Taiping International Marathon 2012

If you’ve been following me on twitter, you’d expect me to write a lot about the just concluded Taiping International Marathon 2012. I’ll try to make it as short as possible though.

First, the race-pack collection.

The race pack collection as stated on the website was to take place at an MPT Hall. I didn’t know that a field is also called as ‘hall’ in Taiping. It was so hot there there was no way I could stay there longer than necessary.

But then, it wasn’t easy NOT to stay there longer than I probably wanted to when the race pack collection was so messy and disorganized. There were no queues and participants of all categories had to pool around a very small counter to check their names on the paper list (or rather a few paper lists).

Unable to talk to any of the volunteers (a better way of calling them), we had to do everything on our own – checking our names on the list and scrambling through the many boxes of BIBs to look for ours and later the piles of running shirts to look for the right sizes. I think the whole organizing committee members that were present were not even aware that we were there doing everything on our own.

Then the Running shirt.

I don’t know what kind of size standards that they use in Taiping. I’ve been using M for my running shirt right from the first time I ran and I don’t think I had really changed that much at least physically.

For the first time since I started running I had to use another shirt (for which I thanked God so much for reminding me to bring one) instead of the official shirt that the organizer had provided because their version of M was so damn tight. For one, I didn’t want to run looking like an LGBT wtf.

Then – just when I thought the suffering was over and I had to keep reminding myself over and over again that it wasn’t going to be that bad, that I shouldn’t judge everything based on the disorganized race pack collection and all alone, it would be the next day that I found out that the worse hadn’t even come yet.

It began with the flag-off time.

My running buddy had a little bit of problem with his stomach so he was forced to stay a little bit long in the toilet. By the time he was done, we had at least 15 more minutes to get to the starting point which was some 1 km away from the hotel that we stayed in.

15 minutes didn’t seem to be that long and before we knew we were already running like hell to the starting point, fearing that we’d miss the flag-off and all the grandeur that comes with it.

But NO. As we approached the starting line, we noticed that many of the participants were still waggling their way around as if the run was not going to take place for at least another hour or so.

And true enough, one of the participants who seemed to enjoy all the time in the world sprawling on the hood of his car called out to us and said “Relax you guys. The run starts at six am lah! ”.

Six am! That was one hour off the scheduled flag-off time which was supposed to take place at 5 am! In the world of marathon, one hour DOES make a HUGE difference.

I was even more horrified to know that even the full marathon was going to launch at 5 am. Walawei, thinking how hot it was the day before, I sensed that the whole town of Taiping was going to be a one big wok frying all the participants alive in it.

AND – as if the stupidity didn’t show any sign of shying away, we were all herded into the compound of MBT Hall where each of us was asked to get this.

Walawei, never in my history of running had I ever run with a handcuffed hand before. I mean, seriously, if they thought that we’d believe that there was a chip or something in that shit, that was certainly a big penghinaan to our intelligence.

I suspect, the timing chip that they provided us with to be attached to our shoes was nothing more than just a piece of rubber. There was no chip, no nothing in it. Even the detector was probably just a mock.

Then, the run.

The stretch of the step-on chip detector or whatever you call it at the starting line was so narrow everybody had to squeeze to get their chip ticked off. Of course nobody wanted to see a DF next to their name when the official results were later released on the website (if there was any).

It really was a blind run with no proper marks and signage to show you which direction to head to. Everybody had to trust whoever it was in front of them to lead the way for them. It really was not a problem but I could only imagine how it would be like if the runners dispersed to be far distanced from each other.

And true enough, my running buddy told me how at one time he had to turn back to get back into track when he realized he had strayed off the trail. Seriously, I don’t blame him.

Then, I had never run a marathon with so little number of volunteers in presence. It really was a DIY run with so little traffic personnel to look after the participants or at least to monitor the progress of the run just in case something went wrong.

Vehicles were running side by side with the participants IN THE DARK so it was just a matter of time before somebody could be run down and injured so un-worthy-ly in Taiping.

Oh well, thanks God I heard of no incident so I could be too concerned than I should be but then doing something AFTER something happens is just so familiar at least in this so beloved Boleh Land of ours.

I should probably give some credit on the route though. The run had taken us across beautiful countryside with so much rusticity and kampong charm so you really have the feeling of running in an authentic Malaysian kampong or something. I would say Taiping International Marathon has so much potential if it is organized by the right bunch of people.

Then the marking of distance.

The fact that there were (almost) no distance marks along the way really caught me off-guard like hell. Based on the number of songs that I had played on my MP3 player, I was so confident that I had already covered at least 15 kilometers so I was so positive (that) I was going to run the last 6 kilometers with no shit of problem.

I had been running non-stop and was having the biggest smile on my face only to find out – upon checking out my RunKeeper – that I had only run 12-jeez-kilometers!

That was like 9 more kilometers to go! *die*

Now I see why people keep looking at their watch while running. They want to be well aware of the distance so that they can probably ration up on their energy. That (looking at watch every now and then) was one of the things that used to annoy me so much but not anymore – after what I had experienced in Taiping of course. 😀

I even realized that the marking was done incorrectly but I was too fucked up to think too much about it. The organizers must have thought that marking the distance incorrectly was funny but it wasn’t. They had no idea how important it was to have the right marking of distance especially for the last few kilometers of the run.

I know. I dropped my phone somewhere along the way 🙁

And indeed, it was the most difficult last few kilometers of a run that I had ever done in all my years of running. My legs refused to keep going but my brains (and my ego kahkah) wanted to do the opposite.

My brains won, eventually, but not without so much struggle. By the time I hit the finish line, I was so much in bad shape I didn’t even know whether to be happy or cursing myself for joining the run in the first place.

I grabbed the medal, headed towards the counter to get whatever they had on offer and waited for my running buddy to arrive.

Then the BIG news.

The news that they had no more medals for the yet-to-arrive runners swept across the field. Many of the runners who arrived within the cut-off time were met with not-so-guilty faces of the organizing members. I didn’t join the protesting crowd but I knew there were Singaporeans among them so I knew they’d be giving the organizers a kaw kaw one.

I had the most difficult of time trying to come up with the best way to tell my running buddy that he was going home without a finisher medal (since empty-handed would sound too bad) – a first in his running history. When he finally turned up, I tried to appear jolly and clapped my hands in the air supportively before I came up with the news.

“IT’s OK, I already knew it”, he said while refusing my offer to give him my medal.

What made him angry wasn’t really the medal but the fact that there was no more drink water at the last five or so drink stations! What can be worse for a marathon than running with a dry throat??!

We continued to walk towards the supposedly medal booth where the organizing members were looking bitterly and my running buddy asked me in a volume-up voice “What was the organizer again?”

“ROTARY CLUB” I said, trying not to say it too loudly.

“ROTARY CLUB??? CONGRATULATIONS!! This is a very well-organized marathon! Congratulations again!” he said in the loudest voice I’d ever heard from him ever.

Everybody was looking as we walked towards town to look for a much-deserved spread of Thai food dishes.