Xtep Hong Kong 15 km Challenge 2010

I cannot help but complain about the start time of this race: 8 a.m. at Pak Tam Chong (北潭涌); there was a coach that would take us there, but it was due to depart at 6 a.m. from Tin Hau, meaning I have to leave home at 5:30 at the latest. In fact, I woke up at 4:15 and cooked myself some pasta, to provide myself with the sufficient amount of energy for the race to come. It was one of those races where you only get the t-shirt when you finish, which gave me an opportunity to show off my taste for sports fashion (I like to wear the official t-shirt, if available, in order to integrate with the race). I put on my Reebok gear: the newly purchased set of t-shirt and baggy shorts together with Reebok socks and running shoes (shame that the colour of the shoes didn’t match that of the t-shirt). I was quite happy with the new look; people probably thought I was the new face of Reebok. On the outside I put on my Umbro Tracksuit and a scarf. It was lucky that it wasn’t that cold a day; the previous few days had been absolutely freezing.

I took a taxi from home to Tin Hau. The sky was still dark and there was barely any cars in motion, even on the roads that would normally be very busy, which reminded me of the final line of Wordsworth’s sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge: how that “mighty heart is lying still”. I arrived at Tin Hau some 20 minutes before 6, and there were already quite a few people waiting there. We started boarding the coach straightaway, and as soon as the first coach was filled (there were at least two of them) we set off for the venue. We left as early as 5:45 and since there were barely any cars on the way we got there comfortably before 6:30. I went over to register and get my bib number and timing chip. The timing chip wasn’t the usual card you tie to your shoelaces, instead it was a tube bent into a square and taped to the back of the bib number. At first I was stupid enough to try to tear the tape off, but when my number began to crumble, and I still haven’t managed to take the chip down, I began to question whether it really was necessary to take it down, then I looked around and realised that no one was doing the same and so I put the tape back (they really should have had an announcement about this special type of chip). Later there was an announcement about “not bending your chip, or else the time-keeping might not work” and I was just hoping that I haven’t messed it up. By the time I finished all these I still had about an hour to go. I thought it was too early to be doing any warm up so I just stood around aimlessly. When there was only half an hour before the start I left my luggage at the luggage area and began stretching.

I am in the men junior category (1991-1994) and there were prizes for the top five in each category (trophies for top 3, medals for 4^th and 5^th) so I thought I should have a chance. For the past few days I have been running 15 km/h on the treadmill and after a year and a half of hard work, I have eventually conquered the barrier of 10 km under 40 minutes (though on a treadmill and watching tv) so I felt I was in good shape. I was looking at finishing the race in less than 64 minutes and would hopefully be a contender for the prizes. The fact that there was a half marathon / 10 km / 3 km race in Shatin simultaneously might act to my advantage, since that actually appeared to be a more attractive event (had I not registered with this race in advance, I would probably have gone for that since the other race would take us past many famous landmarks in Shatin and the course was much flatter).

I have underestimated the difficulty of the course: the fact that the website didn’t provide a very detailed course map and elevation chart contributed to it partly. I have been here before for the Bonaqua Action Sprint back in April, but the two events only overlapped in the first kilometre or so.

We started lining up by the start line some 10 minutes before the start. However, the road haven’t been closed by that time so there were still cars moving in and out and we all had to stand by the side. When everything was ready, the athletes started spreading themselves over the start line. I was about four and five ranks into the crowd and was in the very first group except the elite runners (the elites are those who were among the top 3 in this race last year or the top 10 in the most recent ranking, the first group were those runners who aimed to finish in less than 75 minutes).

We counted down into the start and started running. The first 1 km consisted of a rather sinister hill but I anticipated its coming since I covered it last time in the Bonaqua race, so it wasn’t much of a shock to me. Then there were about 100 metres of flatland and the shock really started after that. There was a lot of up and down hills and not much of the race was completely flat. However, the scenery of the High Land Reservoir was absolutely beautiful, I was particularly stunned at how blue the water was. Unfortunately there weren’t that many parts with scenery, most of the course was run through between trees so it was a tough battle, both physically and mentally.

There were distance markers at 5 km, 10 km, and 14 km. When I got to the first one my watch said 20:07 so I thought that was a very good pace, taking into account the hills. Every time I ran down hill I was, contrary to normal reactions, feeling bitter because I had a feeling that it was going to be a there and back race (there was a touch of uncertainty: as I have mentioned before, the course map provided on the internet wasn’t as comprehensive as one would hope). However, by the time I got to 35 minutes or so into the race, I still haven’t met anyone coming back, so I was feeling pretty euphoric: “surely this was going to be a loop!”. However, not too long after this, I met the first group of leaders coming the opposite way and my heart sank to the very bottom. What made it worse was, I spotted 3 runners in my group (their bib numbers started with 10, mine was 1023) which made my chance of winning rather slim.

Finally I reached the turning point; by this time I must have been passed by some 30 people. This was the kind of race when people kept overtaking me, and I would go through the whole running barely having passed anyone. However, I wasn’t feeling too bad until the first woman passed me, then I thought I should not be dropped too far behind. I actually passed her at one point, but was overtaken again somewhere by the turning point. Not long after the turning point I saw the 10 km marker, and I looked at my watch: 47 minutes, meaning I took some 27 minutes for the second 5 km! Either they put up the first 5 km marker incorrectly or I have slowed down a lot! The position of the second marker also convinced me that we were going to finish before the starting area, which was a slight relief for me.

Though there were quite a bit of uphill, there were also some downhill to compensate (in fact, excluding the big hill in the first 1 km, the amounts of uphill and downhill were exactly the same, an obvious mathematical observation since it was a there and back race). However, I was cautious not to push myself too hard in the downhill sections since that would be putting a lot of pressure on my knees, which allowed a lot of people to overtake me in those bits. By the time the last marker was in sight (final kilometre), there were a couple of girls right behind me (I think they even overtook me at one point) and I was determined to beat them. At the end I managed to do so: I started sprinting as soon as I saw the finish sign, and lost to the guy before me in a photo-finish (though I realised that he beat me by over 20 seconds by chip time). Nonetheless, it wasn’t exactly a bad race for me: I finished in just under 70 minutes (1:09:56 by chip time, add three seconds for official time) and I have beaten all the elite women except one. I kept switching my desired finishing time during the race and by the time I got to 10 km I realised I might just be able to scrap a under-70-minutes, so although I realised that I need to cut some 10 minutes off to be a prize winner in my category, I was still satisfied with the result (finished in 59^th place, or 58^th by official time out of 802 runners)!

Sprint to the finish – everything in this photo is exaggerated: the hair, the face expression, the position of the arms, … (courtesy of 馬飛)

Not among the prize winners, but overall a good race for me!

Fen Ditton

This is a race I did some 2 and a half weeks ago but it seems almost pre-historic to me right now, maybe it is due to a desire to forget about it (the reason of which you will soon find out). However a friend managed to find this photo (a nice one too!) of me on Facebook today so I guess there is absolutely no excuse not to write about it.

This cross-country race took place at Fen Ditton, which I had absolutely no clue where it was. Fortunately there was going to be someone to lead us there (jogging): all we need to do was to show up at St. John’s porters’ lodge at 1100 and jog along. The race was due to start at 1230 and promised to consist of “some of the toughest Cambridge has to offer”. The men’s race was about 8 km and the course description was “a mixture of grass, mud, paths, and even a railway bridge”. I was particularly drawn to the railway bridge part, expecting to witness some truly majestic scenes, only to realise later that it was simply a bridge over a railway.

I got up and put on my newly purchased Karrimor armour (check out the photo below, although when I come to think about it now it was probably slightly excessive as some guys ran in vests and shorts). Then I went to MacDonald and got myself a delicious veggie burger (brunch only starts at 1130 in college and I had to have something before a race). When I showed up at St. John’s, I realised that only the girls’ captain and another fresher was present, no-one else turned up for the next ten minutes or so and we decided to head off. The girls’ captain got on her bike and asked us to “jog” beside her. But that was NOT a jog, alright, I still felt manageable but it was taking me off my perfectly comfortable pace (alas, why can’t I get faster?). We ran pass Jesus’ Green, Midsummers’ Common along the River Cam. The weather was absolutely glorious (see photo below). As we continued to run along Riverside, where many nice new houses were situated, a rather strange feeling of deja vu came upon me: it somehow reminded me of my marathon experience at Oslo: probably because the last 6 kilometres or so in Oslo was along the shore and it was a similar day, I even came across a bridge here that shared some resemblances with the one I ran pass in Oslo, so that was rather sweet.

After about 15 minutes or so we arrived at Fen Ditton, which was a spacious piece of grassland. We got there way too early (some 1 hour before the race was due to start) so I basically wobbled around aimlessly until the start. I realised that there were only two other guys from Magdalene doing the men’s race, reinforcing my belief that Magdalene was not a particularly sport-obsessed college (although we actually did quite well in the college league, coming 4th out of 23). I was absolutely relieved to have been told that this was not really a cross country race as the only ascent was the railway bridge. You could just tell I wasn’t a hardcore cross country runner.

After an agonising hour of waiting the start finally came: the really elite athletes dashed away like beasts, jumping angrily into massive puddles which splashed mud all over my brand new Karimoor gear (oh no!). A rare individual I must have been – a cross country runner who likes to be clean. After some 200 m we got to the railway bridge, which I have been eagerly anticipating and it turned out to be the biggest anticlimax of the day – it was just a bridge, like any other old bridge, and the standing-over-the-railway-and-looking-deep-into-the-distance didn’t feel particularly triumphant or inspiring. Anyway the race went on, and I was only too glad to realise that the course was indeed very flat. There were some huge muddles (that is, mud puddles) which I was not daring enough to challenge, so I slowed down and took that easy. There were various places which were rather slippery so I took those easy as well. As you must have realised by this point, this post is not intended to be a sum-up of my victory, but rather a light-hearted reflection on my failure; obviously I didn’t intend to enter this race in the hope that I would beat everyone and smash the course record and get chosen straightway as a member for the Blues team – no, I am just not in their class, but it would have been nice not to finish last and in fact, I didn’t – I came 9^th last – 44^th out of 52. I managed to overtake one guy in the entire race. There is another guy who was just a bit in front of me for pretty much the entire race and I actually passed him on a few occasions, but failing on each to secure a strong lead and so I got beaten at the end. Nevertheless, we shook hands at the finish to exchange our mutual respect for each other, in a tremendous show of sportsmanship (is this bit really necessary?).

Having been rather negative throughout this post, I would like to stress that there were many aspects of the race which I enjoyed: the wonderful weather, running past a confused pack of cows, the girls’ captain cheering me on, “Awesome running, Jeremy!” (just imagine how much courage she took simply to utter a statement like that), a guy who actually bothered to take a photo for me (see below), which I shall keep as the only physical memento I got out of this race, apart from the mud stains on my brand new Karimoor tights. I finished in a time of 36:39 which is obviously not great for a flat 8 km, but who cares?

 

 

Nice photo for a bad performance, worth remembering!

Cambridge Park Run ＃40

I want to begin this post by telling you a bit about Parkrun. The concept of Parkrun was initiated by Paul Sinton-Hewitt (who was named one of the Heroes of Running of 2009 by the magazine Runner’s World because of his involvement with Parkrun) and the first ever Parkrun took place on October 2, 2004 in Bushy Park, Teddington with only 13 participants. Today there are 45 similar events all over UK (with 3 in Denmark) and 63752 athletes have taken part in a Parkrun. The idea of Parkrun is really quite simple: it is held every Saturday at around 9 o’clock and each event is run by a group of volunteers; you don’t have to register beforehand, you don’t have to worry about any race number, and what’s best – it’s completely free! All you have to do is to create an account once on the website and you will receive a personal barcode, then simply print this barcode out, bring it to the race and make sure it is scanned by a marshall when you finished. They will collect the all results and put them into archive, and within one hour after the race you will be able to find out how well you did on their website! In order to encourage participation and reward perseverance they give out special Nike t-shirts to those who have successfully completed 50, 100, 250 Parkruns. How great does this sound? I am sure the founder will explain about this much more elegantly than I, so if you are interested I shall refer you to the following website:

http://www.parkrun.com/home.aspx

I can’t believe I have never heard of such an amazing series of events despite the fact that I always keep a watchful eye over the race calender (I suppose there is no need for it to appear on the calender since it happens regularly every saturday). Nevertheless I found out about this less than a week ago and so I looked up if there was one near Cambridge, and it turned out that there is, in Milton Country Park, which is located at the north-east to the city centre, some 3 miles away. Although reachable by foot, I still find it not as ideal as it could have been (imagine if it is in Jesus’ Green, a maximum of 10 minutes walk from Magdalene). The relatively small gap (bearing in mind the distance to be travelled) between the start time of the race (0900) and my lecture start time (1000) stands out as the biggest challenge, nevertheless I thought it would be within my ability, and so I created my account on the website and decided to give it a go this Saturday.

On Thursday I jogged there to study the environment (not that of the race route, but the route to get there) so as to save time on race day. And indeed it took me a while to find the right way. When I went there I took a longer route which involved crossing part of A10, which is quite dangerous and I almost decided to bring it to a halt, but then I somehow summoned my courage and managed to cross it and get to the destination. On my way back I realised that there was actually a much shorter route via a very nice bridge over A14. It took roughly 29 minutes per journey, thus convincing me that it would be possible to get to the lectures in time (race starts at 0900, I should finish by 0930, then another 30 minutes to get to lecture), but at the same time it signifies that I have to run 3 consecutive 5 km on a Saturday morning, which will be quite physically demanding (my strategy is to leave college early and run slowly for the first 5 km, then run hard for the actual race, and jog at a good pace back).

So race day came; I have checked the weather forecast beforehand according to which it was going to be a sunny day and it turned out so: there was a bit of wind but at least I didn’t feel cold. I didn’t actually get any sleep the night before; I was quite determined to do this and I knew the chances of my getting up on time was rather slim (since I came into university I only managed to get up before 8 on 2 occasions). At about 0730 I went to McDonald to grab some breakfast: an egg muffin which would probably not provide me with the sufficient amount of energy for the challenge ahead, so I put a couple of bananas in my bag. Speaking with bag, I carried my bag to the race and dropped it at the starting area so that I could go straight to my lectures afterwards. When I come to think about this now I probably should have left it ready in my room as it would only be an extra 3 minutes, but my traveling would have become much easier (the bag kept moving about as I ran which made me feel rather uncomfortable). However I thought I would take a photo to commemorate this historic event so the best way is probably to bring a camera in the bag. I started heading towards Milton at about 0750; I ran at a very comfortable pace and felt fine. In fact, I arrived some 50 minutes before the race was due to start! There was a huge Tesco nearby so I went in there and strolled around for a bit, eventually I bought a pack of bananas for £1. I thought if I was going to do this every saturday, then I could actually come earlier to do my shopping there (not sure about the prices, but definitely more varieties than the Sainsbury’s in town)!

I had a banana and started making my way to the Milton Country Park. There were some people there already. There was no sign or anything around so it took me a while to figure out where the start line was. I did some warm-up, then dropped my bag and was ready to go any time. I thought I noticed some familiar faces (including a maths professor) but I thought I would not approach them simply because I have never talked to them before.

One of the marshals warned us to be careful as there were some slippery parts in the course before doing the count down “3, 2, 1, go!” As one might expect, the whole race was rather informal, but the attitude of the competitors was pretty serious. There were people of different age: little children, young athletes, veterans, etc. They packed themselves together according to their estimated finishing time: so the fastest ones were at the very front and the slowest at the end so that there would be as little friction as possible and the whole race could go smoothly. I was quite near the front and I was hoping to finish under 21 minutes (I did a 6 km run around the track yesterday and I got around 21:30 for 5 km en route). As I have mentioned in my earlier post, a lot of runners compete against themselves (rather than against other runners) and I could feel that was a central theme here. What better way can you start a Saturday morning with a new personal best time?

I ran along with some fast (but not the fastest) people, being cautious not to push myself too hard at the beginning. We first ran along a straight road which was slightly inclined, the it split into two paths, for the first lap we took the right, and we came back to the same junction after a lap of about 300 metres, and this time we took the left. Then we would come back to the same point and we should take the left again for the final lap. The road was trail, and was indeed quite muddy and slippery. It was very flat, as I was glad to find out. I slipped and twisted my ankle on two occasions; fortunately I could still keep going. My shoes are designed for road so they are definitely not ideal for such a course. I felt that I was maintaining a good pace all along; I passed a few people, got passed by some (different). There was a man in his early 50s, who kindly pointed me to the right way at one junction, otherwise I would have got badly lost. I managed to pass this man (an act of ingratitude…). However I miscalculated the finishing line by some 200 metres and thus started sprinting a little too soon, which would turned out to have been a bad decision, eventually the man I just described managed to pass me and led all the way to the finish, beating me by a second. When I got to the finish, I received a little card with the number 22 on it, so I presumed I came 22 out of all (over 100 by the look of it) so it was not a bad result at all! The finish area was a spacious grassland and the sun was shining directly into my eyes, though its beams were gentle as if congratulating the finishers. I remembered feeling a bit delirious at that moment and I felt like I was in the middle of a dream and I was wondering what I was doing at this unfamiliar place. Strange feeling, I suppose it was a kind of uncertainty when you have finished a job which you have spent a long time thinking about and planning, you begin to question yourself “so this is it?”, not in the sense that you are overwhelmed by disappointment, but by disbelief that the job was done (sorry about this utter nonsense; scientists claim that when runners finish a race, their blood sugar level is very low which could lead to anger and depressing thoughts, thus they sometimes begin to contemplate the meaning of life).

I went to hand in the little card to a marshal sitting in front of a laptop and I showed him my barcode. There seemed to have been a minor technical problem with my barcode as he could not scan it, but he simply typed it into his laptop and the problem was clearly resolved, when I managed to find my result on the website. I collected my bag and asked someone to take a photo for me. Then I looked at my watch: 25 more minutes till lecture, better move fast – I have only covered 2/3 of my journey.

Going back was much more difficult than I had expected: I just ran quite a fast 5 km (for my standard) and had not fully recovered yet. The heavy burden on my shoulder began to shake more and more vigourously and I was struggling to get to the finish. This was probably the first time when I was under time pressure; when I was actually running to catch something. Usually when I run I like to have some margin before and after so that I don’t have to worry about how fast I run. The last time I looked forward so much to the finish was probably in the Oslo Marathon, when I kept asking myself “where is the finish? where is the finish?” for the last 7 km or so. It turned out that I was only 7 or 8 minutes late for lecture, which I thought was a good effort. However, this soon turned out to be irrelevant: when the exhaustion due to staying up the previous night and having just run 15 km began to enshroud me, I began to drift between a semi-asleep and semi-awake stage and my head kept nodding forward suddenly (probably to the discomfort of my neighbours), and I barely took in anything the lecturers said. The interesting thing was that I was still copying notes at the same time, but when I examined them closely I realised they made no sense at all – just some garbage I made up along.

I guess this will serve as the sum-up of my first taste of this wonderful little event. Let’s not forget about the final result: I finished in a time of 20:20, and was ranked 22th overall (out of 150), 22th in the men category and 3rd in the Junior 15-19 category. So not bad!

My comment about the event: very well organised, really enjoyable, the marshalls were all really friendly and cheered us all along, apparently they usually go for coffee in a cafe in the park with the runners, what’s better than a hot cup of coffee after a battle against the chill? If only I could join them!

Time for a bit of advertisements: Karrimor Top £5, Karrimor Tights £10.99, great deal from Sports Direct!

Intercollege Cuppers (Athletics) 2010

As the title suggests, this is a match between different colleges at Cambridge. I remain skeptical that my college – Magdalene is a particularly distinguished one in athletics, and my doubt is founded upon the fact that the captain immediately said “yes” when I volunteered to do the 3000 metres, despite the fact that I have never done 3000 m before (I have done distances over 3000m but as far as I can remember I have never done exactly 3000m, which is rather curious as I have done 2 km, 4 km, 5km, …, you name it).

I love track running and I admit that they have played an immense role in my training, but my memories of track competition have not been so fond: I did 1500 m twice in the athletics meets at Charterhouse (my old school) and I came second last and last (a guy dropped out so I guess I was second last, but from the spectators’ perspective it probably was last). I don’t really remember about one of them, but the captions of the other remain rather fresh in my mind: the gun went off, I immediately took the lead and led the pack for the first 300 m with a time of about 54 seconds, then exhaustion kicked in and everyone else overtook me and I finished last by a rather large margin in a time of 6:01. So 3000 m, which is equivalent to running two back-to-back 1500 m, would be interesting.

Since I have never done it in my life, I thought I would get some general idea about the tactics the night before (I didn’t even know if I was supposed to use a starting block, obviously this is a joke in case you really thought I was that ignorant). So I went on to Youtube and searched for “3000 m”. I watched the world record (7:20) set by Daniel Komen, and I guess the moral I learnt was simply to “run as fast as possible”.

17th Octtober 2010: It was a rather nice day; the sun was shining gently over the track.I arrived some 10 minutes before the race at the track. When I got there I immediately spotted my dad in his highly visible blue skiing jacket, and I also saw a figure with the hood of his jacket over his head standing next to him. So I thought to myself, “Who’s this guy? Some new Chinese fellow my Dad just stumbled upon?” It was when I got closer and this guy turned around that I realised that he was my brother – oops. By this time everyone was ready at the starting line so I immediately took off my Nike jacket and pants and tried to notify the marshals of my presence. I had some troubles trying to sort out my race number with them, which gave me a psychological disadvantage as I was still pretty confused when I reached the start line (as if it had a massive impact on the outcome). I put my smart Adidas spikes on (I used to do long jumps in Charterhouse and Dad bought me those, though my passion didn’t last very long so they were probably quite happy that they could avoid the fate of wearing out in the dust-shrouded corner at home, though this euphoria was probably going to be temporary as they were destined to return to the corner after this race). I was wearing my black Nike vest and running shorts, got spikes on and I must say I looked pretty pro; the other runners probably thought so too. I bet one or two were thinking, “Look at this Chinese dude, is he Liu Xiang 2.0? I bet he is going to beat all of us.” This was probably the closest I ever got to anything near glory on that day.

The gun went off, and we shot off furiously. I was probably 6th or 7th for the first 200 m (as you can see from the photo that there was a big bunch of guys behind me, and no, they were not about to lap me, they were genuinely behind me), and I wasn’t even sprinting (I have learnt from my previous 1500 m experience) so I felt pretty good. At the finishing line (or the line congruent to the finishing line mod 7, since I had only covered 200 m and had another 7 laps to go) I saw Dad enthusiastically taking photos of me so I felt encouraged. I was determined to run a good race and get some confidence into my life. I was doing well for the first 1000 m, with the leader only 100 m in front of me or so, but then I began to feel bad, my body started to hurt and my speed dropped. Then, you know what is coming (sigh), I got overtaken gradually by pretty much everyone and I saw Dad with his hands in his pocket (not necessarily due to indifference, it was a cold day after all). When other people went pass the crowd you could hear the spectators cheering the athletes on: “Peterhouse!”, “Jesus!”, but when I passed them it was nothing but silence, which really didn’t help me battle through it. I sprinted the last 150 m and almost caught up with the guy who was in front of me by quite a margin, but unfortunately I didn’t quite have the will to maintain the speed at the last 10 m. Eventually I finished in a time of about 11:10, which wasn’t bad for me (before the race I thought anything under 11:00 would have been respectable to myself, so I really wasn’t far off), and I didn’t even come last – there were still a few guys behind me – now that was something new. I wasn’t sure if I was beaten by any girls; I don’t think so but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was wrong.

Doing well – just count how many guys were behind me at this point.

 

“Why couldn’t I have run faster?” Although this photo might suggest that I came last (as there was no-one visible behind me), trust me, I didn’t.

When I watched professional athletes racing, I always thought “why couldn’t the runner-up have run faster at the end?” and I did the same to myself here, examining the race from the vantage point of an onlooker. I wasn’t out of energy as I could run pretty fast for the last 150 m, the lack of a planned strategy obviously contributed to my failure, but then again I have never done it before. I try not to become my own “harshest critic” and I attempted to forgive myself, though once in a while the question “why couldn’t I have endured the last 10 m for another couple of seconds?” crept up in my semi-asleep and aimlessly wandering mind.

It wasn’t all for nothing, I suppose, at least I got a PB (personal best) for 3000 m, so it wasn’t that bad at all.

Note: remember I mentioned earlier that my previous time (which was actually my record) of 1500 m was 6:01, multiply this by 2 and compare this to my 3000 m time. I suppose I have improved, haven’t I?

Failed – but I still enjoyed running it! Also check out my professional clothing.

Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon 2010

I travelled to London on Saturday 9th October in order to participate in this year’s Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon. I have previously been sent a pack with everything I need: t-shirt, bib number, timing chips, directions to get there, etc. So all I needed to do was to show up on Sunday morning and drop my bag at the baggage area and then go to the starting line – simple enough.

On Sunday I woke up at about 0715 and had a good breakfast: cereal, tea with sugar, two or three bananas and a couple of cereal bars, I reckoned this should provide me with the sufficient amount of carbohydrates to last for the run. I had some spaghetti last night which was a very good sauce of carbohydrate. All these were a bit last minute, though, since I had just moved into university for a week and I could only describe my diet as “chaotic”; normally I would have done “carbohydrate loading” (focus on eating food with a rich amount of carbohydrate for every meal) a few days prior to the race. So for insurance I put a chocolate and some sugar cubes in my pocket in case I need them in the middle of my run.

I dressed quite smartly for the run: I wore the official Mizuno orange t-shirt (probably the most beautiful running t-shirts I have received from competitions, it has a nice drawing on the back), then on the top I put on my colourful Children with Leukaemia vest. And I wore a pair of Mizuno running shorts with orange strips on one side which embellished the official t-shirt. Some people like to wear their own clothes when participating in such races, perhaps for reasons of personal comfort, but for me I always prefer wearing the t-shirt distributed by the organisation so that there is a sense of belonging – that I am part of the race. Actually quite a lot of people thought so yesterday and you could see a sea of orange which rather cheered you up as you ran along.

I arrived at Hyde Park before 9 (the race would start at 9:30), I was dropped off at the opposite side of Hyde Park to the starting area by a friend of my parents (she couldn’t drop me off at the starting area as roads have been closed for the race). Then I walked over and got there at about 9, so I thought I should have plenty of time to drop my bag and then do some thorough warm-up. However when I got to the baggage area my jaws dropped: the queues there were absolutely huge and I began to worry a bit as I have never been good with queues (when I do my shopping at supermarkets I somehow always manage to pick the longest one). There was a staff who continuously asked us to have everything ready so that we could just hand it in and then dash off to the starting line. So I was slightly relieved: surely they are not going to start with so many people still queuing to drop their bags? Then as the other queues got smoother and shorter, there was little progress in ours. Finally I managed to get to the counter and handed in my bag. By this point I felt like I needed to go to the toilet (it wasn’t exactly desperate but I always find it nice before a run), however I reckoned I wasn’t going to have enough time so I took a bold decision: I would try to hold it (and thought maybe it would motivate me to run faster).

There were official photographers present; they aimed to take several pictures of each participants before putting them on the internet for purchase. The photos tend to be quite expansive (10 pounds for one, or 30 pounds to download all of them), but when you come to think about the amount of photos they have to take and the quality of them, it is totally worth it; after all they are genuine evidences of a great achievement. So I thought I would try to squeeze a smile whenever I spotted these cameramen, but on the following day when I went on to their website to survey the photos, I found no smile, but rather sequence of contorted facial expressions! Well, I guess this was a good way to show how much effort I put in…

When we registered for the event online we were asked to put down an estimated finishing time for the race and I put down 1:55 – 2:15, which was rather humble of me, when I come to think of it now, since it was more likely to be somewhere between 1:35 to 1:55. This was probably due to my fear of not making the estimated time if I decided to be arrogant. The runners were each assigned a colour on their bib number according to their estimated finishing time and it went orange, green, blue, yellow, maroon with orange being the fastest, green the second, and so on. And runners of the same “colour” were grouped together so that they could run along people of the same ability and the race would become much smoother. Thus I entered the funnel of the blue runners and tried to do a bit more warming up, but it was quite crowded, so what I managed to do was far from a thorough one.

The gun went off and the official clock began to tick; presumably the runners at the front shot off (I couldn’t really see), but we showed little movement in our funnel. It was some 9 minutes into the race when I finally managed to cross the starting line, which meant the official time will be my actual time + 9 minutes, but it didn’t matter because each runner had been given an electronic chip which was attached to his / her shoe, and the chip would only start timing once the runner has crossed the starting line. Although the overall winner (which will be given a spectacular trophy) was judged to be the first person who crossed the finishing line, it didn’t really concern me as I was fully aware that I would come nowhere near that even if I started some 5 km before the starting line.

The weather forecast said it was going to be a sunny day, but when we started it was actually quite chilly; fortunately we were running in a closely packed bulk so the effects of the wind were reduced. I started off at a good speed, about 7:30 per mile, and I actually overtook a lot of people (this was when I realised that perhaps I should have put down a shorter estimated finishing time as overtaking other runners meant that you had to put in extra effort, for example when you went on to the sidewalk). Obviously I felt happy after overtaking others, but I had not forgotten about my experience in Oslo, where I overtook a lot of people in the middle of the race, only to be overtaken by pretty much all of them (and more) in the later stage of the race. So I tried to maintain a steady and good speed. There were signs indicating the distance we had already covered and this was done in miles, which meant that there would be only 13 of them (a half marathon is a race of 21.0975 km or 13.1 miles), I guessed this might be a better idea than doing it in km, firstly because you didn’t need as much signs which made the work easier for the staff, secondly it was psychologically easier for the runners (because there were less signs you needed to cross). I might be talking complete rubbish here but I certainly felt that the race was shorter this time than what I do normally (I usually think in kilometres).

We went pass quite a few famous landscapes and places in London: Westminster, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Royal Albert Hall, etc. It was rather amusing that although I had lived in Westminster for over a year some 5 years ago, all these places only seemed vaguely familiar to me. I always think that running through a city is a great way to learn about the city itself and the culture of her people. Sometimes you could dwell in a place without really living in it, because you are mentally detached from it; this is especially conspicuous if you live in a city of breathtaking pace like Hong Kong. On the other hand when you are running you mind is so clear that you are almost compelled to focus on your surroundings. The crowds were quite enthusiastic there, cheering us all along the way. There were obviously places when only a few pedestrians looked on coldly, perhaps thinking, “look at those silly people, they pay to suffer!”. There was a point when a runner reversed his role and actually encouraged the crowds, “come on, give us some noise,” he shouted, and they gave a tiny meow in response, “that was a bit pathetic, come on, I want to hear some more”, he was expecting them to roar like lions; the guy certainly possessed some character, I would have been barely able to make any noise other than groan some 7 or 8 miles into a race.

I saw a few people in some wonderful fancy dresses along the way, this included Sonic the Hedgehog, some beans, a carrot, etc. I had great admiration for these guys: they must had been soaking wet inside those bulky costumes! These people probably weren’t going for a personal best time, but they surely made the race much more colourful and enjoyable for everyone else. I actually talked to Sonic the Hedgehog, “nice costume mate,” I admired, “would you like to swap?” he remarked with a reluctant (so it seemed to me) chuckle.

I wish I could have written more about the actual race, but to be perfectly honest I didn’t remember too much: it was rather quick and there weren’t much that stuck out conspicuously. My favourite moment during the race was probably when I passed some kids, they held out their palms and I mine, and my palm swiftly swept through the row of little hands, and the result was a quick exchange of high fives. I saw this in a movie and had always wanted to do it; I think this really highlighted the interaction between the spectators and the athletes. I believe that spectators play just an important role as anyone else, and I just couldn’t imagine how boring a race would be without them!

I kept in mind the time taken between each two mile markers and I thought I managed a pace of 7:15 to 7:30 per mile throughout. Frankly speaking I had not trained too well for this race: after my race in Oslo two weeks ago there was a hiatus of a week and I did about 4 training sections (11-16 kms) in the week just before the actual race, so I would have been happy with anything under 1:40, anything under 1:30 would have been amazing, but I knew the chances were low, since I have never done so in training. When I crossed the finishing line the official clock read 1:44, and applying the simple equation “actual time = official time – time between gun and my crossing the starting line” I reckoned I did it in around 1:35, a result I was rather pleased with. As soon as we crossed the line we received a bottle of water, a bottle of Lucozade, a banama and a bag to carry them. Most important of all we all received a finisher’s medal, which was made of wood and was designed in the shape of a leaf, representing the trees of the Royal Parks. It probably didn’t take much to mass manufacture these, but their weight, I am sure, was much more than what the balance could measure for each of us.

The good thing about running is that you could meet someone you have never met before, yet you feel that you already know him because you both share a common achievement. This was exactly what did: I met Tim, aged 60, from Brazil, who told me that he had been running for some 14 or 16 years and had already done 57 marathons! He did 3 races in the past 3 weeks including the Berlin Marathon (in 3:44 which was an amazing feat), and he was about to travel to Frankfurt to do a 10 km race. He told me about the various exotic races he had experienced, and I suggested that he had a go at the Hong Kong Marathon one day. He seemed interested enough, and we exchanged our e-mail addresses.

I love running, because it is one of the few sports that anyone could compete against the top athletes simultaneously, though most people don’t really think about that, rather they compete against themselves. It doesn’t matter how long it takes (although it is always nice if you make your target time), as soon as you cross the finishing line it will no longer be the same. I think of the lyrics of a song by Andy Lau: “everyone is no.1, as long as you don’t question whether you could achieve it or not”, this race stands as an authentic testimony to this statement for me.

Another great thing about this race is that I am raising money for the charity Children with Leukaemia, which aims to help little kids in their struggles against this terrible disease. Although the race is over now, you could still sponsor me! Simply go to http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/tsitSzeJeremyLam-1 and following the instruction. Any amount of sponsorship will be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much!

A final note: my official time was 1:44:21, chip time (actual running time) was 1:34:15, which means that my average speed was 13.43 km per hour; I think it is a good result for my first competitive half marathon!

Happy and satisfied after the race!