2hr 24min 22sec - Cheingmai SEA GAMES 1995 (Part 3)

A summary, not detail, of the marathon 2hr 24min 22sec Part 3 in 18th South East Asian Games 1995.

As soon as Philppines' Herman Suizo, the then 17th South East Asian Games marathon record holder, gave up at around 21-22km, the group was left with 2 Indonesian runners, Roy Vence from Philippines, a Thai runner and myself. We started to take turns to lead.

At the 23km, suddenly I surged the pace and was leading the race by about 20 metres and it was shortlived as the two Indonesian worked as a team to gain back the lost ground. The Philippines runner Roy Vence and the Thai runner also was in contention.

At the 35km mark, my left calve was aching a lot. I felt the muscles were tightening a lot. I was just hoping that the calve muscles would get better over time. However, the pace of the runners got faster and faster. At this point, I nearly stopped in the race as the pain in my calve was becoming unbearable.

I decided then that I need to do the best of the worst condition that I was facing and decided to let the runners go. As soon as I did that, the gap was widening.

This went to until the last 2km and suddenly I felt very strong and the mental training I did to push at the last 2km worked. Everything was working very well and I was pushing very hard until I saw the stadium. I entered the stadium to do the last 1km on the track and I saw the two Indonesians taking their miniature country flag from the crowd and finishing first and second, doing 2hr 20min. The bronze medal went to Roy Vence of Philippines, who did 2hr 21min 02sec. The closest guy to me was a runner from Thailand and he did 2hr 23min.

I ran and finally finish the race in 2hr 24min 22sec. After 10mins the next runner who was sixth was a Cambodian runner doing 2hr 34 min.

From the run, I realised that my timing, at that time, would allow me to qualify to run in the 'B' Category of the Olympics. This was my greatest satisfaction and achievement of my life.

Note:

I am hoping to write a detailed experience of this in the near future.