So… I ended my marathon saga this year by joining the Angkor Wat Marathon last week. I don’t exactly remember how the idea of joining it had come about but I just thought may be it is a good reason to finally visit the Kingdom of Wonder as Cambodia is famously known for.
We set out into the dead silence of Siem Reap at thirty past five in the morning when the streets were still empty and people were still soundly asleep in their bunks and probably cuddled up in the comfort of their mattresses or something.
Dashing across town and off towards the starting line at the Angkor Wat in a Tuk Tuk that we hired for USD8, the ride felt so long partly because we had to keep up with the freezing cold air of Siem Reap when the sun had not shown itself anywhere around yet.
Angkor Wat marathon is all about humbleness. Despite all the hypes and its association with one of the most visited monumental complexes in the world, it is actually just a small scale of marathon with a participation of just over 5000 people.
With a registration fee of over USD50, I don’t think it is something that anybody can just say ‘OK, I wanna join it’ especially in an overly commercialized town like Siem Reap where everything tends to be quite more expensive than the ordinary.
But still, it was well-organized really. They had make-shift toilets although they could have put more of them so that people could avoid lining up for too long. Siem Reap is known for its cheap beer and partying environment so the constant need of peeing should be very much expected from the participants. LOL.
A humble beginning for a humble marathon – the flag off was quite and everybody started off steadily without all the screams that I usually hear at the starting line of major marathons such as Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon and KL Marathon. It was more like slithering away in a steady stream – quiet and peaceful.
It wasn’t long before the crowds dispersed a little with everybody running in their own pace – no rushing, no bottleneck, no shoulder to shoulder rubbing, no nothing. Everybody has a space of his/her own.
Angkor Wat marathon has to be the greenest run that I’ve ever been on. Circling around the area where the ancient temples are scattered here and there, it really was a run where nature and ancient history ram into each other.The scenery was something to behold – the silhouette of the temples from across the distance and the morning mist lifting slowly from the surface of the lake that surrounded them – and most importantly the beautiful feeling that comes with it. It really was amazing.
Good thing about running in the area of Angkor Wat is the existence of so many ‘natural toilets ‘ you can actually just barge out of the track and get your business done in no time at all. It might be a man-only business in other marathons but here at Angkor Wat Marathon, I’ve come to find out that those natural toilets were meant to be unisex.
I mean, how can I ever forget the image of a mat salleh lady stripping her pants off behind a tree just on the side of the road and of a size that could barely hide her ass while she was doing her business? Erkkkk. For somebody who is so humbled by his own innocence – it would be a haunting sight that lingers in ma head for such a long long time. 😀
I had to give my double thumps up to the organizer for setting up more than enough water stations along the track although some people might be so used to being fed with carbonated drink they’d complain when they couldn’t find any.
Just water for me is OK. After all, Angkor Wat marathon was more a less a charity run where most of the money would go to the under-privileged children in Cambodia so I don’t think it was wise to splurge money over 100 Plus or something when it could actually be channeled to those who need it more .
I usually wince every time I see bottles being littered all over the track whenever I join a marathon may be because I tend to imagine how hard it would be for the volunteers to clean up the mess afterward. Here at the Angkor Wat marathon, each bottle that you litter would bring such a great joy to the children who were there to collect them and later sell them off to any of the recycling companies in Siem Reap. 
Of course I was more than happy to trash my emptied bottles into any of their gapping sacks.
I gotta say that I’ve never been running in a marathon where I had support from the locals as much as I did when I was at the Angkor Wat Marathon. The children would be there on the side of the road ready to high5-ing you with their tiny little hands and cheerful smiles on their faces.
Some of them would chant their motivational remarks such as ‘you can do it’ and ‘go go go’. I tried to get to each of them but of course it was 21km we were dealing with so I had to skip more and more of them after awhile. It really was the most amazing support that I’ve ever seen for a marathon. It was like the entire village would come out to the side of the road and cheer you up as if winning the marathon was a matter of life or death.
The monks would come out of the temple and line up on the side of the road to be part of the supporting crowd. Again, it was the best feeling.
If going up against slopes in a marathon would dampen your run in any way then Angkor Wat marathon is probably the best place to improve your personal best. Not only it provides you with plenty of space to wheeze past other runners IN STYLE like I did (ehem!), the track is also so flat all throughout the run so it really is an advantage for you to make full use of your energy and achieve your targeted time – if you have any.
To tell the truth, I was expecting to be in the marathon with only two other Malaysians – Ulai and KJH and I had them as my travel buddies. It turned out that there were quite a number of Malaysians that I bumped into along the way so the idea of joining an International marathon and claiming that WE ARE REPRESENTING MALAYSIA suddenly became quite irrelevant. Blueksss! 😀
It was even more so when some of them had stitched a Malaysian flag on their shirts while we had no shit of anything about Malaysia on our running T-shirt apart from the language that we used to communicate to each other.
Oh well, at least I had this one Malaysian amoi who was all over the place taking picture of herself and everything I actually developed some kind of hatred and meluat-ness towards her after awhile. Whenever I wanted to take a picture of the kids or something she’d suddenly jump into sight as if she wanted me to enjoy having her fat ass and fugly mug in every picture that I took.
OK, I take that one back but seriously; looking at her taking picture of herself every now and then made me wonder what was actually the intention of some people to join a marathon. Errrr, did I just hear somebody say ‘self-promoting’? LOLz. 
While most of asphalted road was in good condition, there were some parts of the stretch that needed a little bit of repairing job. 
The organizer had actually mentioned and even apologized for it on the website so it was not something that was totally unexpected. But overall- it was perfectly OK. My feet were happy – thanks to the little investment that I did on a pair of New Balance shoes a few months back. 😀
The run wouldn’t really bring you right across the temples but it would give you a chance of running PAST some of them so you still have the opportunity of visualizing them as a whole while you’re running. 
Bear in mind that you need a valid pass to just make it past the entrance gate to the area of Angkor Wat alone so it was still considered a good deal having to pay for the registration fee and be granted an entry to the Angkor Wat area.
So yeah, after quite a lot of stopping and brisk-walking and camwhoring and one single toilet break in the bushes (TMI?), I managed to finish my run at 2 hours and 35 minutes – just a little bit of improvement from my previous run at Putrajaya Night Marathon but hey, I keep telling everybody that I am not really a serious runner. I have always considered myself more of a leisure marathoner so a little bit of time improvement would do me just fine.
While there were stories that participants were not granted finisher medal last year, I tried not to expect getting any this year either but guess what?
There were medals up for grab! Can you smell it????? Can you??? Can you????? 😀
In all its humbleness, no breakfast pack was waiting for us at the finish line. Instead we were given a can of Sponsor Electrolyte Beverage and a banana and that’s it. I don’t know what kind of banana it was but it tasted so good I swear to God I must have eaten five of them in a matter of a few minutes!
There were children all over asking for my drink and bananas but it was just one of those times when I’d rather be kiasu. My brains wanted to give to them but my stomach wouldn’t. Sorry kids.
So – it was such a long way to come all the way from KL to Bangkok than to Phnom Penh and finally Siem Reap to join the Angkor Wat marathon so just imagine how happy we were when we made it to the finish line – all the three of us. Just look at those happy smiles on our faces. 🙂
All in all – I enjoyed my run at the Angkor Wat marathon very very much it would be no surprise if you suddenly see somebody that looks so much like me asking for more and more of the bananas in the next year’s run.
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