Sheares Bridge Army - Half Marathon 2002

Sheares Bridge Army Half - Marathon 2002 (1hr 17min)

I retired from serious running at the age of 29 in the year 1995. In year 2002, for fun, I took up serious running to see whether I can do a sub 1hr 20min for the Half - marathon. At that time, I was teaching at the then The Chinese High School. I did not want to train like how I used to do in my prime and had to half my mileage during training, especially for the last 1 month. I did not want to train very hard because it will take away most of my time away. A lot of sacrifice is needed indeed. Furthermore, I told myself that what I wanted to achieve has been achieved, which is hitting the qualifying time for the Olympics.

From 1995 to 2001, I did not compete seriously. After 2001, I wanted to see how I will perform if I make a comeback in running. I wanted to do only for a while only and go back to usual life of coaching.

In 2002, Army Half-marathon race, I had to compete with an athlete by the name of Low Yeah Kher. Around that year, Elangovan was injured, having ligament torn in one of the leg. For all the monthly time-trials of the 2PDF, Yeah Kher was always winning. However, I told myself to do once a day long session runs and go for first position for the Army Half marathon.

The day came where, from the start, I followed Yeah Kher. He was running smoothly and over time, especially after the 10km mark, he made several attempts to kick me off by splitting from me. Each time he did that, I caught up with him. I found his pace just manageable to follow. At one point, somewhere at the half-way mark, I had to throw a perforated material into the box which I forgot to and had to turn back and run behind to put. I saw Yeah Kher doing that while on the run, earlier on. When I finished putting the perforated material into the box, he was about 40-50metres away. He did a fast-break on me, which made him to have a small lead.

I did not panic and later on caught up with him at the last 800m as we were neck to neck at that point. I decided to split from him at the last 700m to the finish. At this point, we were near the indoor Stadium. At the road circle, I saw barricades. I ran to take the shortest possible course as Yeah Kher took the longer one. Seeing this, immediately, I ran out of the circle and ran with him. I lost some time and distance because of this action. However, I wanted to win him in a fair manner. Instead of leading him, I was again neck to neck. Again I ran as fast as I can to wind up the race.

It was maximum effort on my part to speed up and finish the race. Yeah Kher followed me just behind all the way and gave his best shot to win. Knowing this, I did not cave in. When I heard his footsteps again, I mustered up all my will and strength and gave another push to the finish, especially at the last 200m. I gave off everything that I had got to finish. Hence, I became Men Open local first, finally. As soon as Yeah Kher finished, I also saw N. Ganesan just behind Yeah Kher. It was a narrow escape to win N. Ganesan also. All the while, I did not know that he was behind us.

After the race, a few days later, I went down for the MR25 gathering where I met Donald Ng and Ernest Wong. Both were not good friends of mine. We used to say," Hello", that's all. At that place, I not familiar to many of the MR25 Club  members. I was conversing mainly with Yvonne Danson. After some time, during that night, Donald called on me over to talk. I realised that, during the discussion, Donald had been the source of inspiration to Ernest Wong, who was a competitor to me in the past who could do a 5km time on the track with a time of sub 16min 30sec. Donald was in fact, more or less, coaching and mentoring Ernest Wong. That truth was exposed when I was there for the gathering.

The MR25 Club Members - Standing on the extreme right is Donald Ng and 5th from left is  Ernest Wong.

Donald told me that Ernest is depressed with running because of not hitting a sub 2hrs 40mins for the marathon. Our friendship blossomed from the meeting. Donald wanted me to coach Ernest to make him even better in running. Donald was very concerned. I saw the face of Ernest the hunger he had. After much thought, I decided to help him, even though I was not interested in coaching anybody around the period of time. In my mind, there was no any form of interest to run competitively and coach any top athlete as well. In short, I was not interested in any form of fame. However, I wanted to help Ernest as he was sincere to work harder.