London Marathon 2009 - Race report

What the numbers mean to me from the past 16 weeks to now:

750,000 - Number of Vittel bottles given to runners today
200,000 - Number of Lucozade bottles given to runners today
35,000 - Number of runners I ran with today
9583 - Overall position in FLM 2007
6086 - Overall position in FLM 2009
732 - Number of kilometres ran in training for the race
237 - Number of songs uploaded into the IPod
73 - Number of kilometres swam for cross training
18 - Number of litres of isotonic drinks consumed
13 - Number of PowerGels consumed
9 - Number of zones in each start line in the FLM
8 - Number of marathon ran to-date
5 - Number of pair of socks changed
4 - Number of hours targeted to finish the race
3 - Number of start lines in FLM
2 - Number of London Marathon ran to-date
1 - Number of shoes changed
0 - Number of Flora London Marathon race left

The historical end of the Flora London Marathon series is marked with the sweet success of me finally achieving a sub-4 marathon.

Thank you for all the congratulatory messages. I guess you learnt about my time much faster than I did officially! 3hrs 47mins 22 secs is 14mins off my previous PB. I was really surprised and happy with my performance.

I love running the London Marathon. It's fun and packed with energy from both the runners and spectators. I should cover more major marathons before saying this but I've never experienced a race where the entire 42.2km route is lined with spectators like it was in London.

Hot air balloons from the sponsors

The level of energy from the spectators was incredible. Bands and choirs were on the streets. Kids were handing out jelly babies and oranges. Some of them raised their hands for a high-five. A few crazy people were doing their BBQ while watching us run.

The race was not short of costume runners. I meet another everytime I overtook one. I would attribute part of the fun to them. These runners get cheered on all the time and they kept me going too. I was running next to Danger Mouse who was cheered on all the way!

The drink stations were fabulous. I had to skip many drink stations since they were spaced close between. Lucozade and Vittel had a combined total of 1 million bottled drinks for runners. What we had could possibly quench the thirst of a-third of KL!

Despite that, I was severely dehydrated. The urine was the same colour as the Chinese Tea! I thought I was going to develop kidney stones!

The weather was good. Too good to the point that it became too hot! It wasn't the tropical KL heat. The sun was directly over us. I had a sunburn. I couldn't sweat much but still I was dehydrated. Initially I chose to believe the weatherman that it was going to rain in the middle of the race and that the temperature would drop to 13deg C. So I wore two layers of clothes.

The unblemished sky of Greenwich before the start of the race

Two layers of clothes

30km passed, still no sign of a change of weather. My body was boiling. I stopped by the walkway and took a layer off. But the damage has been done. I was burnt out.

At the half marathon mark, Wanjiru (this year's men's champion) was running on the other side of the road. He ran like a horse! For a 2hr 5min finishing time, this means his average speed was more than 20kph! I can't even keep to 13kph for more than 1km!

And the 35th km mark to me could only be associated to cramp and exhaustion.

At the 40th km mark, a severe cramp set in and brought me to an abrupt halt. I was assisted to the walkway by a first-aider. It was my first experience being attended to by a first-aider. She gave me a rub on the tight muscle on the left leg. She checked if I wanted to continue and I said yes. I continued limp-running my way to the finish line.

Embankment, the spot where I could no longer move.
Photo taken an hour after the race. The streets were still packed with runners!

The results are out. The split times were telling of the reasons of the cramps that I endured and came as no surprise at all. I started off too fast. I pushed the speed over the average speed I was trained for the race.

Sweet success!
(Notice a layer of clothing of less)

The split times can be found here and this is the summary:

10km - 47mins
21km - 1hrs 41mins 3secs
30km - 2hrs 29mins 6secs
40km - 3hrs 33mins 58secs
42.2km - 3hrs 47mins 22secs

In the summary, my time worsened from the 30th km. It took me 1 hr 4mins to accomplish a 10-km run.

Yes, Danger Mouse overtook me in the end. Still, I am very thankful that I finished and achieved a finishing time I had always dreamed of.

Some photos after the race:

Joe, from Cambridge University Hare & Hounds, finished in 3hrs 2mins.

More runners from CUH&H. Guy in white finished in 3 hrs 8mins (and downing a pint!)

Celebration dinner with friends!