race recap

Well, I had a great run this morning.  There was so much bloggable material presented to me before, during, and after the festivities that I almost don’t know where to start.  I awoke and 4am and chugged a can of iced coffee that I purchased the night before at the 7-eleven.  Accompanying this was one baby banana muffin and half a slice of watermelon.  By quarter to five I was wondering in the still silent streets , looking for a ride to the race.  I eventually settled on a songthaew that agreed to take me for 60 baht.

With the help of a map I’d printed the night before we found it rather easily.  Soon I was signing up and getting my shirt (woefully small) and race number.  There were a lot of people there, maybe about 500.  I did a mile warm up in the still dark streets behind the municipal court house complex.  Finally at about 5 minutes to six the pack started filtering towards the starting line.  We were squeezed in quite close to each other and I was literally head and shoulders taller than everyone.  I felt like a giant.  They then made us stand crammed together at the start line while thousands of photos were taken of women holding colored balloons and a  ceremonial floral starting wire.  Then a random man in front of them did about a 10 minute aerobics routine with his back to us and hyper-aerobics music blaring.  More photos were taken.  Eventually the balloons were released skyward and everyone started the creep towards the start.  A countdown started at 5 but by 3 people were already sprinting away.  I couldn’t believe how many people were literally sprinting!!!

As a result of these suicidal starters I found about 100 people ahead of me by the half mile mark.  Slowly I started picking them off.  I actually enjoyed this, passing person after person for km after km.  By half way there were about 15 guys in front of me.  I continued passing but only at about a rate of 1 every few minutes.  Finally I found my proper place and ran the last 2-3 km totally alone, as I usually am near the end of my races, not quite fast enough to be with the fastest but better than the other 98% by a fair margin.  I’m not sure my final placing, though I would guess about 12th or so.

I was 5th in the 20-29 age group and this won me a trophy and a trip to a big stage where my photo was taken with the other four age-groupers who had finished ahead of me.  Post race snacks in Thailand are always fun just because they are so different from what you get back in the states.  There is of course water but instead of gatorade there is piping hot sweet soy milk and rice porridge.

Atmospheric conditions were about as good as could be expected.  Overcast, almost foggy, with a ever so slight rain/mist.  Though this did create near 100% humidity the temps were only in the 70s at that early hour so it really wasn’t bad at all.  In the end, it was definitely worth getting up at 4am for this.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with this trophy, which is thankfully not as ridiculously large as the one Lindsay once won in a race here.