the temp was about 15 degrees. everything was going really well in the beginning, and at the 21km mark, i was at a time of 1hr 40mins. it was at the 27-28 km mark that it all started to go wrong. i experienced something on a run that i had never experienced before...CRAMPS!!! oh my god... its excrutiatingly pain!!! first my right quad cramped up, which made me hobble more on my left leg. then my left cramped up too. so i was reduced to walking and hopping for the remaining 12km or so. sigh.... gotta train harder for next year. gotta start training earlier too.

but when its all said and done, it was a blast!! in a sadist kinda way, i actually enjoyed myself.

and many many thanks to Esther who came all the way down to the finish line to support me.